The Best Revenge Is Living Well - Chi-chi-chimaera (gestalt1) - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Obi-wan’s arm where it hooked under his shoulders was warm in comparison to the chill of the desert at night. The fiery pain where the lightsaber had carved deeply into his chest was fading as darkness circled the edges of his vision. Maul looked upwards past Obi-wan’s face, worn and aged past his years, towards the stars overhead. The Force was quiet and still, welcoming him. Even the eternal rage of the Dark, the striving fury, had settled.

“Tell me,” he said, struggling for breath with sundered ribs and sternum, “is it the Chosen One?” He could think of no other reason Kenobi would have exiled himself out here. No other reason the holocrons would have promised Maul that his revenge against Sidious lay on Tatooine.

“He is,” Obi-wan replied, still propping him up. It was odd. By rights the Jedi should have let his dying body fall to the sands to gasp his last, not offer this… this sympathy . Did he not care about everything Maul had taken from him? Was he too weak to know an enemy when he saw one?

No. Kenobi won their battle. He could not be weak. Perhaps it was just that for all Maul’s plots and designs, it was Darth Sidious who destroyed Kenobi’s world in the end.

“He will avenge us,” Maul said, a stuttering collection of words, and the last of his strength left him.

With a sigh, Maul let the Force take him. He sank into its depths, the darkness folding softly around him. There was no pain. There was nothing at all.

----

Maul’s eyes flickered open, coming awake so suddenly that he gasped for air. His hearts hammered in his chest, though with shock and surprise rather than fear. He was staring up at blank metal, not a sky full of stars. He didn’t hurt anywhere or… no. There was pain, but only a dull ache, so negligible that he hadn’t even noticed it at first. The ache of bruised muscles along his arms and ribs.

Where was he? What was this?

Maul started to sit up, his hands going to his chest still half-expecting to find a chasm of charred flesh, but his body didn’t move the way he expected it to. He was too small, muscles and bones and skin sitting oddly, unfamiliar. He kicked out; a flailing spasm of misfiring nerves and there was no metal, none of the not-quite-right proprioception and feedback he was used to dealing with from his prosthetics.

Maul fell out of the bed and hit the floor in a tangle of limbs. His breathing came faster and faster. He was dimly aware that this was panic, but he was too stunned and disbelieving to regain his usual control over his emotions. This did not make sense. He was not himself, and yet…

The hands splayed out against the floor were red and black and familiar, but thinner and smaller than they should have been. His thighs flexed as he tried to push himself up, and he almost laughed out loud at the strangeness of having legs, of feeling those muscles at work.

“Maul?” Someone said. There was another body crouching next to him; from the corner of his eye he saw a grey uniform, a knee and a proffered hand with deep blue-black skin and a paler palm. The proportions were child-sized but oddly large compared to himself - but then Maul was also no more than a child just now.

Maul ignored the offer of help. He might be as uncoordinated as a tooka kitten but he was not weak. He struggled into a sitting position, relishing the sensation of cold, hard ground underneath him, and found himself face to face with a nautolan, a child of perhaps twelve or thirteen. She was… oddly familiar. He knew her from somewhere, though he didn’t know how that could be. He had no idea where he was, how he had come to be here, or why he was in the body of a child.

He assumed it was his body as a child, but even that he was not yet sure of.

The nautolan blinked, and drew her hand back. She was still down on one knee. He could sense the shape of a question in her mind, the desire to ask why he was acting so strangely as well as an odd… care for his well being. She knew him, and the knowledge of her identity hovered on the edge of his awareness.

“Do you still want to train tonight?” she asked, instead of any of the other questions on the tip of her tongue.

Maul had no idea what she was talking about.

“Alright,” she said, her tone calm and accepting despite the regret that Maul could sense. She stood up. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Wait.” It might have been wiser to let her leave so he could have the space to figure this all out on his own, but he found he didn’t want her to go. He pushed himself slowly to his feet, flexing his toes with something akin to wonder. “I… had an odd dream.”

Curiosity flickered across her face. She rocked back and forth on her feet, waiting for him to continue. Maul studied her, hoping that perhaps her clothing would give him some clue. It looked like a uniform of some kind, or perhaps a jumpsuit. Glancing down, he saw he was wearing identical items. Certainly a uniform then.

When he didn’t say anything more, the nautolan asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

He was unsure what it would be wise to say. If it helped him to understand what was going on that would be one thing, but he doubted this girl had any answers. She didn’t appear to be Force sensitive, or at least, not at all trained in the Force.

“It’s fine,” Maul said. “Tell me what you wanted to do tonight.”

“Stealth practise,” she replied promptly.

Maul had been shaped into a master of stealth by Darth Sidious. He had no need to practise - yet that was in a body he was familiar with. He wasn’t sure he was capable of stealth at all in his current state. He might not even be able to walk in a straight line until he got used to this frame. The girl was not suspicious of him yet despite his odd behaviour, but if she saw how physically awkward he was that would change.

“Go without me,” he said. “I am not feeling well.”

Her eyes widened, and she took a step forwards, one hand coming round to grasp his shoulder. Maul raised a hand to bat it away but missed, the movement an uncoordinated jerk. “I’ve seen you train with broken bones before and not say a word. Something must be really wrong. Do you want me to get Trezza?”

Abruptly Maul realised who she was and where they both were.

This was the Orsis Academy, an elite facility which trained bodyguards, mercenaries and assassins for the galaxy’s rich and corrupt, the place Maul had been sent to for just over six years as a child to be shaped into the creature his Master wanted. She was Kilindi Matako, another student at the school and…

And with the benefit of hindsight, one of the only people who had ever shown him friendship. Something he’d then returned by killing her - on his Master’s orders, and there had never been any choice or any other way that could have turned out, but that didn’t stop the memory flashing into his mind; her neck breaking under the twisting power of the Force.

It had been quick. Quicker than most of the deaths that night. He’d been able to give her that, at least.

“Maul?” She was pushing him backwards to sit on the bed. Maul went with her, nausea twisting in his stomach. “Don’t look so… Don’t look like that! I won’t get Trezza, that was only a joke, a bad one. We can fix this together, whatever it is.”

Everything about this situation was impossible. This was his past, before Mandalore, before Lotho Minor, before Naboo. Before he even earned the title of Darth Maul, never realising what a poisoned chalice his Master offered him. He was a scrawny child again. Was any of that real? His past, now his future? Had all of it been nothing more than a dream? Or perhaps this was the dream, reliving moments in time as he died and passed into the Force.

He pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling the stubby spikes of his horns above. He couldn’t tell Kilindi any of this. If this was real, then his actions had meaning. There would be consequences, and he remembered that anything to do with the Force was forbidden here. His Master…

Darth Sidious was here also. Not distracted with his great game of war, with his Empire, with his new Apprentice. Here.

Fear filled Maul’s belly with ice-cold lead.

Would Sidious sense this? Would he somehow know that Maul was no longer that naive, ignorant boy hanging on to his false promises of power? If he discovered that Maul knew the future, could reveal to him the outcome of the great plan, the revenge of the Sith…?

The instinct to run pulled at his limbs, but there was nowhere to go. He had no resources, he had no means of escape…

No. That was not true. Maul had himself and the power of the Dark Side, and that was all he had ever needed. He’d survived certain death, he’d survived his Master discarding him like a broken tool, he’d survived betrayal and capture and all the other dangers of the galaxy. However little he had, he could always build anew from it. He could escape from here, he merely needed to be careful about it.

Vague plans whirled inside his head. He needed time, to consider his options and to get used to a body both familiar and strange at the same time. If he acted without thinking his Master would certainly be able to track him down, and that was not something he could afford to happen.

“It’s fine Kilindi,” he told her. “I just need to rest. I’m sure I will be well again by tomorrow.”

The look she gave him was skeptical, but she didn’t press. He remembered that about her. Her overtures of companionship had always been offered with an open hand, easily withdrawn if he pushed it away. In Maul’s experience friendship was an unreliable thing and relationships were transactional more often than not. People allied themselves with those who could do something for them in return, although there was a wide range of goals and motives in the galaxy. Savage wanted to be trained by a Sith, the criminal gangs wanted money and personal gain, Death Watch wanted someone who could deliver their planet back to them and help them keep it…

Whatever it was that Kilindi saw in their potential friendship, she didn’t want it enough to push hard for it. It was strangely comforting. It left Maul feeling that he could reach back without fearing he was being manipulated, or that if it was necessary to break their alliance she would be slighted and angry in response.

“Okay then,” she said. “We can always train together another night, if you want.”

“Yes, of course.”

Kalindi slipped out of the door on bare, silent feet. Maul waited until she was long gone before he could relax.

Why was he here? Was this really the past? Such things should not be possible even through the Force. Maul had never heard of someone managing to travel through time, although there were many stories of Jedi or Sith or other traditions that he did not know. Perhaps he was not the first one to have been caught up in the currents of the Force and deposited at some random moment in their lives.

It could still be some manner of dream or illusion, but there was no point in acting as though it wasn’t real. He had to assume that it was.

What did he remember of the Orsis Academy? Maul had never been sure of his own age, and much of his childhood blurred into singular moments of pain and measured cruelty. It had all been designed to make him better and stronger than the Jedi, and for the most part it had. Even then he had fallen at the first true hurdle, when Kenobi struck him down…

If he regretted his upbringing it was not in its harshness, but that Sidious had still kept so much from him. The true secrets of the Sith were many, arcane arts devised and improved over millennia, yet Maul knew none of them. He did not know even so basic a trick as Force Lightning. All of his training had been aimed at honing his body into a weapon, but he was only ever meant to be a tool. Nothing more.

Once he’d imagined he might be able to make Darth Sidious proud of him. That idea now was laughable.

Maul rose from the bed, keeping his arms wide for balance. He began to stretch his arms and legs, small movements becoming larger ones as he concentrated on the feel of his body, the weight of his limbs, the stretch of his muscles, the smooth, dextrous clench and release of fingers and toes. He paced, adapting to the smaller stride. He rolled his head from side to side, testing his inner ear.

Gradually, his form began to make sense to him.

Maul had slept already this night and he did not feel at all tired. He had better things to do with his time than rest. As his control over his own body grew he tested it more, with leaps, jumps from the walls that at first frequently ended with him slamming to the floor. The pain and inevitable bruises were nothing to him. He began to use the pain to draw the Dark Side into him before hesitating.

He did not know if his Master was on the planet right now. He didn’t remember how often Sidious might have left - although looking back he was sure that he hadn’t been spending all of his time on Orsis, not when he had his other identity as a Senator to keep up. The fact remained that Sidious had been here often, continuing Maul’s training in the Force at least so far as it pertained to combat.

Maul had been forbidden to use the Force while he was at the Academy itself. His Master was very in tune to the currents of the Dark. Even miles distant, he might still feel that Maul was disobeying him.

This was going to be difficult if he couldn’t use the Force. He might be getting used to this child’s body, but it lacked the ingrained muscle memory that Maul was used to relying on in a fight. Its instincts, the paths laid down in its neural tissue, were beginning to come into being, but… it was still not quite right .

Maul realised he might have to stay here longer than he’d thought. The whole point of the Academy was to train him to fight, and it would be much quicker to pick it all up the second time around. He could go through the motions in his classes, and use his own time to work on the more advanced martial forms that were part of lightsaber combat.

It wasn’t ideal, but Maul knew he would have needed time to come up with an escape plan anyway. This wouldn’t be so bad - at least, not until the first time his Master summoned him.

He had to leave before that happened.

----

Maul wasn’t used to being around so many other people, much less children. The years before his death had been solitary ones as he turned to the Force to seek the means of his revenge, abandoning Crimson Dawn and the Shadow Collective to Qi’ra’s steady hand. There were almost five hundred students scattered through the Academy, ranging in ages from eight to sixteen and from all manner of species including several that had been wiped out entirely under Sidious’ Empire. There were naturally split up into more manageable groups for their classes, and a large proportion were away from the main buildings at any one time running drills or survival training in the wilds of the planet, but even so it left him feeling constantly on edge.

Maul had survived this place once already. It should not be a challenge to do so again. He focused on his lessons and did his best to pretend that nothing at all had changed.

Kilindi continued to hover on the periphery, always close by and ready to respond to any show of interest from Maul, but not overpowering in her presence. She was a familiar touchstone and he did not mind having her there. She demanded nothing from him, only offered up opportunities, whether those were to train together or to go down to the sea shore - though Maul was still not particularly fond of swimming - or to simply find other ways of spending their spare time.

Maul knew he ought to use every moment continuing to train, forcing the memory of the forms of Teras Kasi, Echani, and Bakuuni Hand into his muscles - though practising that last without using the Force was slightly pointless. He shouldn’t let Kilindi drag him along for mere recreation - and yet he was. It was strangely hard to say no.

In the back of his mind he continued to plan. There was only one way off Orsis, and that was to take a transport or supply ship up to the orbital station and travel on from there. There was enough business coming through the station - and all of it private and underhand in nature - that nobody bothered to ask unwelcome questions. The difficulty was getting there in the first place. Students were not allowed to visit the station without both supervision and a good reason, and Maul had neither.

There was also the matter of where he would go once he left. The galaxy was a vast and unkind place to those without resources, and even more so to unaccompanied children. Stealing a few credits here and there would be easy enough, but honest pilots would be reluctant to allow a child to book passage. Anyone who did agree to such a thing was automatically suspicious.

Maul had no doubt he could kill anyone who tried to enslave him or harm him for their own entertainment, but he could not afford to leave a trail of the dead for his Master to follow.

There was only so much time he had to plan. Sidious would summon him eventually, and then the choice of when to make his move would be taken from him. He found himself returning in his mind to the last time he’d escaped the Orsis Academy, although that had not been so much an escape as a botched rescue or perhaps just another of his Master’s plots. Maul still wondered how Mother Talzin had learned of his location. She sold him to Sidious easily enough as a child, and he did not mistake any of her actions later in his life for genuine care. She wanted things from him - but a shared goal was enough to make them allies.

Could he go to her now?

The idea curled his lip into a snarl in distaste. It all depended how useful he might be to his mother. If he appeared as nothing more than her child, she would pass him back to his Master in return for some future favour - and he was not keen to give her secrets from the future either. Even that might not be enough to buy his safety, if Sidious threatened Dathomir. Maul was only a male, after all. His life would never be worth as much as the least of the Nightsisters.

The only person he’d been able to trust from Dathomir was… his brother.

The memory of Savage carved into him like a knife. Maul had failed him, and he could not deny it. As the Sith master he should have been able to protect his apprentice, but for all the power he’d built, all the soldiers of Mandalore, all his own training to regain his strength after Lotho Minor, none of it had been enough to defeat Darth Sidious. Savage had died, and Sidious hadn’t even given Maul the mercy of killing him after that.

But here… here Savage was still alive.

Maul didn’t know why he hadn’t realised that before this moment. He could go to Dathomir, but not to seek help from Mother Talzin. To find Savage. To go back to the way that things had been for those short months before his death, when they had worked together. They made a good team. He would show his brother the power of the Force and the Dark again, and this time they would have so much longer to train and seek out holocrons and secrets and ready themselves to destroy Sidious and all his plans.

Yes. Maul smiled to himself. Yes, that was what he would do. He still had not found an answer to his destination after that, to the matter of survival in an uncaring galaxy, but this was a place to start.

----

“Where are you going?”

Maul whirled around from his position in the tall grass at the edge of the landing field and glared. Kilindi returned it with a level look, unbothered by his dismay at being spotted. He shouldn’t have been spotted, not unless she’d been following him since leaving the dormitory building.

“Why are you here?” he hissed.

“You’re acting strange Maul,” she said. She slipped into the grass to join him, crouching at his side so she could share his viewpoint. “Ever since that night you got hurt and wouldn’t talk about it.”

Maul hesitated over what to tell her. This was his chance to escape from this place, but Kilindi still had a life here. She had goals of her own. There was a reason she was at the Orsis Academy, so there must be something about the experience she wanted. Had she guessed that he was leaving? Did she want to stop him - but there were easier ways. There weren’t guards here, it was a school not a prison, but she could have alerted Master Trezza. Instead she followed him and confronted him.

Surely she didn’t want to come with him.

“You’ve been training harder than ever since then,” Kilindi said hesitantly, not looking at him directly, keeping her eyes on the landing field. “Trezza even mentioned it, although I’d already noticed. If someone here was the one who hurt you… Enough to make you want to leave… you could tell him about it.”

There was something strange about the way in which she was talking around the subject that Maul found confusing. Of course people here hurt him because that was part of the training, expected and normal. She didn’t mean the ordinary bruises, cuts, blaster burns or rarer broken bones all of the students picked up in the course of combat lessons. Did she imagine someone here held enough of a grudge to catch him outside of their classes and beat him because it pleased them? Did she think so little of his ability to handle anyone here? Did she think a little pain would be enough to drive him away.

He hadn’t even looked visibly injured that night. He’d only said he was ill. It could have been a stomach bug.

“Even if it was a teacher who did something, you could tell him,” Kilindi said, still glaring at the duracrete as though it had offended her. “Important people pay a lot of money to send us here to be trained, it would be bad for business if we were getting damaged.”

“I am not damaged ,” Maul said, offended.

Her mouth twisted briefly. “No, I’m sorry. That wasn't what I meant to say.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Maul still failed to understand. Clearly he was still physically able and capable, so what other harm could she be talking about? “I am leaving,” he told her. “I have no reason to stay here.”

Kilindi dropped the subject of these supposed injuries.“What about your Master? He’ll come after you won’t he? He’s already paid for the full eight years.”

“Yes.” She didn’t know his Master’s true identity, indeed she knew nothing more than what Trezza did. They saw only the rich, powerful but essentially harmless man he was pretending to be. “Still, I am going.”

Frustration creased Kilindi’s face. She visibly searched for something to say, an argument to keep him here. She might point out his lack of credits, of resources at all, the difficulty of travelling, of finding the kind of work they were trained for at the age of twelve. She must know he had considered all these things already.

“Fine,” she said. “I’m coming with you.”

Again Maul was deeply confused. “Why?”

“You can’t go out there alone. You need someone to watch your back.”

He would have someone to watch his back, as soon as he reached Dathomir. Although… Savage would be a child in truth, with none of the training of a Nightbrother or a Sith warrior. Maul would be the one looking after him. What if he failed just as badly this time around?

“Trezza won’t forgive you for leaving,” he said.

“Neither will your Master,” Kilindi replied. “I’m only here because there’s nowhere else to be.”

Maul frowned. He remembered that differently, but it had been so long. “You aren’t here preparing for revenge?”

“I killed my owners already, remember,” Kilindi said, with a little snort of amusem*nt. “What would more revenge even look like? I wasn’t planning on travelling around starting slave uprisings after I graduate.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “I still owe Master Trezza for getting me off Orvax before any slavers could catch me. I imagined I would take contracts for bounties or assassinations until I paid him back and then… then I don’t know.”

“Coming with me won’t be easy,” Maul warned her.

Again, she smiled. “I didn’t imagine it would be. Nothing’s easy for people like us. Easier with two than one, though.”

Maul bit his lip. “We won’t stay two for long,” he said. “I’m… I have a brother.”

Her dark eyes went wide. “Is that what this is about then?” she asked. “You said you had a dream - was it about him? Is he in trouble?”

“Why would a dream be evidence of anything,” Maul asked her with suspicion. She wasn’t meant to know that he was Force sensitive, but Trezza knew. Had he said something to her? By the flush across her cheeks, perhaps he had.

“I overheard Trezza talking to your Master,” she said. “I know…”

“It’s not…” Maul said, turning away. “My brother is fine now. He won’t be forever.”

“We’ll attract more attention as a group,” Kilindi said, thinking. “But there’s safety in numbers too.”

Overhead the clouds parted as the supply ship came in towards the landing ground. There was no more time for discussion. “If you want to escape this place, I won’t stop you,” he said. “I still think it’s a poor choice.”

“I’m coming.”

They watched the shuttle land. Droids emerged to unload the hold, stacking the crates neatly. There would be plenty of space inside when they were done, but less cover than was ideal. Maul was not concerned. He was trained for this, as was Kilindi.

Carefully, silent as smoke, they slipped inside the shuttle and waited for it to lift off towards the orbital station.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

The crew of the supply shuttle only made a cursory check of the hold before closing it up and preparing for take-off. Maul and Kilindi sheltered in the shadow of a support strut as the pilot’s gaze passed over them, and mere minutes later the deck shuddered underneath them as the ship took off. It was a matter of minutes to travel up to Orsis Station, though docking took almost as long again. Maul co*cked his head as he followed the sound of footsteps from outside.

As he’d expected, the shuttle was not being reloaded immediately. He waited for about half an hour to give the crew sufficient time to have left before he moved again.

“So what’s your plan now?” Kilinid asked, hovering close behind him. Her expression was interested and curious, with no sign of worry.

Maul hit the manual door release. The loading ramp opened with a hiss of hydraulics, and he stood poised to react in case someone outside heard it and came to investigate. The dock beyond was still and quiet. He sensed nothing in the Force, aside from the background hum of sentients living and moving throughout the station as a whole.

“Now we need to find suitable transport onwards,” he said. “Different clothing is also a priority.” They were both still wearing the Orsis Academy uniform, and while that wouldn’t raise eyebrows amongst the transient population of the station it would if they ran into someone who worked here long term, or who was associated with the school. Maul didn’t think it was likely they would find anything to wear that was intended for a child, but something sized for a small species would serve just as well.

Kilindi nodded. “So we stay stealthy for now,” she said, and looked around the docking bay. She pointed half-way up one wall, where a ventilation shaft came out. It was covered by a grate, but it looked large enough for them both. “There?”

Using the ventilation system to travel unseen was a popular technique, one certainly covered at the Academy. It was a simple fact that any large building or starship needed to maintain good airflow for the health and safety of its residents, which meant that there was a minimum limit on the size of their ventilation systems. It might be a security risk, but it was also one which was frequently managed by alarms and other security measures, things they’d also been trained to get around.

Orsis Station was on the smaller side for an orbital, and that shaft wouldn’t have been large enough for most full grown adults. In this, their age was an advantage.

“I shall boost you up,” he told Kilindi. He had no need to hide his use of the Force anymore, and they were far enough away from the estate his Master had purchased on the planet that he did not think he would be able to sense it. He raised a hand and pulled the grate free of its mooring, bringing it down slowly to the floor.

Kilindi watched with wide eyes. “That’s going to come in useful.”

Maul put his back to the wall and made a cup out of his hands. Kilindi came forwards at a run, leaping and planting her foot neatly - Maul thrust upwards with the Force augmenting his own strength. Kilindi grabbed the rim of the shaft and pulled herself up into it neatly.

“Can you get up on your own?” she asked, her voice filtering down with a slight echo.

“I can,” Maul called up in reply. “Give me room.” He waited a few seconds, backing up to give himself space to run. One Force leap later, he too slithered into the tight confines of the ventilation shaft. It was clean of dust or the leavings of vermin, which meant there was a dedicated cleaning droid which regularly swept the system. They would have to hope they didn’t run into it.

Kilindi led the way, though Maul was able to guide them towards the feel of people in the Force. Before long they heard the chatter of voices from beneath them. Kilindi stopped over another grating, bracing against the wall and ceiling of the shaft so that Maul could wriggle up next to her as quietly as possible. They waited and listened.

The conversation was in Huttese, but they had both been taught that language at Orsis. Maul’s opportunities to use it had been less frequent in the years before his death, but the smugglers below were not talking about anything particularly complicated. He peered down through the narrow slits of the grate. He saw rodians, humans, and a twi’lek. Nothing they could use. He shook his head, and slid back down the shaft so they could move freely again.

They continued on.

Eventually they found a grate that opened out above the refresher of a bar; a good place to observe a variety of species coming and going. Maul loosened the grate slightly, so that they could pull it up and drop down quickly when the time came, then they settled in to wait.

Some while later, a chadra-fan wandered in, obviously heavily intoxicated. He headed towards one of the stalls, stumbling and half-falling against one wall. Maul exchanged a glance with Kilindi and they both nodded. Quiet as tooka they dropped down to the ground, landing softly. Even if they’d made some noise it was arguable whether the chadra-fan would have noticed. They waited until he finished his business and came out of the stall wiping his hands on his trousers.

Disgusting, Maul thought with a sneer, and made his move.

He grabbed the man from behind, putting him in a chokehold and keeping him that way for long moments of struggling while Kilindi held down his flailing arms. Soon he went slack between them, unconscious. Maul lowered him to the floor and began stripping him. Thankfully he was wearing multiple layers.

Maul pulled off the chadra-fan’s shirt and swapped it out for his own, then passed over the jacket for Kilindi to wear buttoned over her uniform top. Their trousers were bland enough not to stand out even though they were part of the Academy uniform so they didn’t need to take those, but Maul still patted down the chadra-fan’s pockets and was rewarded with a handful of credit chips. He gave half of them to Kilindi. It wasn’t much, but it was helpful all the same.

Unless they wanted to kill this man, he would start coming around before long. Killing him would draw too much attention - as it was this would appear to be a simple mugging. The chadra-fan might even believe he’d passed out of his own accord from his state of intoxication.

Maul gave Kilindi a boost back up into the ventilation shaft then joined her. Now they needed to find a ship.

----

“What about that one?” Kilindi whispered, pointing at a freighter which had recently landed in the main transport hub. They were still in the vents, having managed to find the shaft that fed this large hangar. Since it needed to provide airflow to a bigger space the vent was larger as well, enough that they could crouch side by side behind the grating. A sterile, chilly breeze blew from behind them, covering any noise they might make.

Maul studied the ship. It was small and fast, but old and scraped here and there with cosmetic damage. A smuggler’s vessel most likely. The pilot was Corellian, or at least he wore their bloodstripes. He was arguing with the dockmaster while another human male unloaded several boxes from the hold. Maul could see only a small amount of cargo inside the ship, and the hold itself was not large. That suggested high value, low volume merchandise. It could be weapons and if so, blasters or grenades by the size of the boxes. Equally it could be medicine, or mind-altering drugs. The rich and powerful who frequented Orsis demanded access to all the amenities.

“It might do,” Maul replied. “Minimal crew. Easy to eliminate. If the cargo is valuable it will provide us enough credits to live on for some time.”

Kilindi’s eyes narrowed. She was looking more closely at the second man. His back was to them and Maul’s view was partly obscured by the bars of the vent cover, but he could see that the human was bare from the waist up. He had short, tight-curled hair, dark skin, and a stocky, muscular form which bore many old scars from combat - a surprising number considering he looked young. Maul was familiar with the marks left by blasters and vibroblades. The man went about his work without speaking or acknowledging the pilot, hefting the boxes with easy strength. He would be the more dangerous opponent, although Maul was not discounting the Corellian’s potential skill with the blaster pistols holstered at his waist. Maul would have the advantage of speed and the Force, so he was not overly concerned.

“He’s a slave,” Kilindi said. She was tense, her hands clenched into fists against the floor. “Look; he’s wearing a collar, and I think I saw a brand.”

Maul looked again. She was right - the dull metal band at the human’s throat could have been some manner of jewellery; he’d paid it no mind initially. The collar was slim and close-fitting. Both shock collars and explosive collars were usually larger, so perhaps it was no more than a mark of ownership, just like the shiny raised circle half-visible at the base of his spine.

He understood where Kilindi was going with this. “He might help us if we free him,” he said.

“We take this ship,” she said, determined. It was clear that she’d made up her mind, and Maul agreed with her. There were many advantages about this particular vessel, and the risk was minimal. If the slave made trouble, or was ungrateful for their rescue, he would be dealt with.

Maul waited for a lull in the traffic around the docking bay then freed the cover from the vent. Kilindi hung down from the lip of the shaft then dropped to the floor. Maul followed, using the Force to cushion his landing automatically before remembering once again that he no longer needed to be wary of the metal of his prosthetics clanging against the deck. There were plenty of crates, tibanna canisters and bits of machinery to use as cover as they made their way towards the small freighter.

“I can’t believe you’re charging me this much for fuel,” the Corellian was saying, still arguing with the dockmaster. “It’s gotta be twenty percent more than the last time I came through here.”

“The charges are for the full package,” the twi’lek replied, with an edge to her voice. “It’s standard for all visiting ships. A basic tune-up, navicomp defrag, overnight rooms on the station, full meals included - for you and your man both.”

The Corellian sneered. “I don’t need all that poodoo. I’ve got a slave to do maintenance, why would I pay for something twice over? Take it off, fuel only. I’m not even gonna sleep here.”

The twi’lek shrugged, and inputted something into her datapad. “Done.”

“Maybe I’ll take this place off my route, if you’re gonna pull that shavit.”

“We don’t have that big of a market for spice here,” she said. “There’s plenty of other suppliers we could buy from.”

The Corellian bared his teeth but grudgingly pressed his fingerprint to her proffered datapad and whirled towards his ship. “Finish up and let’s get out of here,” he said to the other man, disappearing inside.

Maul frowned. They wouldn’t have much time to sneak on board now, or to talk to the slave alone and get him to agree to their plan. Still, they hadn’t spotted any other vessels in the bay which made as good a target as this one. He padded forward on silent feet, hoping to circle around and slip inside the hold without the man noticing. Then he caught sight of the human’s face and stopped dead in his tracks. Kilindi almost collided with him.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Maul knew that face, even under the rough beard the man wore. It was the face beneath every helmet during the Clone War, the face of his Master’s future army. This man was the template, the original. He didn’t know the human’s name or how he had been chosen, or even when he’d been selected, but if he’d ever given the matter a moment’s thought he would have not have expected him to have been a slave.

What was he doing here? This could not be coincidence. It was the will of the Force.

“Nothing,” he whispered back to Kilindi, and kept moving. He was sure this ought to change his plans somehow, but he could not see how just yet. He needed to think.

They made it inside the hold just as the human finished stacking the last box and turned to hit the control to close the hatch, ducking under it as it slid shut. He looked around the hold, failed to see them in their new hiding place, and hissed through his teeth throwing a look of disgust towards the co*ckpit. Tension running through his shoulders, he stomped towards the door. Kilindi started to move forward but Maul snapped out a hand to hold her back.

She gave him a questioning look and he shook his head. Once the man left, he said quietly, “Once we’re in hyperspace.” If things came to a fight and they hadn’t even left the station, either of the humans could alert the local authorities and then they would be in serious trouble.

She understood at once and settled back with a nod.

It didn’t mean waiting for much longer. Soon enough Maul felt the brief sensation of pressure and weightlessness that marked transition to hyperspace, and he stood from behind the cover of the crates and headed for the door, reaching out with the Force. He hadn’t decided what to do about the template yet. His first instinct was to kill him, but he doubted there was only one person in the galaxy suitable to use as stock for an army. Sidious would find another, and it would barely be an inconvenience.

Perhaps he could warn the template, although it was difficult to imagine what argument would hold any weight. He knew nothing about this man. He did not know what manner of person he was, his likes and dislikes, his goals in life. Well. He knew one. All slaves desired freedom.

By being here at all, by planning to free this man, Maul was already changing things. Was that the scope of the opportunity the Force was giving him, or was there more?

As quietly as possible he opened the door and peered out into the corridor beyond. They were at one end of a hallway; the open hatch to the co*ckpit was at the other. He could see the back of the Corellian’s head and shoulders as the man sat with his feet up on the dash. Several other doors led off left and right. Only one was open, and the sound of a person moving around emerged from within. Maul pointed it out to Kilindi, who acknowledged him with a nod.

Moving slowly and carefully, they headed for that door.

The slave had his back to them again. This room was the galley - he was retrieving bowls and eating utensils from the cupboards and dishing out some kind of nutrient slop for himself and his master. Maul and Kilindi came inside and Maul hit the button to close the door. At the sound, the tension in the man’s shoulders rose even higher. He turned, starting to say, “Food’s almost ready…” before he realised that they were not the Corellian.

His eyes went wide. “ Osik !” He swore at no more than a whisper. “What are you two idiot kids doing here? You picked a bad ship to stow away on.”

Maul was surprised at the curse he’d used. It was Mandalorian - but perhaps he’d just picked it up somewhere. There were certainly many Mandalorians working as mercenaries or bounty hunters in the less civilised parts of the galaxy. “You and the pilot are the only people on board. It seems like a good choice of ship to me,” he said.

“Let me guess,” the man said, folding his arms over his chest. “You two are runaways of some kind. Right?”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Maul said, narrowing his eyes at the implied insult. It was tempting to tell the man they had been trained at the Orsis Academy, but that might not mean anything to the slave. Even if it did, it was wiser not to give too much about themselves away.

“Sure you can.” The man sighed, unhappily. “Kids like you always think you can,” he said, mostly to himself. “Look. Crev Colton works for the Pykes. You know who they are? They’re criminals - slavers and spice-dealers. We’re heading back to dock with home base right now; a light cruiser named the Good Trip. How long do you think you can stay hidden once we arrive? They'll find you and then you two will both get collars locked round your necks.”

That was inconvenient news. “We don’t intend for this Colton to still be alive when we leave hyperspace,” Maul said, baring his teeth.

“That’s why we came to find you first,” Kilindi added. “We’ll free you, and then we’ll kill your master together.” Her smile was equally vicious. Her pleasure at the thought of killing slavers stabbed out into the Force. The Dark moved in response, interested and hungry.

The man looked frustrated. “Bloodthirsty little striils aren’t you? If it was that easy, I’d have done it myself.”

Maul did not know much about the methods used to keep slaves in line. They were not people he’d thought about much in the past. The galaxy was base and corrupt at its heart and everywhere within it those with power oppressed those without. This was simply the natural order of things. Those who had strength would use it to break their chains, like Kilindi had. Those who didn’t… Maul had never cared to get involved.

Breaking the chains of his own fate was hard enough.

“The transmitter for your tracking chip has to be on board,” Kilindi said. “Or we could cut it out if you know where they put it.”

He shook his head. “It’s in too deep. Colton has a transmitter, but it’s on a timer. Once that runs out, the explosives trigger - and it can only be reset back on board the Good Trip . These slavers are smart about their work.”

That was unfortunate, but Maul could kill this Corellian by himself. He didn’t need the slave’s help. He had no intention of letting them be captured by slavers, so it appeared the slave would simply have to die too. “Very well,” he said. “We’re still taking this ship. If you stand in our way, we will kill you.”

The man looked him up and down with deep skepticism. “Bold words, adiik . I don’t want to hurt you. Go hide in the hold - maybe you can stay there until Colton heads out again on another delivery run. That’s your best chance of survival.”

“Maul!” Kilindi said. “There must be something we can do to help.”

If there was, Maul didn’t see it. The slave turned to pick up the bowls of food behind him. “Stay here,” he ordered. “Colton’s going to come looking if I don’t bring him this.”

“And give you a chance to tell him about us?” Maul snarled. “I think not!”

“I’m not some hut’uun that would betray a couple of children,” the man replied. He was angry but it was carefully controlled. Maul sensed he was telling the truth. He stood aside and let the slave open the door.

Once he’d left, Kilindi turned to Maul with her jaw set in stubborn determination. “We are not killing him.”

“He isn't going to help us,” Maul replied. “Not if we cannot help him. He will die if we take him with us anyway, when this bomb you speak of is activated.”

“Can’t you do anything about that? You… you have the Force, don’t you?”

Maul thought about that. Perhaps she was right. He had been trained in the Sith art of mechu-deru by his Master, though in the years since losing his legs on Naboo he had used it primarily to increase the sensitivity and responsiveness of his prosthetics. This embedded chip was inorganic in nature, so there was no reason he wouldn’t be able to sense it and affect it.

“Yes,” he said. “There is something I can try, when he returns.”

While they waited, Kilindi rifled through the drawers in the galley and found two high-protein ration bars. Maul had eaten at the evening meal back at the Academy and there were still hours to go before his usual breakfast, but it was wise to keep their strength up. He tore into the tasteless bar, finding he was hungry.

The slave took his time about returning, but Maul felt no warning of danger from the Force. He still tensed when the door hissed open again, ready to fight if they had been betrayed. The man stepped in and threw the two empty bowls into the sonic cleaner. He filled a cup with cold water and took a long drink. “There’s about an hour before we revert to realspace,” he said. “Grab some food and water and I’ll help you find a place to hide again.”

Kilindi gave Maul a look. Slightly grudgingly he said, “There might still be something I can do.”

“It’s just the way it is adiik ,” the man said, with a weary shrug. Again he fell into the use of a Mando’a term without thinking. It provoked Maul’s curiosity. During the Clone War his focus had been on Kenobi, on building his own power base, on working out his Master’s plan. He’d given little thought to the clones as individual beings, mere tools that they were. Had their template been Mandalorian, once? If so he’d passed little of that on to the clones, as far as Maul knew.

“Where is this chip?” he asked.

The man tapped his flank. “Down near my liver, I think,” he said. There was a faint scar there, barely noticeable in comparison to some of the others. “Why?”

Maul didn’t want to admit he could use the Force, but there was no other way to explain. “I have powers,” he said, talking around it as though he was untrained. It was possible for sensitives to work out some small tricks themselves without anyone showing them the way, and he didn’t want to raise suspicion about who his teacher might have been. “I may be able to feel it and thus, break it.”

The slave’s eyes narrowed. “Powers… The Force? Are you jetii , adiik ?”

Maul bristled. “No,” he said. “Never.”

The man was still wary. “I know my reasons for disliking the jetiise . What are yours?”

The slave felt a lot more strongly about Jedi than mere dislike. Hate was burrowed deep in his heart, gnawing out a hole there. Why? Maul supposed it was a motive, at least. Sidious must have promised this man that the clones would be his revenge against the Jedi. That made it less likely he could cut through the tangled webs of his Master’s plots by convincing him not to become the template.

“Why should I tell you my reasons?” he said. “I don’t know you. I have no reason to trust you.”

The man nodded. “Fair enough. What are you going to do, exactly?”

“Break the chip,” Maul replied. He raised a hand towards the man’s side. “I will need to touch you.”

The slave didn’t like that, but he had no choice. He let Maul come closer and brush his fingers over the small scar there. Maul closed his eyes and reached within, looking for something that did not belong. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d worked with something at such a small scale but after a while he found it. A small piece of metal nestled next to an explosive charge. Tiny really, it would trigger with little more force than a blaster bolt, but that was all that was needed from within a body.

Now he had to deactivate it. This was harder. Maul concentrated, feeling the burn of his frustration and feeding that back into the Force. Electricity was not the pulse of living things, but all matter was of the Force. At the lowest level there was not such a great difference between the impulses inside nerves and neurons, and those in a circuit board. Jedi could not manipulate those energies, or perhaps in their cowardly way they shied away from doing so with the excuse of morality, but the Sith had learned these secrets.

It was almost ironic that Darth Sidious had taught him this, but nothing of its sibling art Sith Alchemy. Had his Master seen an image of the future? Had he known how much of Maul would be metal rather than flesh?

This was not the time to wonder about such things. Maul’s mental grasp slipped off the little chip several times before he finally got hold of it and crushed it into scrap. He opened his eyes, swaying slightly. It had used more energy than he expected.

“It is done,” he said.

“You’re asking me to trust that you’re not just lying,” the man said, although his tone wasn’t suspicious. “So if we’re going to be trusting each other, we should know each other’s names. I’m Jango Fett.”

“Kilindi,” Kilindi said, “Kilindi Matako.”

Maul said nothing. Kilindi had used his name already. Jango raised an eyebrow. “What about you adiik ?”

“You heard my name.”

“No clan name? No family name?”

Savage had one, but Maul could not lay claim to it. That had been from their father he assumed, a Nightbrother long dead, a man he’d never met. He shook his head.

“Alright,” Jango said. “Guess I’ll kill this hutuun slaver then.”

“We’ll help,” Kilindi said, before Maul could. Jango waved them back.

“This is my kill,” he said, with a predator's smile. “Once I’m done, we’ll talk more about what comes next.”

Maul would have preferred to do his own killing, but he couldn’t deny the man’s right to this particular death. Besides, he was trying to recall if he’d ever heard the name Jango Fett before. There had been a Mandalorian bounty hunter with the same Clan name during the Empire, but he could not be sure how closely they were connected.

Kilindi followed Fett into the corridor. Maul leaned against the door frame, and they both watched Fett stalk up to the Corellian.

It took the man some time to die, but that was because Fett was having fun. Maul approved. Perhaps they could work with this Jango Fett a while longer.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

Maul and Kilindi waited in the co*ckpit while Fett washed the blood off his hands and chest in the fresher. They’d stripped the dead Corellian of all his belongings before dragging the body to the airlock and spacing it. There was no point in having a corpse rotting on board their new ship.

“So,” Fett said, coming out with the slave-collar nowhere to be seen and wearing a shirt that fit too tightly across the shoulders to be his own. “You two came here with a plan. What was it?”

"Maul's plan mostly," Kilindi said, spinning around in the co-pilot's chair to face him. "We needed a ship, and this one looked like a good target."

"You haven't been on the run long," Fett said, leaning against the wall. “I can tell.” Maul was not fooled by his appearance of relaxation. Violence came easily to a man like this, like pushing a button or flicking a switch. He could be a useful ally, and it would be easier to move around the galaxy with an adult in tow than as unaccompanied children, but Maul was still wary.

"I'm not going to ask what you're running from or exactly where you came from," Fett continued, with a dismissive shrug of one shoulder. "Trust has to be earned, I understand that. My question is about whether you're heading towards something."

"And you wish to help us get there?" Maul asked. What were the motives here? Did this man care simply because they were children? Out of the goodness of his heart? He didn't seem prone to such Jedi weaknesses.

"I'm not keen on helping adiikla get themselves into even more trouble than they're in already," Fett said. "You need somewhere safe to go, somewhere you won't be found by anyone chasing you. That's not easy in this galaxy. I don't know how much help I can be, but I couldn't forgive myself if I just dropped you off somewhere to fend for yourselves."

"The ship is ours ," Maul replied, irritably. "You are not taking it anywhere."

"You know how to fly it?" Once again he doubted their capabilities.

Kilindi nodded. "We both know how to pilot," she said. "Though I do think it makes more sense to stick together."

"Before we tell you anything we need to know more about you," Maul said. He was itching to get on with his plan, to drop them out of hyperspace and set a new course for Dathomir, but he refused to put his brother at risk from Fett. He had to know the shape of the man so he could predict him, use the levers of his goals to get them pointed in the same direction. "Were you born a slave?"

Anger flared behind the man's eyes, a wave of tension that passed through his body before he forced himself to relax. "No. This is..." His jaw clenched. Maul sensed hate writhe under his skin like a beast, familiar and understandable. This was a man in dire need of revenge. "It's been just over a year."

"I was born a slave," Kilindi said. Maul gave her a startled look, not expecting her to be so honest. It had already been common knowledge at Orsis Academy so she hadn't had the luxury of hiding it, but he would have imagined she might want a fresh start now. She didn't see his expression, too focused on Fett. Maul didn't recognise the feelings on her face nor how she felt in the Force, and that was unsettling. "Eventually, I killed the family who bought me." It was a good memory, Maul could tell. "They never expected it from me. They thought I wasn't a threat. I waited until they were asleep in their beds and then I cut their throats one by one."

Fett let out a shuddering breath, not quite a gasp of surprise but something else. Pain? It had better not be sympathy. Maul wouldn't have wanted his pity, and Kilindi deserved better than that. Her freedom was bought in blood, as were all things worth having.

"Well done, verd'ika. " Not pity. "You deserve to hurt those who have harmed you."

"You've been trained to fight, haven't you?" Kilindi said. "How did the slavers get you?"

Fett looked down, his eyes far away. "I walked my vode into a trap," he said. "When it was over, I was too injured to fight them off when those hut'uun kyr'tsad took me prisoner. They sold me on. That's who I plan to kill, now I'm free." Kyr'tsad . Maul did not quite succeed in hiding his reaction, but Fett was too caught up in his own thoughts and painful memories to notice. Death Watch. His former allies. What quarrel did Fett have with them?

"You were a New Mandalorian?" he asked quietly.

Fett frowned. "A pacifist? Of course not. I'm not sure what would make you think that, adiik ."

"Is that not the faction Death Watch is fighting in your civil war?" Maul asked. Saxon and Rook had both complained often about Clan Kryze and the New Mandalorians, eager to explain the reasons they could not be permitted to rule Mandalore any longer. Some part of Maul had agreed. The New Mandalorians seemed to preach the same weakness as the Jedi. It was obvious that they had brought their people to the brink of ruin - it would not have been so easy to take the planet out from underneath them otherwise. He did not recall them mentioning any other group standing in Death Watch's way.

Fett's eyes closed briefly. Pain moved over his face, bright and intense as a man impaled with a lightsaber - and Maul spoke from experience there on both sides of the equation. "They're all that's left now," he said. "I hoped some of the Haat Mando'ade survived, but..." He trailed off. The wall at his shoulder now seemed as though it was the only thing holding him up. Maul looked away. This raw emotion was uncomfortable, and he didn't know what to do with it.

After a moment, Fett mastered himself. "What do you two know about Mandalore's affairs anyway?" he asked.

Kilindi glanced at Maul, then shrugged. "Not much," she said. "The... people teaching us thought it was important for us to know about current galactic conflicts."

That had made him curious - Maul could see Fett wanted to ask more, yet he held his tongue. He was offering up his past to get two children to trust him, which meant there was some reason for it.

Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor; the creed Saxon had done his best to explain to him after he won the Darksaber from Pre Viszla. Children were the lifeblood of the clan, and although Death Watch were wary of outsiders like Maul and Savage, they would take them far more eagerly in the form of war orphans.

Was Fett intending to adopt them? If the rest of his clan was gone... that made a sense that Maul could understand. He wasn’t sure he was pleased about it, but it was something he could use, a hook to lead Fett where he wanted.

"Death Watch aren't the only group you hate," Maul said, still probing for more. "You spoke of the Jedi too. Is that simply because you are Mandalorian, or have they also done something worthy of revenge?"

Fett bared his teeth. Once again rage and agony warred in his heart. "They were the teeth of kyr'tsad's trap."

Interesting.

"Look, I owe you two kids for freeing me," Fett said. "Consider me helping you as paying back that debt, if you can't trust me any other way."

“We need to go to Dathomir,” Maul said, making his decision. “My brother is there.”

Fett relaxed slightly in relief. “He can take you in?”

“No, we need to bring him with us,” Maul said, quick to dispel that misconception. “It is not safe for him to remain there.”

Fett frowned. “Why not?”

It was a question both easy and difficult to answer. Before Savage found him on Lotho Minor, Maul had known nothing about his planet of origin and very little about those who dwelled there. He’d encountered Nightsisters once on Orsis, his mother trying to collect him because she thought his Master had thrown him away - she was too early on that front, Maul thought bitterly. Sidious had explained their coven to him later. Maul had not thought of them again until waking on a stone slab in their village on Dathomir, until he began travelling with Savage and his brother told him in broken, hesitant snippets what they had done to him.

Maul could have tried to pass on that knowledge and explain the intricacies of life for the Nightbrothers. It was simpler to say only, “Because he is no better than a slave.”

“Who will we have to kill to get him out of there?” Fett asked.

“That will depend on our stealth. It would be better if he simply disappeared.”

“Avoid drawing any heat.” Fett nodded his approval. “Fine. Let’s head for Dathomir.”

----

Dathomir was half-way across the galaxy from Orsis. Even in a fast ship with a good hyperdrive, it made for a long journey. The autopilot didn’t need them to hover over it while they were in hyperspace, so Fett suggested they all get some sleep. Maul agreed it was wise. There was only one bedroom, which Fett was happy to give to him and Kilindi. The door locked from the inside. The Mandalorian had a thin sleeping mat of his own which he took through to the hold, leaving them alone.

“What do you think about him?” Kilindi asked. The bunk was wide enough for them to both lie side by side. As a zabrak, Maul ran hot compared to Kilindi, so he shoved the blanket at her and she wound it around herself. Conditions aboard spaceships and stations were generally less humid than the surface of planets like Orsis, which could be a problem for a nautolan. They would have to do something about that at some point.

“I don’t like him,” Maul said.

“You don’t like anyone,” Kilindi replied. There wasn’t any judgement in her tone. She put her back against the wall, leaving plenty of room between them. Maul wanted to ask her to move closer, but that didn’t make any sense. He said nothing.

“He’s a Mandalorian warrior,” she continued thoughtfully. “That’s important. We used to have a Mandalorian trainer at the Academy. He left to fight in their civil war, but he was very skilled.” Maul remembered him, though not fondly. Meltch Krakko had tried to get him killed. Maul had repaid the favour, but it wasn't a memory he could take any satisfaction from, not when it had been in the same massacre that he killed Kilindi.

“All Mandalorian warriors are," he said. "He will be… useful.”

“After we get your brother, what do you want to do?”

Maul didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“We could all work together,” Kilindi said, thinking the idea over in her own mind. “Jango could find us contracts and then we could fulfil them as a team.”

“He still wants his own revenge. He’ll get tired of helping us eventually.” Unless he adopted them, but he would make a poor buir right now, as Maul understood the Mandalorian sensibilities about such things. He wore no beskar’gam, perhaps because his own had been taken from him. With that he’d lost his culture and his sense of honour, assuming he was a man who cared about such things. He must care about them if he was looking to claim war orphans. Not that they were war orphans, but to a desperate man it would not matter.

“We could help him with his revenge too.”

That… was a possibility. It would mean working against Death Watch, and Maul found he was reluctant to do that. He owed them no loyalty - the warriors who fought by his side would be children themselves right now - and yet they had saved him and his brother when they were drifting in space near death. Gar Saxon and Rook Kast had even risked their own lives to rescue him from Count Dooku. Death Watch had a harsh code that was not unlike that of the Sith. Even if some of them had betrayed that code and refused to follow him after his duel with Vizsla, most had stayed and served him gladly even to the very end.

Yes that had been because they believed he would help them keep hold of Mandalore, but unlike his other allies in the criminal syndicates they would not have gone behind his back to betray him. If they wanted him dead, he would have been challenged in open combat. Knowing that had been… reassuring.

Maul could not forget the opportunities returning to the past had given him. This was his chance to enact his revenge on Kenobi and on his Master. He should be looking for every weapon he might be able to use against them. If he made Fett an ally and he was still chosen as the template for the clones, then he could be used against Sidious. However the same was true of Death Watch, if he could make them bow before him a second time.

All he needed to do for that was to make a challenge for the Darksaber again. Did Pre Viszla still have it? Maul was unsure how old he had been when he killed him, but he judged he would be a young man now. The hard part would be tracking him down. Perhaps Fett could help with that as well. He would need to find Death Watch to get his revenge, and then Maul, Kilindi and Savage could all slip away and forge themselves a place on the winning side.

Fett was one man, after all. He could not hope to defeat all of Death Watch.

That might not be his plan. Perhaps he wished to claim the Darksaber - if so, then Maul's target would change but not his overall plan.

He had been silent for a long time, but Kilindi simply watched him with a patient gaze.

"We will work alongside him for now," Maul told her.

She nodded, and said, "I have a good feeling about this."

----

Several jumps later, the small freighter arrived in the Dathomir system and began its approach towards the ochre-brown globe of the system's one inhabitable planet. From Maul's incomplete recollection the Nightsisters did not care for technology, instead relying on their magics and deep connection to Dathomir itself to warn them of approaching threats. Maul was unsure if they would have sensed him coming. He meant them no harm, at least not directly, but he was Mother Talzin's child. It was reasonable to assume he would be more obvious and apparent to her than another Force sensitive would have been.

Fett had insisted on piloting, but Maul took the co-pilot's seat next to him both as back-up and to give directions. His memory of the location of the Nightbrothers' village was dim, and he was reluctant to draw too much on the Force in case Talzin sensed it, but he could at least keep them well away from the Nightsisters. Their stronghold was more familiar.

"You've got no idea where we're going, do you?" Fett said, after a while where Maul merely pointed in whichever direction felt right to him. It had not been a successful technique.

"I have never been to the Nightbrothers' village," Maul was forced to admit.

"But you know your brother's there."

"I... saw him in a dream," Maul said, taking refuge once again in the vagueness of Force powers. He doubted Fett knew enough about the Force to tell what was reasonable for an untrained Force sensitive to be capable of. "It was a true dream. I am certain of it."

"Someone's going to notice us eventually," Fett told him. "Flying around half the planet like this is too obvious."

"Dathomir's native fauna are too dangerous to search on foot."

Fett sighed. "This damn ship couldn't have lifeform scanners," he muttered under his breath. "Fine. But if someone hails us, you'd better come up with a good lie."

Hailing them was unlikely. If the Nightsisters noticed them they would prepare a trap instead - but Maul knew what to watch for. He would not be taken in by their tricks. If he'd been properly armed he would not have feared them at all, but everything in the armoury at Orsis was chipped and tracked. The chadra-fan they robbed had no weapons, and Fett had claimed the Corellian's blasters. Maul was trained to use blades, blunt instruments, blasters, and slugthrowers of all kinds, but he would have preferred a lightsaber above all else. That would not be easy to find. The Jedi and similar Force sects guarded their kyber crystal sources greedily - the best way would be to kill a Jedi and bleed their crystal, but first he needed to find one.

A goal for another time.

Fett wove them in a search pattern over the swamps below. Eventually Maul saw the shapes of buildings appear over the horizon, clustered in the foothills of cragged mountains that were all sharp peaks and deep canyons. He pointed it out, and Fett headed wordlessly in that direction. He set them down some distance away so that they could approach in the hope of remaining unseen.

The air outside was cool but damp, fog rising from the swamp all around them. Kilindi smiled, the tentacles draped over her shoulders twitching slightly. This was a much more appropriate environment for her species.

They trekked through calf-deep water and wet mud towards the more solid ground that surrounded the village. The cover of the trees was replaced by rough and rocky terrain, but this too gave them plenty of places to hide. Maul did not imagine Fett had the same degree of training in stealth that he and Kilindi did, but he managed to keep up without making too much noise or being seen by the guards ringing the edge of the settlement. Finally they crouched a few hundred meters from the palisade wall, watching the back and forth rhythms of its inhabitants.

It felt strange to see so many other zabraks with his manner of markings. Their base colouration tended towards ochres, yellows and oranges, but the black tattoos were all the same stark shade standing out against their skin. Each was different, and Maul presumed they had some meaning. He had never been told it himself.

He did not see any Nightbrothers the same deep red as his own. Was there some significance in that?

“Any sign of your brother?” Fett asked, leaning against a rock. His hands hovered over his blasters.

Maul shook his head. He believed he would know Savage when he saw him, but there was a slight flicker of doubt at the back of his mind. His brother had been changed by the Nightsister’s magics, and although some of that had faded from his body as he died Maul didn’t know how much. What if he did not recognise him?

Surely the Force would tell him - and right now he sensed no trace of the Nightsisters nearby. They were far away in their own domain half-way around Dathomir. Even if Mother Talzin felt his presence now, she would not be able to do anything about it. He reached out for Savage.

“He’s not in the village,” he said softly, his eyes half-closed as he concentrated. “He’s down by the river.”

“How do you know that?” Fett asked.

“I can sense it.”

The man frowned. “The Force?”

Maul nodded. He gestured for the others to follow him and started to move, keen to avoid further questions. This was not a topic he wished to get into with Fett, at least not yet.

Fett apparently did not intend to allow him that choice. “Has anyone ever trained you adiik?”

Maul did not look back at him. “I already told you I’m no Jedi.”

“There are more users of the Force out there than just jetii ,” Fett replied.

The Mandalorians and the Sith had worked together in the past, long ago when both peoples had empires. That he and Savage were Sith warriors had spoken in their favour to Death Watch, rather than against them. That didn’t mean it was a good idea to tell Fett that he was dar’jetii , not when he would meet Darth Sidious one day in the future and possibly put two and two together.

Into the silence Kilindi asked, “Do Mandalorians use the Force? I’ve never heard that they do, but sensitives must be born on Mandalore and its colonies like they’re born everywhere else.”

Fett was surprised by the question, but he still answered it. “We have those touched by the ka’ra, yes. Many don’t do anything special with it, it simply gives them an edge on the battlefield. For those who need more, they train as goran. Their skill helps us bind our souls to our armour.”

Maul frowned. He had heard Saxon and Rook talk that way but he assumed they spoke in metaphor. He’d not realised it as a truly religious belief. He knew what Fett meant by the ka’ra - the spirits of great Mandalorians long dead resided in the stars, watching, challenging and guiding their people. Theology was not something he’d discussed with his soldiers, but he understood they felt the Force to be in some way analogous to the ka’ra ; made from the souls of dead Jedi and dead Sith, perhaps.

They were close to the river now. Maul could hear the noise of splashing water and the faint sound of… singing?

Savage had never sung. Not around him.

Maul motioned for the others to keep low and keep back, and crept towards the sound. He rounded a rock to see a zabrak boy with his back to him, scrubbing clothing in a tub filled with river water. For a moment he could not put this slender teen and the wall of muscle his brother had been together into one image. The boy shifted, turning enough so that Maul got a side-on view of his face, and there was Savage. There was his brother with the same markings, the same sharp cheek-bones, the same arrangement on his horns that matched Maul’s own.

Maul hearts twisted inside his chest. The pain was sharp and sudden, the same agony of loss and grief that had taken him when Sidious thrust his blade through his brother’s heart. When he’d been too late and too slow to stop him. He must have made some noise, or emotion made him less careful where he put his feet. Savage turned around, merely curious at first but turning to surprise in an instant. He dropped the bundle of cloth he was holding and scooped up a wicked knife from next to his feet, coming smoothly up from kneeling into a crouch.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Maul opened his mouth to speak, but he could not. Savage snarled, wary and suspicious.

“I know every Nightbrother in the village, and you are not one of them. Where are you from? Why have you come here?” As his eyes raked over Maul his instinctive reaction began to settle slightly, becoming a more simply confusion. “You’re only a child.”

“I am not a child,” Maul said, snapping out of this… whatever it was.

“You’re not old enough to be of use to a Nightsister,” Savage said. “That makes you still a child.”

Was that really how they measured such things here?

“Well I…" All clever words had escaped him. "I’m your brother.”

Savage's eyes widened. The hand holding the knife fell back to his side. "You are the one who was taken."

Maul had not truly imagined how this meeting would go. He had only a confused memory of the first time he met Savage, images and impressions that blurred without clarity. Savage already knew of him then, but Mother Talzin was the one to tell him and set his feet on the path to finding Maul. He assumed Savage did not even know he had a brother until that point. "You know me?" he asked.

"I remember you," Savage said, something fierce behind his words. "Just a little. You were tiny, but I was still permitted to hold you. I looked after you for a few weeks before the Nightsisters came back for you. I thought you were dead all these years."

Maul made a small noise in the back of his throat. He seemed to be rooted in place, his body failing to respond to any of his commands. He hadn't thought of his brother's age in relation to his own, but it was easier to measure that here, with both of them still young. Savage looked like a teenager, fifteen or sixteen. Four or five when Maul was given to Sidious? All this time Savage had known that he had family even if he thought Maul had been some kind of sacrifice to the Nightsister's darkest magics, and Maul had known nothing at all.

Savage moved forward slowly, tossing the knife into the dirt. He reached out and put a hand on Maul's shoulder. The contact was warm and heavy and Maul did not know how it made him feel. "I might not know your face but I can read your markings. Your horns are the same as mine. I know you are my brother." Maul's breath caught in his throat. He did not know what to say. "What happened? Savage asked. "What did they do with you?"

Maul wetted his lips and managed to speak. "That is a long story."

"It must be." Savage seemed to come to some kind of realisation, for he looked away and began to scan their surroundings with a suspicious gaze. "Did you escape from the Nightsisters?" he asked. "Are they after you?"

"I have escaped, but not from them," Maul said. "Savage, you must come with me. I have allies, a ship. We need to leave Dathomir."

"A ship..." Hope flared in his brother's eyes. "You trust your allies?"

Kilindi much more than Fett, although trust could only ever go so far. "I trust them enough," he said. "They will not betray us to the Nightsisters."

Savage nodded firmly. "Then we shall leave immediately," he said. "I will fetch Feral from the village..."

Maul frowned. "Feral?" The name was unfamiliar. His brother had never spoken of friends or intimate partners amongst the other Nightbrothers, before he was chosen by Ventress. Yet who else would he want to bring with him?

"Our younger brother," Savage explained.

"Younger... brother?" Maul whispered. This made no sense. After Savage broke free from Ventress' control, he would have gone back for any family they had on Dathomir, or at least tried. His search for Maul might have been a search for a teacher, but familydid mean something to him, or so he claimed. Had he abandoned Feral here because he had no abilities with the Force? Or... by then, was he already dead?

"You did not know of him," Savage said. "Yet you knew of me?"

"A dream," Maul said, using the same excuse. "A vision."

"We cannot leave Feral here."

"No... I was merely surprised."

Savage nodded. "I'll tell him I need his help with the laundry. No-one will question it."

"Be quick. The sisters might have seen our ship."

Savage darted away, up the winding path to the village. Maul sat down on a nearby rock. His head was spinning. A second brother? What were they like? He could not even imagine it. How much younger were they?

He was desperately curious to meet them.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

“So I guess you actually have two brothers,” Kilindi said, somewhere behind him. Maul was broken from his shock at the sound of her voice. He turned to frown at her, irritated that she had not respected his privacy. She only shrugged in response. “I came close enough to listen. Just in case something went wrong.”

“I do not need your assistance,” he said, turning back around and staring at the rushing waters of the river.

“He seemed nice,” Kilindi said, sitting down on a rock just at the edge of his field of vision.

“You saw him for only a moment. It would be an error to judge so soon.” The words came automatically, with little thought behind them. Maul picked at the fabric of his trousers, filled with an uncharacteristic restlessness. His stomach was tight, clenching in on itself. This was something like fear, the kind he felt cowering before Darth Sidious many times anticipating punishment, but there was no reason to be afraid now.

He was getting what he wanted. Savage would leave Dathomir with him and would no longer suffer at the hands of Ventress. It was just this unexpected other brother he hadn’t been able to plan for.

Kilindi said nothing more. They sat in silence together, with only the noise of the water and the singing wind in their ears. Maul’s senses, highly tuned, caught the sound of footfalls first. Two sets, approaching at a light jog. He stood, scanning the path up which Savage had disappeared.

His brother rounded the corner and came into view. Another zabrak was following him, his skin beneath the tattoos almost an identical shade of yellow-ochre. He was about ten years old, Maul thought, his horns still stubby in the way of pre-pubescence. Their arrangement was different to that of Maul and Savage. A different father?

Half-brother or full brother, it did not matter. He was still kin.

“Feral,” Savage said, motioning from the younger boy to Maul. “This is our brother.” He hesitated, looking to where Kilindi sat leaning back on the rock, her legs folded beneath her. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Kilindi,” Maul said, gesturing to her. “We… were training together.”

“Warrior training?” Feral asked, his eyes wide. He had a backpack on his shoulders, stuffed full. Savage had one similarly laden. Good. Anything they brought with them was something they would not have to find out in space. All resources were valuable just now.

Maul nodded in answer to Feral’s question. This was not the time to explain his past, but calling it that was accurate enough.

“Nice to meet you Kilindi,” Feral said, smiling. “I’ve never seen anyone who looked like you before.”

“Not even in a holo?” Kilindi asked.

Feral shook his head. “We don’t have holos here. Sorry.”

Savage set his jaw in a way Maul knew meant he was embarrassed and unwilling to admit to it. Maul had been dimly aware that the Nightbrothers’ village was a primitive place, but he had never seen it. He’d never asked how primitive. What must it have been like, for Savage to be changed by magic and sent out into the galaxy to find a world full of strange technology? Or had such knowledge been gifted to him before he left Dathomir by those same Dark arts?

“We can talk on board our ship,” Maul said. “It would be unwise to stay here any longer.”

“Will we be coming back?” Feral asked, glancing back towards the village.

“No.” Savage put a hand on the boy’s head, between his horns, rubbing slightly in a light caress. Maul’s own scalp ached in a strange sympathy. He wasn’t sure why.

“But… what about our friends?” Feral’s eyes glistened with dampness. The waves of his childish emotion could be felt in the Force - Maul was unsettled by it. Friends? Did Feral not understand the opportunity he was being given? Did he not see that escaping Dathomir was worth leaving others behind - for surely they would make the same choice to abandon them if it meant freedom? This sorrow was weakness, and unworthy of any who were his kin.

“Perhaps we can come back for them someday,” Savage said. It was a promise vague enough to be meaningless, but it quieted Feral down.

“Come,” Maul said. “My other ally will be growing impatient.”

"Brother... where have you been for all this time?" Savage asked, following him as he turned and started to make his way downhill towards the swamps and the treeline.

"Far away," Maul replied. He would tell them more later, once they had privacy.

Fett was waiting within earshot, well-hidden amongst the stony terrain. Savage and Feral both stopped in their tracks when they saw him and Fett raised his hands well away from the blasters at his hips. "You two ready to get out of here?" he asked. He must have overheard their conversation, because he didn't look surprised to see two new zabraks rather than one.

Savage growled quietly, but it was wariness rather than true fear or anger. It was wise to be cautious. Maul approved. "Who are you, human?" he demanded.

"My name is Jango Fett. I’m no-one of importance." That had the feeling of a lie. Curious. Maul doubted Fett was aware of his true importance in the plans of the Sith, so what importance did he believe himself to have?

Savage nodded. No doubt he had many questions about Maul, Kilindi and Fett, but he also must know that the answers might mean nothing to him. His experience of the galaxy was limited to this planet and whatever tales were passed down from Nightbrother to Nightbrother. Legends of the outside worlds.

He would learn quickly when given the opportunity. He had before.

They trekked back to the freighter without encountering any opposition. Maul's small use of the Force seemed to have gone unnoticed by Mother Talzin, and the men of the village did not seem to suspect anything either. Maul kept his mind open for any flicker of danger in the Dark. There were still the predators of the swamp to contend with, though he could sense them easily and lead their party away from them. After the first glimpse of dark hide and a toothed maw lurking just below the surface of the water, Fett did not complain about the detours. Once they had all made it up the loading ramp, Fett made for the pilot's chair and had them in the air within moments. Maul showed Savage and Feral where to stow away their belongings in the main cabin. He had not considered where they would all sleep. They needed more mats like the one Fett had. The next step in the plan would have to be to stock up on supplies.

Kilindi hovered for a moment in the door, and then went up the corridor towards the co*ckpit to join Fett, leaving Maul alone with his kin.

"Will you tell us your tale now brother?" Savage asked. In the low light of the cabin their eyes were all glowing faintly. Savage's did not have the same intensity Maul remembered, without the energy of the Dark Side behind it.

Maul would have to begin his training from scratch. There had been no lessons from Darth Tyrannus this time around, but that did not matter. They had years now. Would Savage accept instruction from a brother who looked a mere twelve standard years old? He would be foolish not to see the advantages the power of the Dark Side could give him, once Maul demonstrated what it could do. There was also Feral to consider - Dathomir was a planet that bred Force-sensitives of various strengths. Only the rarest amongst their number did not possess that potential - or so Sidious had led him to believe. Feral would learn too.

Kilindi would make sure Fett was piloting them somewhere sensible. He had time now to speak.

Maul sat down on the edge of the bunk. "I will tell you," he said. "But I have one question of my own first. Savage, you said you knew me as a child. What was my name then?"

"Maul," his brother replied, and something about the question had made him upset. "It was Maul. Did they take that from you?"

"No. I am still called Maul." That was interesting in itself. Sidious had not bothered to change his name. He'd wondered, given how well it fit with Savage's, and now with Feral’s too. Sith usually were given new names or took them on by choice when they left their past lives behind. Maul had no life to leave. His earliest memory was of Mustafar, of his Master.

Savage relaxed slightly. "Good. That is good."

"Mother Talzin took me so she could give me to the Sith." Savage had told him he knew of the Sith even before Ventress claimed him. They were spoken of in tales as beings who could be allies or enemies of the Nightsisters, powerful but untrustworthy. Both Savage and Feral looked alarmed at the name now.

"What would the Sith want with a babe?" Savage asked.

"To train me."

Feral co*cked his head, his confusion obvious. "Like we train as warriors to prove ourselves to the Nightsisters?"

"You will not have to prove yourself to anyone now," Savage told the boy, with a growl of satisfaction.

"My Master was a man called Darth Sidious," Maul explained. "He trained me to be his assassin, to kill his enemies. He taught me just enough of the Force to be useful, but never enough to prove a threat to him." Maul snarled, unable and not wanting to hold back the wave of hate that filled him when he thought of his Master. "He sent me to a place called the Orsis Academy to learn more. That is where I met Kilindi. I saw an opportunity to be free of Sidious, and so I took it. Kilindi insisted on coming with me."

Savage reached forward - Maul almost interpreted it instinctively as an attack, but stopped himself at the last moment from reacting poorly, with violence. His brother grasped his shoulders and smiled broadly. "You have been brave and clever brother. Escaping from a Sith! It could not have been easy."

Maul found he could not meet the simple pleasure in Savage's expression. Even the warmth of his hands felt strange - he wanted to lean into it. He glanced away. "It was easy," he said. "He did not suspect I would dare be disloyal to him."

Savage snorted. "Naturally, if he is anything like the Nightsisters. They believe we are merely simple brutes barely capable of thought, who would only think of disobeying the way a beast would defy a poor trainer. They don't imagine we could want to resist them, could want things other than what they think we should want."

"How do you know that?" Maul asked, barely more than a whisper. He thought Ventress had been the first Nightsister to have come for Savage. He thought he would be too young now to have tasted their cruelty.

"I listen to the older Nightbrothers," Savage replied, easing his concerns. "They speak to all the young men around my age so that we know what the Nightsisters will expect from us."

“They did not hurt you yet?” It seemed important that Maul should be clear about this point.

Savage shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “And now thanks to you they never will. We owe you a debt for coming for us brother, but… you said you saw me in a dream? That is how you found us?”

Maul could be more open with them about the Force, but he hesitated at the idea of mentioning this jaunt through time. It would be easy to disbelieve him; his words would sound impossible, the imaginings of a disordered mind. “The Force,” he said. “It showed me you, Savage, but nothing of Feral.”

“The same power that gives the Nightsisters their magics?” Feral asked.

“The Force is a source of many powers, and many different traditions have learned to make use of it,” Maul replied. “The Sith are one such tradition, the Nightsisters another.”

“And the Jedi,” Savage said, the words a low growl.

“What do you know of the Jedi?” Maul asked.

Savage shrugged. “Little. Only that the elders warned us all to be on the lookout for their kind, if any dared to come to Dathomir. It is said they fear and hate the Nightsisters and their power, and would seek to draw the poison in their fangs by stealing promising children from our village.”

Interesting. It did not sound like the Jedi, who were too afraid of their own emotions to allow themselves the strength of such things as fear and hate, but he could imagine some roaming Jedi coming to Dathomir by happenstance and leaving with a child. Mother Talzin had already proved with Sidious that she preferred to buy peace with flesh than offer a challenge, at least when it came to the males. He did not know if she would be equally uncaring with a female.

But this was mere speculation. It may never have happened at all, only a story to prevent the Nightbrothers speaking to any Jedi about how their females treated them. Not that Jedi cared for anything outside their precious Republic no matter what ideals they claimed to believe in.

“Have you ever seen one?” Feral asked.

“I have,” Maul said with a sneer. “They are indeed cowards, unwilling to reach their full potential in the Force. They do train as warriors, but they are no match for the Sith.”

“Is that what your Master was training you for?” Savage asked. “To fight Jedi.”

“To kill Jedi. Their Order almost succeeded in wiping out the Sith centuries ago, because of their numbers and because the Sith were distracted fighting amongst themselves. I was intended as an instrument of revenge - or that is what my Master told me.”

“You doubt that now?” Savage was surprisingly insightful. Maul wasn’t sure if it was an instinctive usage of the Force, or merely his natural perception.

“I think that tools are disposable.”

Savage nodded agreement. “It sounds like you are much better rid of him.”

“He will be looking for me,” Maul warned. “We are going to have to be careful.”

“The Nightsisters will not be best pleased to discover the two of us missing either.”

“They might just think we got lost in the swamp,” Feral suggested. “Or that a predator got us both.”

“With no sign of a struggle or a trace of blood?” Savage said. “Well. It is possible.”

“The Nightsisters will not be anything to worry about,” Maul told them. “Not after I have trained you to use the Force and to fight as I have been taught.”

“You want us to learn the ways of the Sith?” Savage asked.

“The ways of the Dark Side of the Force,” Maul corrected him. “The stronger aspect of the Force. The Sith are hardly the only ones with a claim to that power. Eventually we three will be powerful enough that we will have nothing to fear from anyone - not the Nightsisters, not the Sith, and not the Jedi. I have… some plans.”

Savage and Feral traded glances. “That sounds good,” Feral said quietly. “Not having to be afraid of anyone sounds very good.”

“What of your friends?” Savage asked. “Are they able to use the Force too?”

“ Kilindi is my friend. Not Fett. He is just… useful, for now. And no, neither of them can use the Force.” Not that he was aware of. The ability to touch the Force was a wide spectrum of sensitivity, and many beings in the galaxy were capable of sensing the Force even if they could not manipulate it.

“Kilindi was at this Academy you spoke of - but not Fett?”

“He was a slave,” Maul said. “We freed him. He owes us a debt for that - and he is Mandalorian.” Neither of them recognised that name, he could tell, so they did not realise the importance of younglings to that people. “I will speak more of them later, but for now it means that we can trust him to an extent.”

“And he is… human,” Savage said, not enthusiastic about the idea.

“The galaxy is full of them.”

“It is so strange to have left Dathomir,” Savage said. “There is so much for us to learn.”

“It’s exciting,” Feral added. “Though… we shouldn’t be leaving everyone else behind. Maybe once you’ve trained us to use the Force we can go back and help them? So they don’t have to be afraid of the Nightsisters anymore either?”

“Perhaps,” Maul said. By the time the three of them had that kind of power, he was sure that Feral would have forgotten all about the home he’d risen so far above. They would have other matters more deserving of their attention.

“You are confident we can learn to use the Force,” Savage said.

Maul spared a moment of attention to feel out in the Force towards Fett and Kilindi. They were both still in the co*ckpit. “We have a little time,” he said. “I can show you how to start sensing it now.”

----

After giving Savage and Feral a lesson in the basics of meditation and reaching out to the Force, Maul left them to practise and went through to check in with Fett. He was unsure exactly how far this promise of assistance was going to take them, and he imagined that Fett might have other plans and goals of his own. The need for revenge Maul sensed burning inside of him would have to be answered sooner or later.

“They settling in okay?” Fett said, turning in his seat as Maul approached.

Maul nodded. “What is our current destination?” he asked.

“Dathomir isn’t on any major hyperspace routes,” Fett replied. “We were spoiled for choice, but… we’re pretty close to the Mandalore sector.”

“You’re taking us to your home?” Maul asked, narrowing his eyes. Was Fett intending to abandon them after all? Would he break his word so easily? He supposed if so it was no great loss; they had the ship and its cargo, which would keep them in supplies for a while before they had to find another way to make credits. Savage wasn’t an adult, but he would serve well enough as the outward face of their group.

“Not yet,” Fett said. “We’re headed to Banomeer first; it’s en-route. Thought we’d shift the spice there and pick up some supplies, talk about things before jumping in headlong.”

Maul nodded. He supposed that was acceptable. He had some knowledge of the black market economy from his training at Orsis; criminal syndicates were common employers of the assassins, mercenaries, bodyguards and bounty hunters that the Academy turned out. He knew the common merchandise that the gangs dealt in, the rough patterns of commerce and the markets for said merchandise. There was more of a demand for a recreational drug like spice on a mining world like Bandomeer - manual workers would pay to drown out the misery of their lives for a while. Mandalorians - at least the ones he knew from Death Watch - preferred combat drugs and similar stimulants if they indulged at all.

Maul had some vague memory that Bandomeer also had a market for slaves. There should be no reason for anyone to suspect that Fett was a recently freed slave, but he wondered if it would be a problem somehow. His knowledge of the slave trade was all figures and credit-totals, without the level of detail that might have come in useful several times already.

“Are you from Mandalore itself?” Kilindi asked. “Or one of the colonies?”

“Concord Dawn,” Fett replied. “Although it’s been… a while since I was there last.”

“You know people there?”

“A few,” Fett said, looking down at the controls. His thumb rubbed the edge of the panel thoughtfully. “Not sure what’s happened since Galidraan. Not sure if they’ll be happy to see me or not, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

“Does Death Watch have a presence on Concord Dawn?” Maul asked.

Fett’s expression twisted with frustration. “I have no idea how the fight against kyr’tsad is going,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly easy to find out news of the wider galaxy this last year and a half. Without Haat Mando’ade … hopefully those kriffing pacificsts from Kalavela have found enough of a spine to put up some fight against them.”

“If we are close to the Mandalore sector, perhaps we will be able to find that information on Bandomeer,” Maul suggested.

“Perhaps.” Fett checked the console. “We’ll be dropping out of hyperspace soon. Better let your vode know.”

----

Bandomeer had no orbital stations, so they were forced to land at one of the cities to buy what they were looking for. Fett spent some time flicking through files in one of the dead Corellian’s datapads, looking for Pyke Syndicate contacts on the planet. “Got something,” he muttered finally. “We should change the ident for this freighter while we’re here. I’m sure our failure to return to the Good Trip has been noticed by now.”

It was a good idea. “Did you have a name in mind?” Maul asked.

Fett gave him a half-smile. “Thought this was your ship,” he said. “You should name it.”

It wasn’t something that Maul much cared about. He gave it a moment’s consideration. “The Promised Revenge ,” he suggested.

“Yours or mine?” Fett asked, with a cautious, assessing look.

“Either,” Maul said. “Both. It is something we are both seeking, is it not?”

“As you wish.” Fett made a note of it on the datapad. “Wait here while I go and talk to this guy about buying our spice.”

Maul bristled. “I will come with you.” It would be foolish to meet a criminal alone.

“No you won’t adiik . This is dangerous business. You’re too young to be mixed up in this…” He held up a hand to stop Maul before he could think to interrupt. “I know you’re already mixed up in it. But bringing a kid to a spice deal is suspicious on its own. You’re not even armed yet.”

“Yet,” Maul said, taking note of how Fett had worded that.

The Mandalorian sighed. “Yeah, we’ll pick up some weapons for all of you lot here, so long as you can show me you know how to use them and be safe around them.”

“That will not be a problem.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Fett said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

----

Fett was indeed as good as his word, returning quickly with an arrangement from the Pyke dealer. They would deliver the spice to a different hangar bay nearby, where the buyer would be waiting to transfer them the credits. Fett was fairly certain this wasn’t a trap, and he had some experience in these matters. Maul, Kilindi and Savage helped him load up a pallet with the rest of the crates in the hold, covered it all up with a tarp, and sent him off again - though not alone this time. Maul wasn’t going to bother asking for permission after Fett had denied him before, and he refused to let him wander off unprotected again. He and Kilindi waited a few minutes to open up the space between them intending to follow at a distance.

“Is this wise brother?” Savage asked him, as he was leaving.

“Kilindi and I were trained for this,” Maul replied. “Do not be concerned.” That included stealth and unarmed combat - he was more than capable of defending Fett without a weapon if it proved to be necessary.

Savage shook his head but let them go. It was clear that Maul's words had not managed to fully reassure him. Maul should have been annoyed by that lack of trust, but he found it less irritating than he would have expected. There was a warm sensation inside him leaving the hangar bay that was at odds with the weather outside. He shook it off. His attention needed to be on Fett.

He and Kilindi tracked him without any problems along the edge of the airfield to the named hangar. There were guards outside, but they let Fett though without hostility. Maul pointed to an alley between the two hangars - he and Kilindi scrambled up the exterior wall so that they could watch from up top. There was other security - cameras primarily - but they too were easy to avoid.

In the end the handover went smoothly. Fett accepted the case of credit chips and headed out again. There were no awkward questions, and no recognition that he was a recently escaped slave. Maul could breathe more easily once it was over with. He nodded to Kilindi, and they made for the ground again.

Fett whirled on them, startled, when they dropped down next to him. His blaster was out in an instant before he realised who they were.

“ Ossik adiikla ,” he snarled. “Do I need to strap bells to the two of you or something?”

“You should be thankful to have the backup,” Maul told him. Fett holstered his blaster again, grumbling under his breath.

“I don’t need you to be worried about me,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

“You would still be a slave if not for us,” Maul replied.

“Still, who’s the adult here? I should be protecting you, not the other way around.”

“We’re just working together,” Kilindi said. “Teamwork is how we stay alive.” Another Academy lesson.

Fett sighed. “Get the others then,” he said, nodded towards their own hangar. “Rations, clothes, weapons, fuel… then we can get out of here.”

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

Food rations, water and ship fuel were all easy to acquire on Bandomeer. Maul instructed Fett to purchase the high protein versions of the ration bars, since zabraks were a primarily meat-eating species. Nautolans were the same, although neither of them were obligate carnivores. Appropriate clothing was also relatively easy to purchase; hard-wearing synthleather jackets, cloth undershirts and trousers, underwear, tough boots - all typical fare appropriate to both miners and spacers. Weapons were slightly harder, as there was less need for them in a place like this.

Asking around, Fett was able to find a place that sold blasters alongside surplus or obsolete mining equipment. It was clearly not what the Mandalorian would have preferred, and Maul understood his feelings. Everything was old and second-hand, dinged and damaged and dirty. Searching the shelves together they managed to find enough working blaster pistols for each of them, along with a pair of rifles and a dozen or so vibroknives of various sizes and functionality. It would do for now. Thus resupplied, they returned to the newly christened Promised Revenge and set a course for Concord Dawn.

“Were you able to discover any news of the Mandalorian civil war?” Maul asked once they were in the air. It was awkward for them all to cluster in the co*ckpit, so Kilindi had taken Savage and Feral to familiarise them with the ship's facilities and workings, as well as to try fiddling with the life support settings to increase the humidity to a more comfortable level for her.

“Some,” Fett replied, unhappy about it. “The New Mandalorians - the pacifists - are actually bothering to fight back now that we’re not around to do it for them.” The bitterness in his voice had the familiar taste of injustice. Maul could sympathise. “Duke Kryze has managed to persuade a number of clans to swear to his House and unite behind him. They’re keeping kyr’tsad at bay for now.”

“And Concord Dawn?”

“ Kyr’tsad show their buy’ce around the major settlements occasionally. We’ll be setting down somewhere further out. Should be safe.”

Maul tried to work out what Fett was aiming to do on his home planet. He had mentioned old friends or allies, yes, but safety was only a place to start from. It was not a goal in and of itself. “Then what?” he asked.

“Then…” Fett looked slightly hopeless. “Then we work out what we both want, and how to get it.”

“We know that,” Maul said with slight irritation, gesturing to the ship surrounding them. “Revenge.”

“Yes, but what does that look like for you?” Fett replied. “Or for me.”

“My revenge will take some time to bear fruit,” Maul admitted. “Yours, I sense, is more pressing.”

Fett hummed, a thoughtful sound. Once again Maul sensed his suspicion, though the source of it was harder to identify. Perhaps it was that he did not sound like a twelve year old should, but Maul doubted he would guess the correct reason for that. “My armour,” he said after a long moment. “That’s what I need to get back first.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“No,” Fett said. “That’s the first thing I need to find out. And I need to get back in fighting shape.”

“Allies to track down your armour, and a safe place to train.” Maul nodded. “We need to train as well.”

“Thought you and Kilindi were already very capable,” Fett said, smiling as if it was supposed to be humorous. Maul gave him a flat stare.

“We are. My brothers are not. They need to train.”

“So we have a plan, at least for the next few weeks,” Fett said. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

“Very well.” It appeared they would be remaining with Fett for the foreseeable future. If he could find them this promised safe place, freeing him would be proven worthwhile. Savage and Feral both had a lot to learn.

----

Concord Dawn was a wild planet as seen descending into its atmosphere, with a landscape of hills and mountains covered in thick jungle, cupping glaciated valleys that opened out into broad plains given over to farmland. Scattered homesteads littered the land here and there, small conglomerations of several buildings at a time with each settlement spaced widely apart from each other. Maul saw only one town that even deserved that name, though it was more of a village. Fett piloted the Promised Revenge towards an area which appeared drier and more barren, though it still had the marks of fields long gone to fallow. They landed near a cluster of farm buildings that seemed to have been abandoned for some time - several windows were boarded over, others were broken, and the door swung open on its hinges. Dust scattered beneath the freighter in a large cloud as they set down.

Nobody came out to meet them or investigate the ship. Further evidence that it was indeed deserted.

"What is this place?" Maul asked, curious. Had Fett believed an old ally might still live here?

"My home, once," Fett replied. He swung out of the pilot's chair and headed past Maul down the corridor without looking at him. His head was down and his gaze pointed at the floor. Old pain was leaking out of him, a prickle in Maul's senses.

Maul followed him to the exit ramp, Kilindi, Savage and Feral appearing out of the kitchen to join them in curiosity. The hatch opened with a hiss, and warm dry air gusted in against their faces. Fett went down the ramp at a fast walk and then stood staring at the farm buildings.

"What's the matter with him?" Kilindi asked at a whisper.

"He said he once lived here," Maul replied. There was little point in loitering in the ship. If this place had stood abandoned for this long then it was unlikely to be visited by others. It would be safe for now, at least until someone noticed that it was no longer empty.

"I meant to come back here a few times over the years," Fett said, at the sound of their footsteps in the dirt behind him. "Never quite found the time. Surprised nobody thought to take the place over." His voice was thick with suppressed emotion.

"It will need some work to make it habitable again," Savage noted. Feral was more occupied staring at their surroundings to add any thoughts of his own.

Fett nodded. His throat moved convulsively for a moment and then he sighed, shaking some of the tension out of his shoulders. "Should make a start," he said. "Focus on the main house for now. We won't need any outbuildings for some time."

The damage was not that extensive, and little of it appeared to be structural at least to Maul's untrained eye. They circled the outside of the building first, taking stock of what needed to be done. The roof would need some work, and there must be somewhere they could purchase replacement glass for the windows. The walls needed re-coating in paint or plaster or whatever else was used locally. The door appeared to have been kicked in at some point and would need repaired and rehung. The greatest mess was inside. Time had taken its toll on the furnishings, dust and dirt and plant matter had been blown in by the wind, and animals and birds appeared to have used various rooms as their dens.

All told it was a rough, homely location, but certainly not the worst place Maul had lived in his life. Lotho Minor had been far more unpleasant.

"Looks like we're still sleeping on the ship for now," Fett said. "We can unload some supplies to make more space for our bedrolls in the hold."

It was a reasonable suggestion. Savage got to work transferring the crates, while Fett managed to find them some old brooms to sweep out the interior of the house while he checked over the furniture to see if any of it was salvageable. Most was too soiled and damaged, and Fett dragged it out to dump inside one of the barns. The manual labour was not particularly onerous, merely dirty. Maul allowed his mind to wander, constructing training schedules for both combat and the Force for his brothers. The latter would be more awkward since he didn’t wish to reveal the full extent of his powers to Fett.

The rest of the day passed quickly. It seemed little time at all before the sun was sinking below the horizon and the blue shadow of dusk fell over the world. The house was much cleaner inside, although it would need a proper scrubbing to be anything close to respectable. Fett made up meal packets from their supplies while everyone took turns in their one sonic shower, cleaning off the sweat and dust of the afternoon.

“This is a good place,” Savage said, accepting a steaming bowl of rehydrated soup from Fett. It was still warm enough that they were eating outside rather than the cramped interior of the ship, perched on crates of supplies. “Thank you for bringing us here Jango.”

“Not a problem,” Fett replied, his tone gruff. “Just… repaying a debt.”

“What was it like, growing up here?” Kilindi asked.

“Mostly good,” Fett said, with a far-away look in his eyes. “Until it wasn’t anymore.”

“Sorry,” Kilindi said. ““I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I just wanted to get to know you better, if we’re going to be living together now.”

“Fair enough,” Fett said, “but that goes both ways. You kids haven’t told me much about yourselves either.”

Maul hunched over his own bowl and glared. Kilindi could share whatever she wanted, but he would not be doing the same. He didn’t need to know about Fett’s past. He needed to know his present and more about his future than the scraps from his own memories - though that latter wish was impossible.

Kilindi sat thoughtfully for a moment, her tentacles twitching. “Is there a good story you could tell us? About before things went bad for you?”

Fett considered that for a moment while he ate. Then he put his bowl aside and said, “Let me tell you about the man who adopted me after my parents died. His name was Jaster Mereel…”

----

The next few days began to take on a certain rhythmic shape. The five of them shared meals and stories and occupied themselves with manual labour in between as the homestead started to take shape around them - or at last everyone bar Maul told stories. There was nothing that he wished to share. It made him feel like an outsider looking in at Savage’s tales of hunting and training on Dathomir, Fett’s reminisces of the Haat’ade, or Kilindi’s memories of the Academy before Maul came there, but he was already an outsider merely by virtue of his knowledge of the future and the true age of his mind inside this child’s body.

The feeling was a familiar one in any case. He was used to being set apart from others. It was only natural as a leader of Death Watch or of Crimson Dawn.

The chores were easier, and took his mind off such rumination. Maul and Kilindi picked through the barns and outbuildings looking for things that could be broken down into raw materials, collecting wood and metal and cloth and finding some useful tools for carpentry and farming, if they ever got around to growing their own food. Feral located an ancient bottle of some kind of astringent cleaner and began industriously scrubbing the walls, floors and any other surfaces he could reach inside the main building. On the third day Fett took the Promised Revenge on a trip to one of the jungles in the high country about ten miles distance with the aim of getting some wood that wasn’t dried out. He took Savage with him - at fifteen he was the strongest aside from Fett himself. Maul wasn’t happy about it. He did not like the idea of letting them out of his sight.

“I will be fine, brother,” Savage said, trying to reassure him. “It is merely a gathering trip.”

Maul could not find any reasonable objection, but the discomfort still sat in his stomach for the rest of the day until they returned. Fett came down the ramp dragging a small tree-trunk that must have only just fit inside the hold, and Savage emerged with the carcass of some kind of porcine beast draped over his shoulder.

“Fresh meat!” Feral said, with a happy light in his eyes.

“Your brother here made the kill,” Fett said to them, slapping Savage on his free shoulder. Savage smiled, half-hidden by a quick duck of his head.

“It is nothing,” he said. “I hunted often for the village back on Dathomir.”

“Savage is a good hunter,” Feral told them. “All the Elders say so.”

Butchering the creature was easy work, and they took some flavour packets out of the rations to serve as a rub before roasting a rack of ribs in the embers of a fire that night. It was delicious, and sitting in a circle with Fett, Kilindi and his brothers listening to them all talk, Maul felt some of that loneliness inside him ease. He realised that his brothers were looking to him often to see his reaction to their words, and Fett and Kilindi both would turn and ask his opinion on the topic of their conversation. They did not wish to cut him out, or let him sit watching them in silence. They wanted him to be a part of this.

It warmed something inside his stomach that seemed like it would expand and burst out of him. It was an unfamiliar emotion but he thought it must be… happiness. A happiness untainted for now by other concerns.

Over the next few days they used the new wood to fashion tiles for the roof, battering straight old nails to use to fix them to the gaps where rain could get in. Feral finished cleaning the house, and they set a fire out in a barren patch of cracked dirt to burn the old unsanitary furniture and other junk.

“The smoke may alert others to our presence,” Maul warned Fett, though he was sure the man was aware of that.

“They’ll find out eventually,” the man replied. “But I doubt anyone living round here will tell kyr’tsad about us.”

If Fett had lived here as a child, he must know their neighbours, their characters and allegiances. He had not reached out to them yet, but given his previous talk of allies it was only a matter of time.

Maul did not protest any further. Concord Dawn was a frontier planet, recently colonised in the scope of galactic history. It was not particularly rich, and was notable only because it had been settled by Mandalorians. It was hardly the first place his Master would look for him, nor where the Nightsisters would look for two disappeared Nightbrothers. If the locals knew about them, it did not alter their safety.

His Master might look on Dathomir though. The recent vanishing of Maul’s kin would be too suspicious to be coincidence. That was something to keep in mind, though there was nothing to be done about it now.

Finally everything was done on the homestead that could be done with their current resources. There were only two final issues to be solved before they could start to live in the house rather than basing themselves out of the freighter, and that was the windows and plaster for the walls.

“Time to head into town at last,” Fett said. “Do you adiikla fancy a field trip?”

“Yes please,” Feral said.

“If you think it wise,” Maul replied. “Will your face be known there? This was your home once, and you spoke before of potential allies.”

Fett nodded. “I left Concord Dawn pretty young,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I won’t be recognised anyway. I was going to ask around, drop some names, see if it stirred anything up.”

“Perhaps it would be better for us if it is believed you have returned to your old homestead alone,” Maul suggested. “There would be questions about where we came from.”

“Aww,” Feral said, seeing the agreement in Fett’s face. “A human village sounded interesting.”

“There will be time to visit human villages later,” Savage said. “Maul is right. Safety comes first.”

“There’s going to have to be questions at some point,” Fett told them. “If we’re going to be living on Concord Dawn for any length of time you all need to get vaccinated.”

“Zabrak immune systems are surely more than a match for whatever local diseases you have here,” Maul said dismissively.

Fett shook his head. “I’m not leaving that to chance,” he said. “The plagues here are deadly to humans. Your species aren’t that different.”

“A discrete medic then?” Maul suggested. “One that could come out here.”

“I’ll see if that’s possible,” Fett said. “Anyway, I doubt I’ll be back before sunset.”

“We’ll have dinner waiting,” Kilindi told him cheerfully.

Fett’s absence would provide Maul with a certain opportunity. As the Promised Revenge took off and soared away in the direction of the hills and the valleys between them, he turned to Feral and Savage. “We should use this time to practise your command of the Force.”

“You haven’t spoken of the Force since the flight from Dathomir,” Savage said. “You do not wish to discuss it in front of Jango?”

“He does not know about the Sith,” Maul replied. “His experience with the Force thus far has been the Jedi killing his people. I would rather he not know.”

“It does not seem something that could be kept secret forever,” Savage said doubtfully.

“We will not be with Fett forever,” Maul said.

“But I like him,” Feral replied. He looked to Kilindi for support. “Don’t you like him too Kilindi?”

“Yes,” she said. “He’s older than us and for a while he was armed and we weren’t. He could have tried to take the ship and abandoned us somewhere, tried to kill us maybe, even if we did free him. He helped us instead. That makes him trustworthy, in my opinion.”

“Trust is one thing,” Maul said. “Power is another. The Sith… was intending to betray me. He will not like that I have done so first. He will be looking for me. He is very powerful in the Dark Side of the Force, and if we do not gather strength of our own, and allies equally as strong, he will find us and he will kill us all. I have seen it.” They would assume he meant in a vision, but it was not a lie. Sidious was the true hand behind Kilindi’s death, behind Savage’s. Not Feral’s perhaps, but that version of the future did not matter now.

Savage frowned. “You spoke of the dangers of this Sith before,” he said. “Has something changed? Did your dream tell you that this is urgent?”

“It is not urgent ,” Maul replied. “It is simply important to plan properly for the future.”

“Why wouldn’t Jango be our ally?” Kilindi asked. “Is there some reason he would side with the Sith?”

“If the Sith offered him revenge against the Jedi.” Maul was sure that was how it had happened before, the motivation behind becoming the clone template.

Kilindi was an optimist but she understood how the world worked. She knew allegiance was something to be bought and sold for the right price. Sometimes that price was high, but it always existed. She looked away, uncertain. “That doesn’t mean we need to leave him before that even becomes a possibility,” she said.

“No, we should not act too fast,” Maul agreed. “Fett is still useful for now, and there is no reason anyone should come looking for us on Concord Dawn. We have plenty of time to train.”

Savage folded his arms over his chest. He did not look happy. “And how long do you mean for that to last? How many months or years before we abandon someone who has been kind to us and invited us into his childhood home?”

Maul sneered. “All children fly the nest eventually.”

“So he is our father now?” Savage raised an eyebrow. “Following that metaphor.”

“Of course not,” Maul said, feeling his cheeks heat with frustration. “You were the one suggesting he might become attached to us - and there is some reason to be concerned, since he is Mandalorian.”

“Why does that matter?” Feral asked. “Anyway, I wouldn’t mind if he was our dad.”

“We do not need a parent,” Maul said. He reminded himself that Feral was a child, and even if life on Dathomir was hard it was still sheltered in some ways compared to the more realistic upbringing Maul and Kilindi had experienced. It was natural for Feral to want such things and he did not have the experience to know that such desires were only weakness. “That is why you must learn of the Force, and the arts of combat that Kilindi and I have been taught. We all are perfectly capable of defending ourselves with the correct training.”

“Brother,” Savage sighed. “You have not answered my question. How long do you intend to stay here? Where do you imagine we will go, when the time comes? What other allies will we seek out?”

Maul hesitated over how much to tell them, or perhaps more accurately how best to justify it without speaking of his knowledge of the future. “The Mandalorian people are a good place to look for allies,” he said. “They are warriors with experience fighting those who use the Force throughout their history. Finding Fett was fortuitous, in that it brought us to them, but Fett is a lone soldier. His House and Clan were wiped out. We must look elsewhere.”

“To the Kalevalans?” Kilindi asked, wrinkling her nose slightly. “Jango said they’re pacifists. As soon as Death Watch is out of the way they’ll put down their weapons. The Sith would have to be a big threat to them before they would defend us, and from what you’ve said that isn’t true.”

“No.” Maul had not even considered that possibility, and he discarded it immediately for the same reasons Kilindi had given. In the future he knew of, House Kryze won the civil war, but Satine Kryze had not lifted her hand to help Kenobi, her Jedi paramore. She certainly would not help someone like Maul. She cared only for her precious ideals even when they were driving her rule to its downfall. “There is another faction in this war.”

“Death Watch?” Savage snarled. “Jango described them as traitors and cowards! Why would you imagine they would help us at all? Surely they are far more likely to sell us out to this Sith than Jango is.”

Maul scowled. “Fett is hardly an impartial source of information,” he said. “The code of Death Watch is the code of the Mandalorians of old - the warriors who built an Empire! They are the ones who are strong enough to stand beside us.”

Savage was still frowning at him. “Jango said his father Jaster rewrote the code for the Haat Mando’ade .” He stumbled slightly over the Mando’a words. “He led those warriors after his father died. I know that most of them were killed, but is there no hope that some might still be out there? If Jango can rebuild his own faction…”

“If that were possible Fett would not be here with us ,” Maul said dismissively. “He would have tried to find them already.”

“Is that not what he intends to do while visiting the town?” Savage asked, gesturing in the direction the Promised Revenge had taken.

Maul could not say ‘but he did not do so the last time, so it must be impossible’. He could not justify why he knew that.

“You weren’t planning on going anywhere for months at least, right?” Kilindi told him, her voice soft. “There’s plenty of time to wait and see what happens. We don’t have to make that kind of decision yet.”

She was trying to pacify him and he did not appreciate it. “Time will prove me right,” he said. “You shall see.”

They did not believe him, he could sense it. Not yet. Very well. Let them cling to this scrap of kindness that had been offered - they would realise that it had been no more than an illusion when it was inevitably snatched away from them. There was no use in trying to convince them until they made that realisation for themselves.

“I am going for a walk,” he told them. Anger and something sharp and hot were prickling in his chest and he wanted to release that energy in the way he had been taught - but that way was violence and death and there was nobody that he wanted to hurt here. He turned and stalked away.

“Brother…” Savage said, but his conciliatory tone only stoked the fierce heat inside Maul higher. He ignored him entirely.

The fields on either side of the farm had grown cereal crops at some point. Now they were overgrown with weeds, unwanted and unusable native life. Untended, chaos and wild things thrived. That was the natural state of the world. Maul walked with no particular idea of where he was going, only that he was leaving Kilindi and his brothers behind him. Was he more furious with them for falling prey to this weakness, or with himself for being unable to make them understand the realities of the situation?

It had been only a week with Fett. He should not mean anything to any of them. Kilindi claimed to be his friend, his brothers were kin, they were supposed to follow him…

Maul’s nose caught a faint scent that did not belong. He stopped, tilted his head back and inhaled. Metal polish and human sweat. There was not supposed to be anyone out here, much less anyone armed or wearing armour. A local come to investigate their arrival? A Death Watch scout? Either way, if they meant them harm, Maul would kill them.

He was in the mood to kill something right now.

The scent was carried on the wind, easy to follow. The human must not know how keen a zabrak’s nose was - or he was not aware that Maul was out here. Maul crouched low enough to be hidden by the long wild grass and headed towards the source of the smell.

There was a man also hiding in the grass. He was in full beskar’gam , though the paint was chipped and worn and on the pauldron where an insignia might once have lain it had been scarred over intentionally. A deserter? Someone who had forsaken his past? The man had a long rifle in his hands, braced with an elbow on one knee. He was peering through the scope towards the homestead - merely observing, or preparing to fire?

Maul bared his teeth and drew a pair of vibroknives from his belt. He had more in various places on his person, for throwing and in case he was disarmed. Now he broke into a run to close the distance, trusting to his own speed over the reflexes of the stranger. The man began to turn towards him, swinging the rifle round, but Maul was already there. He leapt and kicked the barrel of the rifle away from him, using the impact to change direction and stab forwards at the gap between the pauldron and chestplate. The Mandalorian rolled backwards just enough so the vibroknife shuddered off beskar - or beskar-durasteel blend judging by the fact that it scored a line in the metal - dropped the rifle and grabbed for Maul’s arms.

Maul planted his other foot in the man’s abdomen and somersaulted backwards, landing neatly on his feet with both blades pointed towards the enemy. The stranger rose fluidly from kneeling to a crouch, hands raised ready to meet another attack. The blank slit of his helmet was focused on Maul.

Before Maul could attack again the man spoke. It was the Concordian dialect, spoken both here and on one of Mandalor’s moons, and it took him a moment to process his words. [ You fight well kid. Who trained you? ]

It would be best to keep up the facade of ignorance, to act in a way that made sense for what they were pretending to be - simple children Fett found on his travels. “I do not understand you,” he said in Basic. “Who are you? Why are you spying on our house?”

“Your house?” the man replied, in the same language. “This place already has an owner. You’re just squatting.”

There was something defensive and almost protective in his tone. Interesting. “It was in a poor state for a house that anyone owns. Why does it matter to you? It isn’t yours, is it?”

Maul felt the man’s tense anger in the Force. Yes, this mattered deeply to him. “That house belongs to my leader,” the man said, gesturing in the direction of the homestead. “When he returns…”

It was as Maul had suspected. “You followed Jango Fett,” he said.

That gave him pause. “How do you know that name?”

“Because he has returned,” Maul told him. “He’s the one that brought us here.”

For a moment the Mandalorian swayed on his feet like a puppet with its strings cut. “You… you’re lying to me adiik .”

“I’m not. He is merely away in town at the moment. You could wait here for him to return.” Maul was not worried about inviting the stranger into their midst. He was certain he could beat the man in a fight, and the emotions he was sensing felt genuine. It was difficult for those who were not Force-sensitive to conceal such things. He was more cautious about what his presence might mean long-term. His argument with Kilindi and his brothers was still fresh in his mind. If there was one survivor amongst the Haat Mando’ade, perhaps there could be more. Enough to make Fett a genuine prospect as an ally.

Maul was still confident that time would prove him right, but it would be foolish not to use this stranger to their advantage in the short-term. A soldier on their side was not something to be set aside lightly - and what was the other option? Kill him now and leave his body to rot in the fields? Maul could not take the time to dig a grave. Fett could find out, and his rage would ruin their sanctuary here.

“Well then?” he demanded.

“Where did Jango pick you four up?” the man asked, still mostly in shock. “Where has he been all these months?”

“Ask him yourself,” Maul said, beginning to walk in the direction of the homestead. After a moment, the Mandalorian followed. “What is your name, if you are going to be staying?”

“Silas,” the man replied. “It’s Silas.”

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

Savage watched his younger brother stomp away from them with a heavy, uneasy heart. He did not understand why Maul was so hesitant to offer trust. He was but a child. Had he been betrayed so often in his mere twelve years that he could no longer believe in promises? It seemed hard to believe it could be so, yet there could be no other reason for him to be so wary, so prickly. It had to be the doing of his Sith teacher. Savage had no idea who that man was, but he was deeply, desperately angry at them. Maul should be like Feral, as happy and content as Savage could make him, not brooding and raw and quick to anger. In a brief moment he mourned all that had been stolen from them, all the lost opportunities to be the big brother Maul deserved.

He could do that now. Savage wanted to do that now, only it seemed Maul didn’t want anyone to try and help him or protect him - not unless it was on his own terms. He didn’t want Jango’s help, even though it was freely offered. It seemed callous and cruel to say that they should throw their lot in with Jango’s enemies simply because those enemies were stronger and more numerous. Was that coldness in Maul another lesson from the Sith? Was it really that Jango's kindness meant nothing to him, or simply that he could not trust it?

Maul wanted him and Savage and Feral to be a family, didn't he? Savage hoped that was his reason for rescuing them from Dathomir, and not that he saw them too as no more than useful allies. Savage shouldn't have suggested that Jango could be a part of their family. He hadn't really meant it, hadn't actually thought of it as a possibility himself before, and it had only made his brother more angry. In truth Savage wasn't looking for someone to take the place of the father he barely remembered. None of the Nightbrothers put much stock in blood parents. Siblings were what was important, as well as respecting the village Elders. Men who were taken by the Nightsisters - their breeding stock - did not often come back. They were kept until there was no further use for them. Only their children were returned, rejected by all those Nightsisters wishing to bear daughters with strong, proven blood, yet who had been disappointed to find a boy growing in their wombs instead.

Fathers died. Sons were raised together by the village.

Savage did not know how the Mandalorians raised their children, but Maul seemed to think that their younglings were important to them. Savage found it hard to imagine being brought up by one person alone. Surely they would not have enough time - what about when they were tired, or busy with work? Perhaps it was easier when they had only one child to care for each.

Thinking about Jango in this way felt odd. Savage assumed that humans and zabrak aged similarly, and if so Jango was still young, somewhere in his early twenties. Too old to be a sibling, a child safe because of their age, not old enough to be an Elder, to have fallen short of the Nightsisters’ requirements for strength and skill. Yes, old enough to be a father, but that was a poisoned cup, a poor title. It meant only that he was old enough to catch a Nightsister's attention and play the role of their stud.

"He'll be okay," Kilindi said, breaking Savage from his dour thoughts. She was addressing Feral, patting his shoulder with one hand. "There's nothing out there that can hurt him."

"He was already hurting," Feral said, his distress plain. "I felt it. In here." He pressed his palm against his chest.

Feral felt it? He must mean the Force, the power of the witches - and of the Sith.

This whole argument had started because Savage questioned why his brother wanted to hide their training in this magic from Jango. Now he wondered if it would have been better to go along with it, to simply accept Maul’s plan. However it was necessary to know what Maul intended for their future. Young he might be, but he had a drive and a determination that was impressive. Savage had thought sometimes of escaping Dathomir with Feral but he knew it had only ever been an idle fantasy. Maul had dared to escape from the Sith, a far more daunting prospect.

"How long have you known Maul, Kilindi?" Feral asked. "You never said."

The nautolan shrugged. "I'm not sure if he would want me to tell you."

"But why wouldn't he want us to know about him?" Feral said, plaintive. "He's our brother."

"He is," Savage agreed, "but Feral, you saw how hard it is for him to trust. He would only feel safe telling us those things himself.”

“Exactly,” Kilindi said, nodding. “It isn’t that he doesn’t care about you Feral… he just doesn’t know how to show that. I… I think before me he hadn’t ever had a friend before.” She shut her mouth quickly, a faint flush of embarrassment across her cheeks. “But perhaps I shouldn’t have even said that much,” she added quietly.

“We will simply have to give him time, Feral,” Savage said. “And there must be a way to convince him that we can make a good, safe life for ourselves here.”

Kilindi bit her lip. “He doesn’t want a good, safe life,” she said. “Or he doesn’t think that’s possible for us. With this Sith person out there, he’s probably right. It’s not the sort of life that Mandalorians are known for either, and we already know that Jango wants to get revenge on Death Watch.”

She was right. Jango had unfinished business. He would not want to stay and work this farm forever, not with that hanging over him. “Is that part of Maul’s hesitation?” he asked. “Does he believe Jango will abandon us to seek his revenge?”

“I thought he wanted to help Jango kill the ones who hurt him, up until he started talking about joining Death Watch,” Kilindi said, slightly plaintive.

Savage shook his head. There was something about this whole situation that they were missing. “I do not understand why Death Watch would help us with anything,” he said. “I know little about them, or these Mandalorian factions at all. Only what little Jango has said.”

“Before I met Maul,” Kilindi said, picking her words carefully, “I was trained briefly by a Mandalorian. His name was Meltch Krakko and I think maybe he was Death Watch. He left to join their civil war.”

Feral bit his lip. “If there’s a war on, then is it really safe here?”

“Jango seems to think so,” Savage replied. “We have seen no signs of fighting or violence these past few days.”

“We’re safe for now,” Kilindi said, “but I can’t help but feel like we’re going to get caught up in the civil war eventually. I suppose it depends what Jango wants to do, and Maul as well.”

“We must ask Jango what his plans are,” Savage decided. “Otherwise we can only speculate with empty words.”

“Not just Jango,” Kilindi said. “We need to get straight what all of us want. What our goals are for the future. Then we can work out if we can all get what we want, or if things just can’t work out, the way Maul seems to believe.”

“Is Maul going to want to tell us that?” Feral asked. “What if he still won’t talk to us?”

Savage sighed. “It does not help that we do not know how much time we have,” he said. “Maul is afraid of his Sith teacher finding him before he is strong enough to defeat him, yes? But if that does not happen for months or even years… Surely it will take years to be ready in any case? Maul cannot fight this man - he is a child!”

“We can fight,” Kilindi said. “We were trained to fight, even against adults. But… there is the Force too.”

“Then the Death Watch are, what? To shield us from the Sith until we are stronger in the Force?” Savage clenched his fist shut in frustration. He doubted they would offer any form of protection without a price, and to stand against a Sith that price would be high indeed. How did Maul plan to pay it?

“There’s no point guessing,” Kilindi said. “It’s pretty hard to know what Maul is thinking sometimes. I’m sure he’ll be back in a little while though. We should find something to do until then, so we aren’t just worrying.”

“You are wise for your age,” Savage said. It was meant to be a compliment - he wasn’t entirely sure he’d made it come out that way.

Kilindi shrugged. “I learned fast, when I was young,” she replied. “Maybe you could show me the warrior training of your village? I’m sure that Maul wants the two of you to be trained to fight like we are.”

Savage nodded. He suspected as much - and he was curious what training Kilindi and his brother shared as well. “Feral has not started learning yet,” he said, “but I am happy to show you.”

----

After Jango had brought the Promised Revenge in to land on the outskirts of the small settlement of Arakura he sat for some time thinking things over in his head. A few days hadn’t been enough to take away the raw pain of returning home, of living in the place where his parents had died. The buildings were too familiar even in this state of disrepair; he would turn a corner and expect to see his mother working on one of the pieces of farm equipment that had broken down yet again, or his father coming in from the fields. He felt their absence more keenly than he had been in a decade.

He was sure it was because he had lost so much else in the past few years. First Jaster on Korda 6, and then Arla along with the rest of the Haat’ade on Galidraan. Their love and support as well as the satisfaction of his revenge against the man who killed his parents had been enough to ease the sharp edge of loss before. Then on Galidraan came blood and death and fury, fighting for his life in the mud against the bright flickering blades of the deadly jetiise , whose cold eyes cared nothing for Jango or anyone he loved. In the aftermath, lying surrounded by the corpses of those he’d managed to kill, his blood seeping into the dirt and floating in and out of consciousness, his heart had been an empty void. Death had been nothing to fear. He expected to rejoin his people in the manda , though he had not looked for the honour of rising to the ranks of the ka’ra amongst the dead like his second buir . He had failed his people too greatly for that.

Instead the governor’s men descended like vultures, stripped him like scavengers, hauled him off to be sold as a slave like the hut’uun they were.

Jango tapped his fingers against the control stick of the freighter. He’d sat here before, when Colton couldn’t be bothered to fly. This ship had been another prison, the tight confines of its walls somehow a better taste of freedom than the crushing despair that seemed to drip from every corner of the Good Trip . It was a freedom to go other places, even if he only saw the inside of docking bays, hangars, and - at least he had that - the stars.

Those adiikla Maul and Kilindi had given him a greater gift than he ever thought to hope for. Hope had been lost for a long time. Hope died on Galidraan.

Ossik , those kids. Jango knew from the moment he saw them there was nothing pleasant about where they’d come from. Children trying to survive alone in the galaxy were always running from something tragic, whether that was whatever fate had happened to their parents, or the kind of upbringing Jango would rather not think about. Kilindi was more open about her past than Maul. She felt some kinship with Jango, given his enslavement.

The fact that Maul was so close-lipped, along with the fact that he acted a lot older than the twelve standard he looked, suggested that he’d gone through something worse than what Kilindi had suffered through. There was no such thing as “good” slavery - that was a lie hut’uuun told themselves to make themselves feel better - but a house slave might get off easier than… whatever Maul was.

That wasn’t a guarantee. On the Good Trip the slaves spoke when they could, told stories of their pasts. Every slave was constantly at the mercy of their Masters’ worst impulses - their violence, their sadism, their sexual appetites…

As it had many times over the past eighteen months, a vast, aching, helpless rage rose up in Jango’s heart. Slavery was a problem too big for one person to solve but that didn’t stop him wanting to scream and fight and tear the whole thing down. Even if all he could do was protect these adiikla , that was at least something.

Jango thought Maul’s past had something to do with the Force. Becoming a slave himself had introduced him to a criminal underworld he’d known about before, but not in the depth and detail he did now. Force-sensitive slaves were a prize that carried an expensive price-tag. Maul denied that he’d been trained by a jetii and claimed to hate them even. That might be because they had failed to find him, to save him from the slavers.

It was only a guess. Almost certainly not the whole story.

What was he going to do with them? With all four of them, Maul’s brothers included? Protect them, obviously, but giving them a place to sleep and something to do for a few days was only the beginning of that. They needed a steady source of food, ongoing safety, an education… and they needed their emotional needs to be met. Jango was surely kidding himself if he thought he could do all that. His whole life for the past eighteen-odd months had been going through the motions of living. Even now he was free he could barely think about what he was doing right now much less plan for the future.

He was no fit parent. Adiikla from their sort of background would need more than he knew how to give. Maul didn’t trust him at all, and although Kilindi did, it was only to an extent. If he did something wrong that trust would break like spun glass, and there would be no fixing it again. Only there wasn’t anyone else, and he couldn’t leave them alone to fend for themselves.

Jango sighed from deep in his chest, and forced himself to actually get up and get to work. There was a lot to do - panes of glass and plaster-mix to buy, rumours to collect, and he needed to visit the clinic here and find out if they would let him take a set of vaccinations out to the farm himself or if they would insist on him bringing the kids in to get their shots. He expected the answer was going to be the latter, but Maul wouldn’t be happy about it. He was prickly enough around just Jango, much less the whole populace of the village. That wasn’t even getting into if he had any bad history with medics.

That was a conversation to prepare for on the way back home. One of a few Jango would need to have with the adiikla . Both Maul and Kilindi spoke of being trained in their past when they were claiming they could take care of themselves. Jango thought they were probably overestimating their abilities as children often did, but one thing they certainly could do was be stealthy. He needed them to show him what they were actually capable of, and then along with the two boys from Dathomir he could come up with a training programme for them.

Jango paused at the exit hatch. If he was thinking about training the adiikla , then how much was he willing to commit to that? Was he going to teach them the Resol’nare too? Was he intending to bring them up like Mando’ade? Did he have any right to do so, after his failure at Galidraan?

He had no answer to these questions. It had been little more than a week since Maul and Kilindi freed him and he hadn’t found his feet yet or any sense of a stable place to stand. There would be time to figure all this out. To get his buy’ce on straight.

Jango headed out, into a village where his first language of Mando’a made up the background murmur of conversation, comforting yet at the same time feeling almost alien after going so long without it. He had people to talk to.

----

Savage did not get much of a chance to demonstrate any of his skills to Kilindi, because not long after he began to work through one of the standard katas he had been taught Feral jumped up from the crate he was using as a seat and pointed out at the fields.

“Maul is coming back,” he shouted. “He’s got someone with him.”

Savage and Kilindi both turned to look. Maul was indeed walking along the path between the fields with a Mandalorian at his side - or so Savage assumed. Jango had mentioned their warriors usually wore armour, but this was the first time he was seeing it. The painted metal plates covered most of the stranger’s body, with a grey jumpsuit as protection beneath. The colour was predominantly green, with yellow at his shoulders, red at his wrists, and a blue rim around the t-shaped visor of his helmet. Was there some significance to the colours?

Maul was holding a blaster rifle that was too big for him, angled to cover the warrior. Not precisely a friend then. Kilindi moved quickly to the house and picked up a blaster of her own, one of the ones they had purchased on Bandomeer. Of course all of them had vibroknives on them as was simply wise, but a ranged weapon could be handy if this warrior proved to be a problem.

As the pair neared the homestead the stranger’s helmet started to turn, sweeping the courtyard between the farm buildings as though he were looking for something.

“He will not return for some time,” Maul said, with a sharp edge to his tone. “As I told you.”

“Brother, who is this?” Savage asked, his hand hovering over the hilt of his knife.

“He calls himself Silas,” Maul replied. “He claims he was once a follower of Jango Fett.”

“One of his Haat Mando’ade ?” Savage asked, surprised. “He told us they were all dead.”

His words seemed to shock the man out of whatever stupor had taken him. “Almost all of us,” he said. “I was badly injured, but the jetiise didn’t manage to kill me. I… I looked for him, afterwards.” He started to speak faster, an urgency there that had him almost tripping over his own tongue. “What happened to him? I couldn’t find him - there was no sign, no body, so I hoped that he was still alive but…”

“Calm yourself,” Maul said irritably. “He will return tonight from town. You may ask him all your questions yourself then.”

The man’s chest rose and fell in a deep shuddering breath. He managed to relax. “You kids must know something though. How long have you been with Jango?”

“If Fett wants you to know he will be free to tell you himself,” Maul said. “Sit down.” He gestured to one of the crates near the wall with an impatient stab of the blaster rifle. Some part of Savage was glad that Maul’s sense of intense privacy extended to others, rather than just himself. It was considerate of him.

The Mandalorian, Silas, sat down as Maul instructed, his hands closing in a nervous grip over the armour plating his thighs. He rubbed his palms briefly up and down. “Can I ask your names?” he said.

Savage looked to Maul. His brother shrugged, a casual movement of one shoulder. There was still tension in his small frame, leashed potential, and his finger hovered near the rifle’s trigger.

“I am Savage,” Savage said. “You’ve met one of my brothers. Feral is the younger one.”

“Kilindi,” Kilindi said. “How did you know there was anyone out here?”

“The ship.” Silas gestured upwards. “I’ve been living… well. Somewhere near here. With friends. People who know who I used to be. When somebody saw a ship heading towards the old Fett farm the word got round to me eventually.”

Savage did not miss the cautious way he talked around giving any specific details. It was obvious he did not entirely believe that Jango Fett was still alive, or that they were here with his blessing. He was still willing to brave their potential trap because he hoped that it was true, but he was prepared to be betrayed.

“We expected the news to spread eventually,” Maul said. “Once Fett has reassured you, you can tell your friends that there is no reason for concern in our presence here.”

“If you won’t tell me about Jango that’s fine,” Silas said. “But… I’m just surprised to find he’s picked up four children somewhere along the way. There must be an interesting story behind that.”

“Not one we are willing to tell you yet,” Maul said, before anyone else could speak. “You managed to survive the Jedi attack. Are you sure there were no others?”

Silas shook his head. “I dragged myself all over that muddy field,” he said, his voice shaking faintly. “I found the bodies of everyone except Jango. I wasn’t sure if he escaped or if they took him prisoner. There are still some amongst the clans who are loyal to the true Mand’alor…”

“Mand’alor,” Maul said, cutting in over Silas sharply. “You mean Fett?”

“Yes,” Silas said slowly. “I guess I’m not surprised that Jango didn’t mention that, but… you know what that title means?”

“ I do not,” Savage said. He glanced at Kilindi but she shook her head. Wherever Maul learned that, it had not been the place the two of them had trained.

“The leader of the Mandalorian people,” Maul said. “I thought it required one to wield the Darksaber.”

“ Kyr’tsad believe that, yes,” Silas said. His helmet tilted - Savage imagined he was giving Maul a searching look from beneath the visor. “Where did you learn about Mandalorians, adiik ?”

“If Death Watch believe something so different, how can you truly say your leader is the real Mand’alor?” Maul said, not answering the question. “Do they have a Mand’alor of their own?”

“You really want a lesson in Mandalorian political history at a time like this?”

Maul nodded, taking one hand off the rifle to spread it wide in a gesture that said ‘why not’?

“Well…” Silas said slowly. “I suppose if you want to argue the point there hasn’t been one single Mand’alor for all the Clans to rally behind since the fall of the Empire. In the aftermath of what the Republic and the jetiise did, the New Mandalorian faction managed to win most of the support of the Clans in what was left of Mandalorian territory. Back then they weren’t as insular and pacifist as they’ve become, but they resisted the idea of taking the title of Mand’alor because of what happened to the last Mand’alor of the Empire.”

“And what was that?” Savage asked.

“They were executed,” Silas replied. “By the jetiise .”

Maul snarled. “I should not be surprised. The Jedi frequently think themselves entitled to interfere with others, excusing themselves with their supposed moral code.”

“It was a war,” the Mandalorian said. “The jetiise were fighting on the side of the Republic. That’s kind of what happens to the leader of the losing side.”

“You defend them,” Maul said, his eyes narrowed and furious. “They slaughtered your people.”

Silas’s hands tightened into fists. “I hate the jetiise who attacked us more than enough,” he said, voice tight and barely controlled.. “But their actions have nothing to do with those of the jetiise from centuries ago. Otherwise the Haat’ade are no better than our marauding, empire-building ancestors.”

“Your ‘empire-building ancestors’ were strong,” Maul said. “I would not be so ashamed of them.”

“Hmmm.” Silas gave Maul another long look. “You have a lot of opinions for someone who isn’t Mandalorian themselves.”

“I have strong opinions about many things in this galaxy,” Maul replied.

“Well,” Silas said. “That was over seven centuries ago. For the first few centuries the New Mandalorians were basically in charge. Then they stopped listening to the will of the Clans, started to say that our heritage, our culture, even the tenets of the Resol’nare itself were wrong. Misguided. Evil, even. They blamed those things for what the Republic did to us. Many of the clans ended up practising the traditional ways in private.

“Given that, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the clans ended up getting together and electing a Mand’alor again. The New Mandalorians knew about it, but there wasn’t much they could do without a fight - and their own code prevented that. Those faithful to the old ways forged their own path, giving lip service to the New Mandalorians only. And then, eventually, we had this philosophical split between Kyr’tsad and Haat Mando’ade , between Jaster Mereel and Tor Viszla.”

“And which of them had been chosen as Mand’alor by the Clans?” Maul asked.

“Jaster,” Silas said, with definite pride. “Tor wasn’t happy about it - none of House Vizsla was. There had been a lot of Vizsla Mand’alors over the past few centuries. That’s meant to be how the whole link with the dha’kad came about. The heads of Clan Vizsla have wielded the dha'kad since retrieving it from the Jedi Temple almost a millenia ago.

“Anyway, Tor challenged Jaster to duel for the title of Mand’alor, and he lost. The rite of combat is an old one, just not one that comes up that often. The appointed Mand’alor doesn’t even have to accept if the challenger isn’t favoured by the clans as well, though it’s up to their judgement of course. No-one can dispute the result of the duel though. After Jaster defeated him Tor tried to give him the dha'kad , but Jaster thought it should stay with House Vizsla.”

Silas looked down. When he spoke again it was quieter, contemplative. “Perhaps that was part of the problem. Perhaps Tor thought Jaster was disrespecting him, disrespecting his own ideas about how the position of Mand’alor should work. Or maybe he’s just an evil hut’uun who would have fought us no matter what - that seems more likely to me after everything he’s done since. Either way, kyr’tsad have their Vizsla Mand’alor, and we had Jaster and then Jango.”

“That is… very interesting,” Maul said. Savage agreed, but he suspected that everything they’d heard meant more to his brother than it did to him.

“So,” Feral asked - he had been listening to all of this with the intensity of the young. “If Jango fought the Death Watch Mand’alor now, and took the dha… dha'kad … then maybe they would stop fighting?”

“Maybe,” Silas said. “If Tor even agreed to a duel.”

“Would it not be dishonourable to refuse?” Savage asked.

“You can never tell which days kyr’tsad will decide they’re being honourable,” Silas said, with a great deal of bitterness.

“Now that you have found Fett - your Mand’alor - what are your intentions?” Maul asked.

Silas laughed. “I didn’t come here today expecting to learn that Jango is still alive. I don’t know. I haven’t even had time to think.”

“But you intend to help him, with whatever he might wish to do?”

“Of course,” the Mandalorian replied.

“Jango won’t be back for a while,” Kilindi said. “We’re expecting him around dinnertime. Do you want something to drink in the meantime? Caff perhaps?”

“Caff… would be nice. Thanks.”

Kilindi nodded, and went to make it for him. Maul leaned with false casualness against the wall of the house, still keeping an eye on Silas. Savage hoped he didn’t intend to stay there on watch all afternoon. He got no sense that this man wished them harm.

Savage thought that this man’s arrival was a good omen for them all. It was clear he cared a great deal about Jango, and it was also clear that Jango had been hurt deeply by the deaths of his people. Perhaps finding that one of them at least had survived would lift some of that weight from his heart and give him cheer. Silas might also be able to help Jango figure out what he wanted to do now. He might have some knowledge - or be able to find some - that would help with the revenge that they were all sure Jango wanted.

It was harder to say if Maul thought this was a good thing. He had been looking for something with his questions that Savage did not understand. His information about Mandalorian culture and history was more than any of the rest of them possessed, but it appeared to be fragmentary and the gaps in it had also meant something to Silas. Savage did not know the significance of that either.

He sighed. These were not questions he wanted to explore in front of his brother, who would not be pleased with the probing.

Kilindi emerged with a mug of steaming caff and brought it over to Silas. The man reached up to slide his helmet off with the faint hiss of a depressurising seal and gave her a smile, taking it and wrapping his hands around it. He had brown hair and eyes, with skin much paler than Jango’s. He seemed content to sit on that crate and enjoy his caff without pressing any of them to answer the questions he surely had.

“Perhaps we can return to our former business,” Savage suggested to Kilindi.

“What business was that?” Maul asked with an edge of suspicion.

“I was going to show Kilindi how the Nightbrothers trained,” he replied. Maul considered that for a moment.

“Not in front of our prisoner,” he said.

“Is that what I am?” Silas asked, half amused and half genuinely wary.

“Until Fett says otherwise.”

Savage shrugged. It appeared Maul really did plan to stand guard all that time. There was space on the other side of the barn where he could show Kilindi the warrior forms. “Are you staying here or coming with us?” he asked Feral.

“Staying here,” Feral replied immediately. “I want to hear some Mandalorian stories.”

“Very well.” Savage left them to it.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

The sun was lowering towards the horizon when Maul caught sight of the Promised Revenge as an approaching speck against the sky. The Mandalorian Silas had not caused any problems in the intervening hours. Standing guard was not a particularly stimulating task but Maul had long practise at patience. Waiting for the right moment to strike had been part of his training. Reaching to touch the Force allowed him to fall into a kind of meditation where he would be instantly alerted to any sign of danger even if his other senses failed to detect it.

At Feral’s request, Silas had indeed been telling him stories. Maul listened with half an ear. Some were faintly familiar from his time with Death Watch, but many were pitched towards the soldier’s ten-year-old audience and so were new to him. They were predominantly tales of Mandalore's warrior past, or Mand’alors of ancient times. Maul imagined there was not a great deal of historical accuracy there after so long, not to mention the natural exaggeration of children’s stories.

Silas noticed the approaching ship not long after Maul did, cutting off his story mid-sentence. “Is that him?” he asked, obvious hope warring with his better instincts.

Maul simply nodded. The freighter approached quickly, coming down to land just outside the homestead. Maul pushed himself upright and gestured to Silas. “No doubt you are eager to meet him again,” he said.

Silas stood on slightly shaky legs, but strode towards the ship with Maul and Feral trailing him with barely a hitch in his step. Savage and Kilindi emerged from the other side of the house to join them too, but Silas’ attention was fixed on the exit hatch, paying the rest of them little mind. The door slid open when they were still a little distance away, and Fett exited with a package under one arm.

“I’m back,” he called, and then looked up to see the armoured warrior standing in their midst.

He dropped the package - it clattered off the deck. Maul winced. He was fairly sure that had been the window glass.

“Silas,” Fett said. The word was more of a whisper. Blood drained from his face, leaving it ashen with shock. His next words were in Mando’a, though Maul knew that language well enough. [ Silas… it can’t be. You’re dead. ]

[ I thought the same about you, ] Silas replied with a shaky smile. [ I didn’t dare to hope, but I guess we both survived after all. ]

[ How? ]

[ Long story, ] Silas said. Looking around he gestured to the farmstead and to Maul, Kilindi and his brothers. [ On your side as well apparently. Can we… can we talk about it? ]

Blinking, Fett managed to shake himself out of his shock. [ Of course, ] he said. He crouched to pick up the dropped package and came down the ramp, passing it over to Savage with an apologetic look. In Basic he said, “Check this is still in one piece for me please Savage. Silas and I need to talk privately.”

“Of course,” Savage replied, his tone gentle and sympathetic.

Fett took Silas by the shoulder and led him inside the house. Maul had no intention of allowing them their privacy, not when their conversation would be so key to the safety and future of the rest of them. He waited until Fett closed the front door behind them and then made for the nearby boarded-over window.

“Maul!” Savage hissed, giving him a look of deep disapproval.

“We must know what they are discussing,” Maul told him.

“They will be speaking their own language anyway,” Savage replied. “Unless you know it somehow?”

Kilindi was frowning. “We didn’t learn that where we were before.”

It would be easy to claim that he had been taught Mando’a during his early years with Sidious, but that would beg the question of why the Sith would think it important that he should know it. He had already given away more than he intended to to Silas, he was certain. His knowledge of Mandalore had come entirely from Death Watch, and apparently it showed. Maul growled with frustration, glaring at the house, then shook his head and moved away again. “I know a few words,” he said. “Picked up here and there, before Kilindi and I knew each other.”

“I am sure Jango will tell us anything important from their conversation,” Savage said in an attempt to sooth him.

“Is that glass broken?” Maul asked, changing the subject and nodding towards the package in his brother’s arms.

“Oh,” Savage shook it gently. There was a faint rattling noise. “I fear so brother.”

Maul sighed. “Well let us unwrap it and see if anything can be salvaged. Then I did intend for us to have another session training with the Force.”

----

Fett and Silas did not emerge for about an hour. Maul had Savage and Feral meditating for most of that time, instructing them in how to focus on their emotions and use them to reach out for the world around them. They were attempting to lift pebbles. There had been no success as yet, but Maul was not expecting there to be. They were still stumbling around in the darkness of inexperience - once they learned the trick of touching the Force they would move along far more quickly.

Maul felt Fett coming before he was in sight, and ushered everyone up off the ground before they could arouse suspicion. There was still a faintly stunned expression on the man’s face, and he hesitated for a long moment staring at them before he spoke.

“Silas told me how you managed to capture him, Maul. You impressed him.”

Maul merely gave him a flat stare. He did not care if he impressed anyone unless it made them more likely to do as he wished.

“So… he really is someone that you used to know?” Kilindi asked.

“Yeah,” Fett said, voice rough. “He’s Haat’ade , like me.”

“And you’re the Mand’alor!” Feral said, rather more excited about this than he ought to be in Maul’s opinion.

A pained expression passed over Fett’s face. “I was once. I’m… not anymore.”

That caught Maul’s interest. He had wondered what Fett’s thoughts about his own title were. There had been nothing particularly grand or even that commanding about his manner in the short period they had known each other. Of course he had been a slave for some time - Maul did not know the date of the battle on Galidraan - and he had been soundly defeated in combat even if it was to Jedi rather than other Mandalorians. A man brought low could rise again, but only if they had the will for it.

“I… have no Clan,” Fett explained with halting words. “No House, no people. Silas and I are the only ones left. I led my soldiers into a trap. Why would any of the other clans want to follow me?”

“They have to follow someone,” Kilindi said. “Or did all the old clans join Death Watch once they thought you were dead?” Those were hash words, a challenge. Maul approved of pricking at his pride and ideals, even if having Fett recover his ambition did not mesh well with his own plans.

A spark of anger lit behind Fett’s eyes. “Oh, I’m going to have my revenge against Kyr'tsad ,” he said. “That’s not in question. After that… the Kalevalans can do what they want. They did before. Let them keep down what I leave of Death Watch. I don’t care anymore.”

“But…” Feral looked up at him in confusion. “What about Silas? What about… about the Mandalorian people?”

“If Kyr'tsad is out of the picture they’ll get on fine,” Fett said dismissively.

“So you have plotted out your revenge already?” Maul asked him. “Was that what you and Silas discussed?”

“Among other things,” Fett said, after a moment. “Like I said, the first thing I need is to get my armour back.”

“You said something before about Mandalorians having their souls bound into their armour,” Savage said, brow furrowed in thought. “That is why it is so important to you?”

“That’s part of it, but... beskar’gam is passed down through the Clan,” Fett said. Once again it was obvious to Maul that this was a difficult topic for him to talk about, but he did not flinch from speaking of it. Was it because he wished to share his culture with them? Maul thought again of orphans and adoption with a strange, prickling sense of discomfort and anticipation.. “Clan Fett is an old clan, but its fortunes have risen and fallen over the years. There’s not many Fetts still around. My parents weren’t rich, they didn’t have much. If there was meant to be beskar’gam that came to them, I don’t know what happened to it - perhaps sacrificed to the Kalevalan’s ideals at some point in the past few centuries. My buire respected the old ways enough to have sets of beskar’gam hidden away for a time of emergency even if they could only afford a mostly durasteel blend. I saw it in the cupboard once or twice.” He took a shuddering breath, forced himself to continue. “ Kyr'tsad took that when they came here and killed them. The armour I wore was passed down from Jaster’s ba’buir , and after Jaster died, I added a couple of his pieces too. Beskar’gam is aliit. Family. Heritage. It’s important .”

“We’ll help you get it back,” Kilindi said. “Of course we will.”

“I’m not asking that of you,” Fett said. “I’d rather know that you’re safe here on Concord Dawn than facing up against Kry’tsad or whoever has my beskar’gam now.” He laughed, short and hard and unhappy. “I don’t even know where it is. Silas has more contacts than I do these days, particularly since he joined the Protectors. He’s going to try and track it down. I don’t know how easy it’ll be.”

Protectors. They were some manner of law enforcement on this planet weren’t they? Maul had a vague recollection of that. “And when you have it?” he asked Fett. “What then?”

“Depends,” Fett replied. “If Kyr'tsad are holding it, then I go after them too. If it’s been sold on to someone else, a collector maybe, then I’ll need to reassess my targets. In the end, Kyr'tsad won’t die or stand down as long as Tor Vizsla is still leading them. He’s the one responsible for all of this. He’s the one who has to die.”

“Then he will die,” Savage agreed. “And if there is anything we can do to help you, we shall.”

“Where do we fit in all of this?” Maul asked him, insistent on getting an answer now. He needed this to be clear.

Fett gave him a long and searching look. Maul wondered if Silas had shared his suspicions with him. If Fett had already been questioning Maul’s knowledge for himself before that. “Like I said, I owe you a debt,” he said. “It’s up to you how I pay it back. If you want to stay, this house is yours for as long as you want it. If you want a quiet life here, I’ll help you get the farm set up again, I’ll make sure Kyr'tsad or any other dangers stay well away. If… if quiet isn’t something any of you want or can imagine, we’ll find something else.”

It both was and was not an answer. It was too open. Too much offered for one simple life debt. Maul clenched his jaw until his teeth began to hurt, feeling the twitching urge to pace. He needed to ask the question, but it would be suspicious. They were already suspicious about his knowledge of their culture. Yet…

“What sort of something else?” he asked. “Do you mean to make us Mandalorians?”

“Given the mess we’ve made with infighting these past decade or so perhaps that’s not a good thing to offer,” Fett said. He hesitated, then seemed to come to some decision. “But. Yes. If that’s what you want, if that’s what suits you.”

Feral’s eyes gleamed with an excited light. “We were training to be Nightbrother warriors, but Mandalorian warriors sound even better!”

“I don’t know about that. A life of farming doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Savage said, “but I expect I am in the minority there.” Maul suppressed a sneer. Savage was meant for more than digging in the dirt. It appealed to him now only because he knew no better. He would come to understand what their power could get them, in time.

“I honestly think I would get bored living a quiet life,” Kilindi told him, smiling. “I always expected to make a living as a bounty hunter or something similar.”

“It can be an honourable profession,” Fett told her. “ Haat Mando’ade used to be mercenaries more than bounty hunters, but it wasn’t unknown for our people.”

Kilindi turned to Maul. “I don’t want to speak for you, but… this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Maul inclined his head, not breaking off eye contact with Fett. “And if we agree, will you adopt us?” he asked, with a hint of menace. “Will you grow the ranks of Clan Fett again?”

Fett stiffened. He cast about for what to say, seeming to have no answer to that. Did he flinch to have his secret desire bared to them all?

“Would that be a bad thing, brother?” Savage said. “We are already a family. We would only be adding one more - and it would not have to mean any more than you wanted it to mean.”

“I am not about to call him my father,” Maul said sharply. Even if he had not been far older than this physical body the idea would still have been laughable. If that was what Fett wanted he would have to be disappointed.

“And I won’t ask that of you,” Fett told him, yet Maul could not believe him.

“Is your teaching and protection contingent on some kind of ownership over us or not?” That was as plain as he could ask, Maul thought. He didn’t know why it made Fett’s face soften in some kind of sadness.

“Family isn’t ownership,” the Mandalorian said. “It’s not meant to be.”

Family. All Maul knew of family was the same kind of bonds that held all other types of relationships together. Obligation. Power. Control. Usefulness. Perhaps Fett did not call such things ownership, yet still he would set himself above them, the source of knowledge, the one who made commands and expected to be followed. His plans and tricks might be far easier to follow than those of Mother Talzin or Darth Sidious, but they would be there all the same.

Yet still there was a deep and yearning emptiness in Maul’s stomach. He did not understand it, what it was or where it came from. It was a hunger with no clear sense of what would sate it. He looked away, dropping his gaze in a gesture of submission.

“As you say. I… do wish to learn from you.”

There were many advantages to taking this path. Maul had sparred with Saxon and Rook and others, but the martial techniques of Kyr'tsad could be different to those of Haat Mando’ade . Feral and Savage needed to be taught properly how to fight. If a Mandalorian proclaimed them all kin they were no longer outsiders - with the benefit of such cultural knowledge perhaps this time more of Kyr'tsad would accept that he had a right to rule them when he claimed the Darksaber.

It hadn’t mattered to Pre that he was an outsider. Maul understood that even more now that he knew Vizsla hadn’t actually been obligated to accept his challenge at all. Given that, how could Fett claim Kyr'tsad lacked honour?

In any case, Fett would hardly be the worst teacher Maul had ever had. Nor would it be forever.

“Maul…” Fett was crouching in front of him. Maul met his eyes again only so he could glare with annoyance at being spoken down to in this way. He might have a child’s height, but there was no need to kneel . Once Fett saw that he had his attention again he gave him a very earnest look. “Family isn’t something that anyone should force on you. I get it. You’ve known me for barely a week. I shouldn’t even… Maybe this isn’t the right thing for any of us.”

“So with one hand you offer a gift and with the other snatch it away,” Maul said mockingly. “Either you want us as part of your culture and everything that comes with it or you do not.”

“Brother…” Savage said, sounding distressed.

Fett sighed. “It’s not like you have to give me a final answer right now. This isn’t all or nothing. It’s just… an offer. It’s about what you want, not what I want.”

The world was about what every individual person wanted and nothing less. Fett was lying to him but Maul could not sense the dishonesty inside him and it was maddening.

“Let’s just… keep on doing what we’ve been doing for these past few days,” Fett continued. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

Maul’s eyes narrowed. “No Fett,” he growled. “If you wish to make this bargain then you will teach us. You will train us.”

“Not sure there’s that much more you and Kilindi need to know on that front,” Fett said, with the ghost of a smile. A poor attempt at humour. “Sorry for doubting you before, adiik .”

“As our trainer, shouldn’t you be the judge of that?” Maul said.

“If we are going to become Mandalorians…” Feral asked cautiously. “Does that mean we get armour like Silas’?”

“Eventually, once you’re old enough.”

“And how old is that?” Maul asked. It was not something that had come up during his time with Kyr'tsad . He might have been their Mand’alor but they had never asked him or even spoken to him about wearing beskar’gam . Now he wondered why that was. He knew it was not because he was a zabrak - Mandalorians made no species distinction when it came to who could join their ranks, and they had many ways of modifying armour accordingly. Because he was a Sith?

“Once you’ve been through your verd’goten ,” Fett said. “Once you’re officially no longer a child.”

“Which is at what age?” Maul asked. “What does it involve?”

“Thirteen standard,” Fett replied. “It’s a test of your skills as a warrior, and of your survival skills.”

Maul nodded. It sounded very similar to the tests he’d been challenged with at Orsis. He imagined it as a repetition of one particular challenge - the Gora, the great crater on Orsis filled with dangerous wild beasts and lashed by localised and potentially deadly weather conditions. He had spent a week within its confines, in the other version of reality that now lay in his past. It was one of the few good memories from that period he held onto despite that it was tainted by what had happened at the end of his time at the Academy.

“Then I am already past it,” Savage observed.

“It’s not that unusual to have foundlings join us at your age,” Fett said. “We can still do it.” He hesitated. “If that’s something you want.”

“We should start training as soon as possible,” Maul told him.

“Yeah…” Fett gave him a wary glance. “We’re basically finished setting the house to rights anyway. Silas is going to stick around with us, when he’s not off gathering information. He can help.”

Two trainers could be better than one only if they knew how to work together. Seeing the respect and almost worshipful attitude Silas had towards Fett meant that Maul was not overly worried about that.

“Oh,” Fett added. “Also, I asked at the clinic. I need to take you in for your vaccines. Sorry.”

Maul glared at him.

----

The strange emotional turmoil Maul had been feeling throughout that conversation with Fett only settled slowly over the next few days. He got nowhere from examining it and attempting to divine its meaning, so he simply pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on the present. True to his word, Fett had indeed begun their physical training, after that quick but unpleasant visit to the local clinic for the immunisations that were apparently vital to survive on this planet long-term. Maul had pestered the medic for details as to why any of this was necessary and then been interested despite himself when she shared all of the gory details. The local diseases really did appear to be, without exception, entirely deadly.

It spoke well of the determination of the Concordians that they had persisted in their colonisation efforts despite that fact.

Fett and Silas were focusing most of their efforts at first on Feral and Savage. Fett had asked Maul and Kilindi to spar briefly to show him their abilities, and after that he set them mostly to strength and endurance training which he said would both be necessary for them to bear the weight of beskar’gam when the time came. There was a simple pleasure to the physical exercise that Maul enjoyed. It gave him space to think.

He still did not trust Fett’s intentions, not when he blew hot and cold with them. It seemed clear he did want them as Clan, as replacements and a continuation of his lineage, so it was foolish of him to pretend that they could not all see it. Still, as Maul had told him, he was willing to pay the price for this bargain. His brothers and Kilindi were already reluctant to join with Death Watch, so it was not as though being Clan Fett would make it any worse. Maul could make Death Watch bow to him on his own, and then it would not matter .

In between, in the deep darkness of the evenings when Maul and his brothers were meant to have gone to their beds, they snuck out together into the fields to continue their other training. The moments they had both finally made the mental connection and been able to draw on the Force properly had been particularly satisfying.

“Is it really necessary to continue to conceal this?” Savage asked him, on one such night. He and Feral were supposed to be meditating, focusing on their hate to bring the Dark to heel and use it to levitate some of the small pebbles that littered the ground around them. “What danger is there in allowing Jango to know?”

Maul stiffened. “There is every danger,” he replied. “Surely you understand by now how much the Jedi have hurt Fett.”

“But you - we - are not Jedi. We are Sith. Surely we can explain the difference to him.”

A little flicker of something warm burned in Maul’s heart to hear Savage acknowledge the heritage he was trying to teach them. He put it aside. This was not the time for sentiment. “The Sith are supposed to be extinct. All the galaxy believes this. Fett will not think that I was trained by a true Sith, but by some Dark Jedi claiming that title. He will be… curious. That curiosity could be fatal.”

“I am sure he would believe you, if you only warned him to stay well away.” Savage said. Feral raised his head from where he had been glaring at a smooth rock fragment which was failing to bend to his will, and nodded his own agreement.

“He’s nice,” he said, with the simple understanding of the child he was. “He wants what’s best for us.”

Maul remained unconvinced of that, but he had no proof that his brothers would believe. Only the evidence of his own experience of sentients’ nature, which had not been enough for them yet. “All the same he is an adult and we are children. He will believe he knows better. He will run into danger and willing or not he will give Darth Sidious our location.” Perhaps Fett and Sidious were destined to meet at some point, in order for him to have been chosen as the clone template, but Maul would be full-grown by then, the Mandalorian warrior Jango was training him to be. He would have allies. He would not be as vulnerable as he was now.

Savage grumbled, but agreed. “As you wish.”

They returned to their concentration. Maul monitored their effect on the Force and how well the Dark responded to their will. Savage had more than enough rage to draw upon - he had little difficulty. The injustices of his upbringing and the cruelties of the Nightsisters had dug this as a deep well inside him, even if he had escaped the worst of it in this version of history. Savage still knew what could have been, and what was still happening to others from his village.

Feral on the other hand, was struggling. His understanding of fear and pain and heartbreak was limited. Maul knew that he ought to be doing something about this. It was his duty as a Sith Master. It had been done to him, and for as much as he had struggled and fought it had made him stronger.

Something held him back, a creeping disquiet when he even considered his options. This hesitancy was weakness, more sentiment. It would be for Feral’s own good - but still Maul could not think of hurting him without flinching.

Feral needed to find something that he hated, that made him angry enough to be powerful. It was just that Maul didn’t want to be the one he hated. There had to be another way, he just couldn’t see it yet.

And there was time. That was what he told himself. There was more than enough time and he did not have to do anything just yet.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

The days stretched out into weeks. Silas came and went on business of his own in addition to whatever work he was doing for Fett, taking part in their training here and there. Fett himself continued to refuse any suggestion of the title of Mand’alor from Silas, or from any of their other visitors - and they did start to have visitors as word of their presence started to spread. A number of Fett’s neighbours came to the homestead, individuals in beskar , or simple farmers, or small families, generally bearing gifts of useful items like food or cooking utensils or even second-hand furniture for the house. Maul did not pay them a great deal of attention. They had a quiet sadness in their minds directed Fett’s way, though whether that was due to their memories of his birth parents who had lived here before, or their knowledge of what had happened to the Haat’ade, he did not know. They tried to call Fett Mand’alor and each time he shook his head with a feeling in the Force like sharp, shattered glass and told them not to.

There was little word of Fett’s armour, or of Kyr'tsad and Tor Vizsla.

The story being put about to explain how Fett had come across four children was simply that they were all orphans, that they had escaped imprisonment together. Fett did not use the word slavery, and Maul wondered whose benefit that was meant to be for. Was Fett ashamed of it? Would these Concordians judge him for his recent past? Or was he worried what they might think had happened to Maul and Kilindi and the others?

Maul did not really care. He was more than happy to focus on training, both his own and his brothers’. Feral still found the Dark Side difficult, but Maul refused to let himself worry about that yet. Fett remained ignorant of what they could do, at least for now.

Then weeks turned into months. Maul’s muscles grew strong and he put on the lean weight he remembered bearing from the last time he was this age. Both Savage and Feral were improving in leaps and bounds in their physical training, if not quite as well with the Force. They stretched their original purchased supplies out with hunting trips into the forest - practise Fett said for their eventual verd’goten - and with the tributes that kept coming from Fett’s loyal neighbours. If it bothered them that he had no intentions of doing anything about the New Mandalorian faction, they did not show it. Perhaps his vendetta against Tor Vizsla was enough by itself.

Fett did not bring up the topic of their adoption again, but he would not be able to keep up that facade forever. Maul had no doubt that the wider community already assumed that he had taken on the role of their buir after hearing the story about their origins. He had even started to use more Mando’a around them, folding language lessons into their martial training. Maul pretended that he did not already know it, though he was unsure how well his deception was working.

Maul was fully expecting the question of family to come up again when it came time for his and Kalindi’s verd’goten . He had no idea of his own birthday but apparently Savage did, even if the Nightbrothers counted that from a child’s arrival in the village. It was a good enough date as any for them to aim for. He was looking forward to the experience itself, just not the baggage that might come along with it.

He should have anticipated that things would not be that simple. Maul was woken early on the morning of the expected day by a tremor in the Force, a ripple in the Dark that spoke of great change in the galaxy. He did not have to puzzle over it long - Silas came back from town while they were having breakfast with a feverish excitement and anger driving him.

“ Kyr'tsad have assassinated Duke Kryze,” he said.

Savage and Feral stopped eating to turn and stare at Silas as he burst through the door, dropping his news like an explosive charge. Kilindi was more circ*mspect - or more hungry. Maul shared her practicality - there was no reason he couldn’t listen and shovel heavily spiced scrambled eggs into his mouth at the same time. By happy coincidence Mandalorians and zabraks shared a love of heat in their food, though this was only something Maul had learned about his tastes after Lotho Minor.

“Details,” Fett demanded immediately. Silas pulled out a chair at the dinner table and sat down in it with enough force that the wood creaked under the weight of him and his beskar’gam . Five pairs of eyes immediately fixed on him with deep curiosity.

“Not sure how accurate the details I have are,” Silas told them. “This is mostly rumour aside from the core of it.”

“So the Duke really is dead?” Fett asked.

“They mean the New Mandalorian Duke?” Feral whispered to Savage. Savage nodded.

“Everyone seems to agree on that bit of it,” Silas said. “And that Kyr'tsad are the ones responsible. Not like there are so many other enemies the man had.”

“The Republic?” Maul suggested, listening to this conversation intently. He did not actually recall any of Death Watch talking about this particular period in their history, although of course he’d known the Duke must have died at some point to allow Satine Kryze to take up the mantle of leader of the New Mandalorians.

“The Republic are happy enough to leave the Mandalorian people to their own devices,” Fett said, with bitter humour. “So long as we’re only fighting each other at least.”

Silas nodded. “If the Republic was going to meddle, it would be to help the Kalevalans. It’s not in their interest to have Kyr'tsad come out the victor, given that they want to bring back the time of the Mandalorian Empire.”

“How are the New Mandalorians reacting?” Fett asked.

“Chaotically. Kryze is one of their most important clans, and no-one can seem to agree who should take over now he’s dead. There’s a possibility the faction might splinter. If it does, Kyr’tsad can mop them up at their leisure - any possible group won’t have enough verde to hold against a sustained assault.” Silas snorted with contempt. “It doesn’t help that the Kalevalans seem to believe everyone who supported Haat Mando’ade would automatically go over to Kyr'tsad once we were gone - they haven’t been looking for any help from those quarters.”

Maul hadn’t known that little tidbit, but it was just another example of Kryze’s mismanagement - something she had apparently inherited from her father.

“What?” Fett growled. “That makes no sense. Vizsla is the one who lured us into that trap.”

“Neutrality doesn’t exist in their minds, apparently,” Silas said. “Now they’re running scared. Nobody knows who’s going to step in to take charge, or if Kyr'tsad will kill them too the moment they do.”

“Kryze had ade , didn’t he?” Fett said, something Maul had also been thinking of but could not mention without arousing suspicion. “Two of them. It would be a lot to throw on the eldest, but at least there would be a figure-head.”

Silas paused. “They’re missing, apparently,” he said. “Or at least nobody knows where either of them are.”

Fett’s expression, already grim, hardened even further. “Dead?”

“Not so far as anyone knows. The Kalevalans are looking for them, but so are Kyr'tsad . My guess is they’re on the run with some of their House or Clan to protect them. Who knows when they’ll surface.”

Fett sighed. He appeared to have run out of questions.

“What does this mean for us?” Savage asked.

“Death Watch are going to be searching for those children,” Kilindi guessed. “That means they might come here.”

Fett nodded. “We lie low,” he said. “Just like we have been. There is a chance this could present me with an opportunity, if we’re careful. Anyone from Kyr'tsad who comes here could lead me to Tor Vizsla.”

“That depends how loyal they are,” Silas said.

Fett’s eyes were dark. Hate clawed at his heart. “I know how to ask the right way.”

Feral was innocent enough not to understand what he meant by this. Savage knew better, and his brow furrowed in disquiet. Maul glanced to Kilindi - like him, she saw nothing wrong with the threat Fett was making, although torture was not actually a particularly useful tool for producing information. Pain was for breaking people and remoulding them. The Force was the most efficient method of interrogation.

“We shouldn’t let this news delay our plans for today,” Fett went on, turning away from that particular topic. “I hope the three of you are well prepared.”

Maul scoffed. Of course he was, though he could be thrown into the worst wilderness with nothing but his body and his wits and he would still survive. He knew this from experience. Savage, who would be joining them, nodded. Fett stood and gestured for the door. “Let’s get to it then.”

----

Fett had not spoken of the details of their verd’goten since the element of surprise was an important part of the test, but in the end Maul found it much less harsh than he had anticipated. He was used to minimal resources and no support of any kind, but after they landed the Promised Revenge on the edge of the forest they trekked out into the jungle as a group carrying packs each containing a bivvy bag, heavy vibro-knife, a length of whip-cord, a firestarter, some bacta patches and a lightweight metal cooking pan. Fett carried one of their blaster-rifles over his shoulder - they would have cause to use it later.

Maul might have expressed some discontent along the way with this coddling, but Fett cut him off before he could get properly going. He explained that Mandalorians always expected to rely on their Clan and their aliit . Only a beroya would ever expect to work alone. The verd’goten was about proving that the child was capable of being a useful member of their clan, that they were ready to train in beskar’gam , take orders as part of a military unit, and pull together with others.

This reasoning did make the ease of the experience less irritating.

The first day of the test was simple survival; making a fire safely, finding water and filtering it through wild moss and charcoal, laying a noose to catch something for their dinner and suchlike. It was simple and easy, though pleasant to be out in the embrace of the trees with Kilindi and Savage. Maul had grown used to their company, to the easy satisfaction of just being in their presence. All around them the jungle lived and breathed, striving in the Force. The Dark was here, as it was everywhere. It was in trees falling to rot or strangling vines, in the chase of predator after prey with striving vicious heart and the crunch of bones and sweet blood between teeth. It was in every beast’s hunger and all their other primal urges too.

Maul slept well that night, with the roaring buzz of insects in each tree and bush around them and the wind rustling through the leaves.

The second day was the test of tracking. This was not done together, for it was a business of scouting for one’s enemies rather than chasing them down as a pack. Fett took them out one by one to watch them follow a trail Silas had left the previous evening, until they at last reached a clearing near the edge of the forest where a target range had been set up. Then it was time to put the rifle to good use.

This all seemed more like child’s play to Maul than any real test or rite of passage, but he supposed that not all Mandalorian clans - or Mandalorian children - could be held to the high standards of excellence that he and Kilindi had been. There had been deaths at the Orsis Academy, and students maimed too severely to continue their training. Mandalorian parents presumably wanted their children alive and in one piece, even if this introduced opportunities for weakness. He led the way through the jungle with his eyes flitting to each boot-print in the mud or broken twig and branch, catching the faint scent of human and beskar'gam with his keen zabrak nose. None of it was tricky enough to be frustrating, but tracking was a good puzzle for his mind to chew over. He was smiling when they broke into open air at the end of it all.

"Well done," Fett said, and handed him the rifle. He gestured to the other end of the clearing. Maul flicked out the stabilisers at the end of the rifle's barrel and laid down with it on the damp grass. With slow deep breaths he aimed and fired at the end of each exhale. The shots went true, little flares of broken targets amongst the trees. Then it was done.

Maul did not feel any different nor was he expecting to. This held much less significance for him than it would someone who had grown up in this culture.

Fett sat down on the grass beside him, one arm resting casually on his knee. "So," he said. "We should probably talk again."

"About this idea of adoption," Maul said - he doubted there was any other topic that Fett wanted to discuss.

"Yeah." Fett gave him a searching look. Did he want Maul to be the first one to speak?

He was unsure what to say. He shifted slightly, pushing himself up so that he was kneeling instead of prone on his belly and started to wipe the rifle down. "I... understand that Mandalorians think children are very important," he said, not meeting Fett's eyes. "Not just because the clan - the aliit - is the basic unit of your society. It is a duty to care for children, to protect them. But is that all your rationale, Fett? Only duty? Only repaying what you owe?" Maul still did not believe that was the case. Duty held only so far - for most it was easily malleable to personal desires and wishes. A person could find any excuse to waver towards or away from some cultural ideal if it suited their interests.

"You can call me Jango, you know."

Maul scowled. That felt too personal, even after all this time. It spoke of a connection that was not there, something Maul was unsure he wanted to accept. "It is understandable to want to rebuild what you have lost," he said.

Fett sighed. "You aren't replacements. And I know I'm not much of a buir . Maybe all I can do is be your bajur... "

"You will not get anywhere by attempting to make me feel sorry for you." Maul said. It was a poor manipulation.

Another noise of frustration from Fett. "Sometimes self-interest isn't the first reason for a person to do something," he said. "I just want you adiikla to have the tools to survive this galaxy - and there's only one set of tools I know how to teach you. I'm not trying to trap you here. I'm not trying to make you help me with my revenge or with... anything that comes after that. You can leave any time you want."

"The others do not want to leave," Maul said.

Fett spread his hands in a helpless gesture of ‘it is what it is’. Or perhaps ‘what do you want me to do about that?’

Internally Maul’s stomach was twisting with some strange discomfort. It had not taken long at all for Kilindi or his brothers to befriend Fett, to start looking to him, to allow him this role of teacher of parent - he could not be sure what they believed the relationship to be. They didn’t believe Maul about Death Watch. They wouldn’t follow if he tried to leave. Shaking off Fett’s dead weight would also be to leave them behind. They would abandon him if he was not careful. Somehow Fett had more of their loyalty than Maul did.

Maul did not see any way out of that except to stay here and continue to work on them until he prised them loose from the grasp of Fett’s affections. “I said I would accept your training, did I not?” he said. “I… do want to be Mando’ad. I will learn your ways, learn the Resol’nare and cleave to its tenets - but I am not part of Clan Fett or House Mereel. I am beholden to no-one.”

“That’s fine by me,” Fett said softly. Maul reached out with the Force and yet again he sensed no deception within him.

Perhaps that was genuine. Perhaps he was happy enough to have claimed Kilindi and Maul’s brothers, and Maul’s own loyalty was not required.

“We should get back to the others,” Fett said, standing up. Maul trailed behind him, feeling that things had not really been resolved at all.

----

The rhythmic noise of a hammer hitting metal rang out from the building in front of them, filling the air with its musical chime. Fett stopped a little way from the entrance. There was no door as such, and no sign or placard to state what the place was. Maul supposed those things were not necessary. Anyone who came here already knew its purpose. The only thing that might have been an identifier - or might have been simple decoration - was the sculpted mythosaur skull that hung over the doorway.

Kilindi’s tentacles twitched in response to the ringing, repetitive sound. “Is something the matter?” she asked Fett, who was not moving.

The man shook himself out of whatever thoughts were troubling him. “In Mando’a,” he said. They were supposed to be practising its use whenever they were in town, partly for immersion in the language and partly so that they would not stand out too badly in a place where every person spoke it. Maul understood the good sense in this, and there were cultural aspects to Mando’a that he’d not picked up when learning it the first time around.

For example, Mando’a lacked a universal concept of gender, and had no such markers within it. As a result it was judged polite when speaking Basic either to outsiders or other Mandalorians to offer one’s correct pronouns in that language, more so since beskar’gam obscured most of the commonly accepted signifiers of gender that other galactic cultures used. Maul did not recall this point of decorum from his previous time amongst Death Watch, but he conceded that he had not gotten to know many of those warriors other than the commanders. For his own part it was easy for any Force-sensitive to gather an individual’s preferred gender from the shape of their mind, how they thought of themselves.

Kilindi nodded to Fett, and repeated her question.

[ This… isn’t the usual way of doing it, ] Fett explained, also in Mando’a. [ The rich old clans have armouries full of ancestral beskar’gam . Even basic training sets are passed down. We should come to the goran with bajur’gam ready to be resized, not empty-handed like this. ]

Kilindi hesitated slightly before asking, [ What happened to your House’s armoury? ]

[ After Galidraan, the Jedi saw to most of our dead, ] Fett said. The old familiar anger ran through him, an echo of Maul’s own whenever he thought of those weaklings. [ At least they had enough honour to send the bodies home to their families. Clan Fett and Clan Mereel never had that much in the way of heirlooms - House Mereel got large only because so many of the other clans swore to my parent after they became Mand’alor . There are other members of Clan Mereel on Concord Dawn, but I’m not about to go asking for something I’ve no right to. ]

[ Don’t you have a right to it? ] Savage asked. [ They did adopt you. ]

[ I’m still Clan Fett, not Clan Mereel, ] Fett said. [ Jaster offered, but… I wanted to keep it to honor my birth parents.]

[ The goran will understand, ] he added after a moment, starting to move forward again. [ Beginning from scratch isn’t totally unknown. ]

They headed inside, into the dark and the warmth. The forge was all one large room, tables lining a central space where a blast furnace loomed. Durasteel ingots were piled in tall stacks, along with bundles of copper or gold wire for circuitry. Vac-sealed boxes likely contained pre-constructed armour systems ready for installation. Tools hung at easy to reach locations around the edge of the furnace itself.

The goran stood with her back to them. Her hammer fell in a few final blows before she put aside the piece she had been working on, set down the hammer, and turned to face them. Unlike most of the residents of the town, she wore full beskar’gam .

[ Welcome Jango Fett, ] she said. [ Welcome, foundlings. ]

[ Goran , ] Fett said, bowing his head in a gesture of respect. [ These three have recently passed their verd’goten and are worthy of wearing beskar’gam . They need their first bajur’gam so that they can learn to be responsible for beskar . ]

The goran nodded. Maul reached for her in the Force automatically, trying to sense her emotions or intent below the vague sense of surface thoughts. He found his touch sliding off the deeper part of her mind as his hand might have slid off the beskar of her helmet. His eyes narrowed slightly. She knew how to use the Force.

Fett had mentioned this as a possibility months ago when Kilindi asked him if Mandalorians had their own Force tradition. Maul had not been overly impressed with his description, and had not expected much evidence of skill or power from this woman. Instead her shielding had to be the match of any Jedi’s. There was a subtlety to her that was intriguing. Sensing passively, there was little to set her apart from any normal Force-null. It was only when he tried to get into her mind that he was met by something that proved she was very different.

[ Even bajur’gam comes with responsibilities, ] the goran said. [ Durasteel does not hold our manda as beskar does, but it prepares the mind and the body for what comes after. This is particularly vital for those touched by the stars as these two are. ] She pointed with two fingers first to Maul and then to Savage.

[ How do you know that? ] Savage asked, made suspicious and wary by this sudden knowledge. Maul felt a quiet approval. He did not trust this woman - but trust was not yet being asked of them.

[ Your sibling tried to touch my mind, ] she replied, with a thread of amusem*nt. [ And I can sense you just as well. Seeing the strength of the stars is as much my job as crafting beskar’gam . ]

If she could sense that, then could she also sense that they were trained? Maul had to assume that she could - to do otherwise would be foolish. Would she mention it to Fett? That could be more problematic.

[ We are not interested in training as gorane , ] he told her. [ We have our own path. ]

[ I see it, ] she agreed. [ You are touched by destiny. You are meant for great things. The stars shine strongly upon you both. ]

Maul wondered just what she was sensing. He could not look at his own presence in the Force from inside of it, nor had he asked his brothers how he appeared to them. Could she somehow tell that he was more than he appeared? That the Force itself had chosen to send him back in time for its own purposes, a gift of the Dark? Would a Jedi or another Sith also be able to detect the same thing?

He fully intended to make himself great, to work his will upon the galaxy. He would not call that fate or destiny, for a Sith made their own future, but this seemed a good omen all the same.

[ Savage as well? ] Fett asked, looking at Maul’s brother. [ I thought it was only Maul. ]

[ They are both favoured by the stars, ] the goran confirmed.

[ Is that going to be somehow a problem? ] Savage asked her.

[ With your bajur’gam , no. With your beskar’gam , there must be more care. ]

[ And why would that be? ] Maul asked.

[ Beskar rings in tune with the stars, ] the goran explained. [ It is hard to damage, even with the weapon of a Jedi or a Dark Jedi. With care and work it will hold and manifest the soul, the manda, of its wearer - but without that it can as easily be a trap and binding for your strength. ]

That was both vague and unhelpful. Maul was about to demand that she explain properly when a sudden memory came up into the front of his mind. On Mandalore, after the Republic’s invasion, after Ahsoka had defeated him and seen to his capture, Bo-Katan had ordered him shut in a beskar- lined box that dated back to the Mandalorian Empire. It had been designed to hold Jedi, she had said with a smirk. Being inside it had felt like being suffocated, even without the gag over his mouth - which had really been unnecessary given the other restraints. The Force had felt far away and hard to touch.

At the time Maul had thought it some ancient technology that could disrupt the Force - collars that could do something similar were not unknown, and the Sith had created many tools to trap and hold Jedi in their time. Yet given what the goran was suggesting perhaps it had simply been the beskar itself, and nothing more.

[ So we must learn to…. What? Tune in to the frequency of our beskar’gam ? ] he asked.

[ For those who are not star-touched I must show their manda the way. For you and your brother, you must help forge the beskar with your own hands under my guidance. Only then will you understand. ]

Maul could find no argument with this. It was often the case that Force techniques were poorly explained with words. That was why it was so important to have a Master to demonstrate them first. [ That will not be for several years, correct? Is there anything that we must learn along the way? ]

[ Only how to move and fight in bajur’gam, ] the goran said. [ For which I must get your measurements. ]

Maul nodded. He held still to allow her to move around him, sketching lines and marks in the air with a holo-pen, comparing already forged armour pieces to the dimensions of his torso and limbs. Then he watched with interest as she did the same to Kilindi and Savage. He could see the ghostly forms of the armour in the air around them, the outlines of helmets over their heads. Kilindi’s tentacles must be an interesting challenge to the goran . He wondered how many nautolans had become Mando’ad over the years.

[ Return at the end of the ten-day, ] the goran told them. [ Everything will be ready for the three of you then. ]

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

Savage aimed a heavy punch directly at his neck. Maul whipped his arm up to deflect the blow, taking it angled on the durasteel of his vambrace with the clang of metal on metal - through not the pure ringing noise of beskar on beskar that so much classical Mandalorian poetry seemed to reference.

“Not bad Savage,” Fett called out. “More force behind it though. Remember, you’re not aiming to hit him but hit through him.”

“Any harder and I would have broken my hand,” Savage replied, though not without humour. His technique was certainly improving - the skills of the Nightbrothers were primarily designed around hunting the wild beasts of Dathomir or showing off their strength against each other for the benefit of the Nightsisters. The Sisters did not care about skill - something that could even be a danger to them - only about raw physical power. Savage was strong but unrefined. Some things he had to unlearn.

Feral had it easier. He was starting from scratch.

“Alright,” Fett said. “Let’s go two on one. Maul, you good for that?”

Maul nodded, knowing now to exaggerate the gesture so that it would be more obvious through the buy’ce. Wearing the training armour was not all about becoming used to the weight and heft of it as he’d expected, or even changing fighting style to take advantage of it and compensate for its limitations. It was also about communicating, the specific body-language and signals used between armoured Mandalorians.

Kilindi came forward to join Savage in attacking him. They split and came at him from both sides, attempting to take advantage of the reduced field of vision through his visor. Proper beskar’gam had a wrap-around HUD, but the bajur’gam did not - to force its wearer to learn to rely on senses other than sight. Armour systems could fail or short out, after all.

Maul had already been trained to fight without using his eyes a long time ago. With the Force to guide him there was no chance he would lose.

After the third time that Maul parried one of Kilindi’s attacks from behind without bothering to look at her, Fett stopped the spar. He gestured for Maul to come over and join him. Maul did so, wondering what this was about. He had been completing the task required of him.

“You and Kilindi don’t fight in the same style,” Fett said, getting to the point immediately. “I thought you said you trained with her.”

“Not… just with her,” Maul replied. He would need to choose how he explained this cautiously, and he cursed himself for not spotting that this would be obvious to anyone trained in the art of combat, as both Fett and Silas were. Had they discussed this already amongst themselves? He doubted Fett had only noticed just now.

Fett gave him a long look. “You want to tell me yet where the two of you were before running into me?”

“Not particularly,” Maul replied. He did not want Fett asking questions, not even about the Orsis Academy. The chance it would lead Darth Sidious back to them might be small, but where his Master was concerned no risk was worth taking.

“Only I can’t help but notice looking back, that we met on Orsis Station,” Fett said, with deliberate, false, casualness. “Silas told me there’s a school there, of a sort. The kind that trains adiikla to be killers.”

Maul shrugged, his mouth twisting with irritation. He supposed given the location where they picked Fett up it was not actually such a hard deduction to make, although he had hoped Fett would continue to assume they had been on the run for a while before running into him. “What of it?” he said.

“Sounds like a harsh place.”

“Harsh methods are effective,” Maul said - not that he particularly believed that Orsis had been that harsh. His Master had always pushed him harder than that place ever had.

“So… who trained you before you got there?” Fett asked him. There was anger moving slow and hot under his skin, but Maul did not sense that it was directed his way. What reason did Fett have to be angry?

“I do not wish to speak of this,” he said.

Fett glanced away and took a moment to consider his next words. “Did they know how to use the Force?”

Maul bristled, unable to help his reaction. It had to give too much away, but some part of him dreaded what might happen if Fett and Sidious met, now or in the future. He tried to leash his instinctive fear - being a slave to that emotion was unworthy of a Sith - to reply with care and control. “I have never said that I am trained in the Force,” he said. “I have managed to figure out some small tricks, and that is all.”

“Yeah, that’s not believable adiik ,” Fett said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You use the Force when you fight too well for that.”

“And what would you know of using the Force to fight?” Maul snapped.

“I fought jetiise ,” Fett snarled back, the mere thought of those people bringing his fury to the fore. With a few deep breaths he took control of himself again. “I know what it looks like,” he said more quietly. “Just like I know that you and your brothers have been sneaking off when you think I’m not paying attention to train with the Force.”

For a brief moment Maul’s blood ran cold. Fett knew. He knew and he was asking questions just as Maul had feared and he was going to go looking for the Sith and the promise of his revenge and even if he did not mean to, he would sell out Maul and Savage and Feral all along the way…

“Hey, hey,” Fett said, his eyes going wide and his hands coming out. “I’m not going to punish you for that. I would never.”

“ That is not what I was worried about,” Maul said. He had little choice but to throw himself upon Fett’s mercy, to ask him not to dig further into this matter and accept whatever price Fett required in return.

“I’m not interested in whoever trained you,” Fett continued. Maul gave him a highly skeptical look. “Well, maybe I’d like to find them and put them through the same ossik they must have done to you,” Fett admitted. “But that’s not something you want. I can tell. You want to keep that part of your past a secret, that’s fine.”

“Then why are you asking ?” Maul said, frustrated.

“You and your brothers shouldn’t have to sneak around because you’re frightened of the consequences of training openly,” Fett said. “It has to be compromising your learning. Silas and I might not know how to fight with the Force, but if we know more about what the three of you can do we can work it into your lessons somehow. And… you’re not jetiise . I’m not going to react badly.”

Maul studied him with suspicion, but he could sense nothing but honesty. If Fett really would hold back from asking questions, from delving too deeply into his past… It seemed too good to be true, but since Fett had made it very clear he knew what they were doing, what point was there in continuing to slink in the shadows?

It was also true that the Mandalorian people were trained to fight and kill Jedi, just like the Sith. There had to be something to say for the idea of trying to combine their techniques. Kenobi was never far from the back of Maul’s mind - his own burning need for revenge.

“Very well,” he said. “We can discuss this further.”

----

Kyr'tsad came to Concord Dawn searching for the Kalevalans, as expected. There was some argument amongst the Protectors over whether anything should be done about them, but despite Silas’ and some others offering strong suggestions that they be chased out of any town they appeared in, they were outvoted in the end. Captain Dell Rau successfully argued the Protectors should take a neutral stance between the two factions until the outcome of the civil war was known.

“If they do something illegal, that’s another matter,” she had said, to try and calm the objections. Silas wasn’t happy about any of it, but Jango needed Kry’tsad on-planet if he hoped to discover Tor Vizsla’s location. He had expected he would need to capture one of them to force the information out of them, but in the end it wasn’t necessary. They were being careless, arrogant after their recent victories. Silas overheard them boasting in one of the taverns in Arakura as they did their best to recruit the locals to their cause and brought the news back to the homestead.

“Galidraan? Why would he go back there?” Jango snarled. His hands tightened into fists in the face of the memories the planet's name threw up.

“They didn’t mention that bit,” Silas said. He was just as angry as Jango was, fury simmering under his skin. “Just said that anyone who wanted to join the winning side, to honour their ancestors and swear loyalty to the true Mand’alor should make their way there.” His face twisted with disgust.

“Maybe they’re doing more business with that hut’uun governor,” Jango said. “Maybe that shabuir knows what happened to my beskar’gam .” He hadn't thought about getting revenge against the Governor. The man wasn't even worthy of his regard, nothing more than a tool. If he was presented with the opportunity however, he would take it.

“It’s not the best idea to face Tor without getting it back first.”

“I might not get another opportunity like this.” Jango could almost taste it, vengeance sharp against his tongue. He wanted , deeply.

Silas gave him a long and searching look, then nodded. “I’m behind you then,” he said. “I’ll guard your back while you take him on.”

“No,” Jango said, cutting off that idea quickly. “You have to stay here, look after the adiikla .” Kyr'tsad’s presence on the planet meant it wasn't safe to leave them alone, even if they were more than capable of looking after themselves for a time. It particularly wasn’t safe given what he and Silas suspected about Maul’s past.

Silas had told him about the too-knowledgeable questions the adiik had put to him after capturing him, that day Jango was away shopping in town, as well as the interesting gaps in that knowledge. Nothing either of them had seen since had put that suspicion from their minds, and in fact the more they heard Maul’s particular opinions about Mandalorian culture and history, the more strongly Jango was convinced of it. Meeting him hadn’t been the first time Maul met a Mandalorian - and whoever he’d spent time with before had been Kyr'tsad through and through.

Jango hadn’t previously thought even Kyr'tsad were low enough to deal in slaves, and Force-sensitive slaves at that, but he couldn’t see much other explanation. It had to have been before Maul and Kilindi met, because she didn’t know any of the same things about Mando’ade .

So if Maul ran across Kyr'tsad again, there was no way that would go well. That was why Silas needed to stay behind.

Silas gave him a look of deep worry. “Stay safe then,” he said. “You’d better come back from this. For their sake if nothing else.”

Another question that had crossed Jango’s mind more than once. Was his revenge more important to him than his ade ? No. No it wasn’t. But that didn’t mean he couldn't try . If it really looked too suicidal to make a move, he would come back and wait for another opportunity, even if it never came.

“I’ll keep in contact,” he said. “A few weeks - that’s all it should take.”

----

“If we know where Tor Vizsla is, then you should be going after him!” Satine said, puffing herself up into Qui-gon’s face with the kind of glare that expected to be obeyed. Obi-wan slid down slightly in his chair, hugging his bowl of exceptionally spicy stew to his chest and deciding not to get involved. He wasn’t sure what side he wanted to take anyway - he trusted his Master's decisions and he knew what their duty was here, but all of his instincts from previous missions were to take the fight to the enemy and deal with the threat, not run and hide.

“Our mandate is to protect you, my lady,” Qui-gon replied, as cool and calm as a mountain stream. Obi didn’t think he’d ever seen his Master truly flustered by anything. It was the kind of control he wanted to be able to emulate when he was a Master. “I understand your desire to confront your father’s killer…”

“He has my sister as well!” Satine said. “It might not be too late to save her.” Satine had whispered her fears about what could be happening to Bo-Katan in the depths of nights past, the two of them lying on sleeping mats in safehouses and boltholes while Qui-gon blocked the door with his own slumbering body. Mistreatment, or torture, or worse. Not knowing was an agony that Satine was struggling with, and Death Watch were terrorists. Obi-wan couldn't even honestly reassure her that her sister would be alright.

“Your clan are going after your sister as we speak,” Qui-gon said, his tone soothing. Satine didn’t look as though she was willing to be soothed.

Obi-wan knew objectively that his Master was right. Staying hidden and keeping Satine safe from harm was the correct choice, the logical choice. That didn’t mean he couldn’t empathise with what she was feeling. Body-guard duty wasn’t the kind of mission that he and Qui-gon were usually sent on, although it wasn’t unknown for the Jedi. Mandalore just happened to be in the region of the Outer Rim that the two of them were already familiar with from other missions in the past.

“My clan aren’t Jedi,” Satine said. “They do not have your particular skills. If you only assisted them, I have no doubt that we could defeat Vizsla and end this destructive conflict.”

“You assume much, my lady.” Qui-gon’s expression was grave, and Obi-wan remembered what he’d said about Mandalorians during their briefing. They were dangerous. They were Jedi Killers. This was not the easy mission it might appear to be on the surface. “We can protect you from the soldiers searching for you, but an open conflict is a different matter. Mandalorian traditionalists - another group not so different to Death Watch - killed many Jedi at the battle of Galidraan only three years ago.”

Satine bit her lip, but it must have been obvious to her that Qui-gon wasn’t about to be swayed by any of her arguments. She sat back down at the table, pulling her bowl over to her and starting to pick at it - either morose or sulking. Obi-wan gave her a sympathetic look, and she smiled back at him.

Warmth curled in his stomach. He firmly ignored it. It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d experienced these feelings towards another attractive person. Force knew there were plenty of those in the Temple. Having the feelings was fine. Doing anything about them wasn’t.

Perhaps when you are old enough to be certain you understand the risk and dangers of attachment , Qui-gon had told him, during the mildly excruciating talk he’d given Obi about sex and everything that came along with it. Presumably he meant after Obi was Knighted at the very earliest. Not here and now, on the run from dangerous and deadly soldiers, not with someone it was their job to protect. Obi-wan dropped his gaze back to his food, taking another bite and wincing as the heavy spice set his mouth on fire.

"Concord Dawn clearly isn't the refuge I thought it was," Satine said, after a long silence. "Not if Death Watch have tracked us here already."

"They do not suspect you are here," Qui-gon replied, "or that was not the impression I had listening to them today. They are simply casting their net as wide as possible. All the intelligence we have from your family's allies suggests that they are focusing their efforts on Mandalorian planets where there is a high degree of support for the New Mandalorian faction."

"We are never going to be safe until the threat of Death Watch is dealt with," Satine argued. "And that threat will remain as long as Tor Vizsla is alive."

Curious, Obi-was asked, "Would Death Watch really surrender if he was no longer in the picture?"

"I... can't be sure." That uncertainty clearly pained Satine to admit. "He has a son, Pre Vizsla, who would take over House Vizsla and the clans sworn to it, but he’s still young. It’s possible that he can be reasoned with. He might not be as savage and warlike as his father."

"That is a matter for the adults of House Kryze to concern themselves with," Qui-gon said. Satine bristled.

" I am the head of my House," she said, her tone icy. "This is my responsibility."

"You are still young, my lady."

"I am an adult by the terms of my culture. I thought the Jedi respected such things."

"Be that as it may, our duty and our task here has not changed."

"And how long do you intend for us to hide?" Satine said, with an expansive gesture to indicate time stretching out infinite in front of them. "If we don't do anything to change this situation, it will never be safe for me!"

"The Republic is considering offering further military aid."

"That would break our treaty with the Republic," Satine replied, slightly hesitant. "We have the strength to stand alone against Death Watch - we merely need to rally it. Most of the Mandalorian people are tired of conflict. They would stand behind us if they were not so afraid of reprisals."

"Patience," Qui-gon advised her. "You must concern yourself now with the present, rather than the future. If you are captured or killed..."

"I am well aware," Satine said. "We will speak on this again, Master Jedi."

----

Blue and black armour marked with the shriek-hawk signet of Clan Vizsla was something that drew plenty of stares in the marketplace of this quaint provincial town, but Pre didn’t particularly care about being subtle. Their quarry - if she was anywhere near here, which he doubted - already knew that Kyr'tsad was looking for her. They weren’t going to find her using stealth. Rumours of their presence might flush her out of hiding though, revealing herself as she fled before them.

“Is this really what we’re doing today?" the girl at his side said. “Shopping?” It was necessary for her to keep her helmet on, but Pre had his tucked under his arm. He enjoyed the scent from the food stalls and the breeze against his face.

“You know your sister best, my lady,” he replied, nodding courteously to a passer-by. “Would she really be hiding in a place like this?”

Bo-Katan Kryze folded her arms over her chest. She was indistinguishable from any other Vizsla trainee right now in a set of unpainted bajur’gam borrowed from the House armouries. Pre was still trying to decide if he trusted her. His father had ordered the death of her own - she could have sworn revenge and a price in blood from them, but when their commandos came to capture her she went willingly enough. She had not seen what remained of her father's body. Perhaps she had blinded herself to the price of war, or perhaps she had never been that close to him. She certainly hadn't shown any evidence of grief that Pre had noticed.

Some part of him could sympathise. He was not fond of his own father. If their positions had been reversed, he would have obeyed his duty to seek revenge, but his heart would not have been in it.

"There aren't many living on Concord Dawn sympathetic to the Kalevalans," Bo said. They were both speaking Basic in contrast to the low hum of conversation in Mando’a all around them. Pre had been sceptical once when his father told him Clan Kryze were so dar'manda they did not even teach their children their native language, but Bo-Katan had confirmed it to be the truth. She had done her best to learn, and he to teach her, during the months of their previous Holonet acquaintance, but she was still shaky.

Her head turned, gaze sweeping the streets. She nodded towards an intersection nearby, where a young verd'ika was lounging against the wall in a full set of their own bajur'gam - a zabrak, judging by the crown of horns jutting from their buy'ce . They couldn't have been long past their verd'goten. "Traditionalists," she said.

"Warriors," Pre added. As much time as he'd spent trying to break her out of the brainwashing of those pacifists, there were still holdovers in the way she thought about things. That would pass. Kyr'tsad had her now, and she would no longer be denied her rightful heritage. "This was Mereel's planet, after all."

Bo's head co*cked in confusion. "I know the name," she said slowly. "He... died when I was a child, I think?"

"The Duke never told you about Haat Mando'ade ?"

"No, he did. But I thought their leader was a Fett? The last remnant of one of the old warrior clans?"

Pre stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Her ignorance wasn't her fault, but she sounded like a war-orphan freshly taken from a battlefield. Perhaps in some ways she was. The child of a conquered enemy adopted into their ranks. "That would be Jango Fett," he said. "Mereel’s ad . He's dead now too, three years back. The Haat'ade were warriors even if they didn't agree with the goals of Kyr'tsad . The slaughter of their command structure was... unfortunate but necessary." In war, you did what you had to in order to triumph, but Pre still felt uneasy about the trap his father had laid for them. It hadn't been honourable. Of course only those with honour deserved to be treated honourably in return - that was why he had no problem with their tactics against the Kalevalans - but the Haat'ade did have honour.

Pre had still been in training at the time, without the right to speak up about their strategy. It was no use reflecting on something that was done and over with. The past couldn’t be changed.

"You aren't worried that someone around here is going to want revenge?" Bo asked him. "If you're responsible for killing their leader?"

Pre smiled, meeting her gaze under the helmet. He was aware of the double meaning of her question. "Not worried at all," he replied. “Many here follow the old traditions. If the New Mandalorians get their way, with no warriors left to oppose them, all of that will be outlawed. They might not like us, but it is clear to them that we are still the better option.”

“All the more reason Satine wouldn’t come here,” Bo said. “We’re wasting our time.”

Privately Pre agreed with her, but he was also very aware they hadn’t been sent to Concord Dawn just to hunt Bo’s sister, but to get them out of the way of the more serious search efforts. Tor didn’t trust that Bo-Katan was really one of them yet. Even though Pre had shown him all of their correspondence from the months leading up to the assassination, his father still believed it was possible that she was lying. That their friendship was a trap for Pre as his heir - even though Pre hadn’t given his real name to Bo at that point.

It was only by a thin margin that Tor had agreed to allow her a chance to prove herself amongst their ranks, rather than killing her. Pre had his suspicions about what his father might demand from her in order to prove her loyalty, but he was sure that Bo-Katan wouldn’t disappoint them when the time came.

Still, Tor wasn’t going to let Bo go anywhere where there was a chance that she might run into Satine and have the temptation to go back to House Kryze shoved in her face. Hence sending them out to this backwater, poorly tamed colony along with a platoon of ramikad to guard them.

“Lunch?” he suggested. The other verde didn’t mind them doing something as innocuous as scouting out the market, but there was only so much time unwatched they would be permitted. They would have to head back soon.

Bo nodded. “We should take something back for the others,” she suggested.

“Of course.” Pre’s cooking skills were limited to basic bushcraft or prepping ration packs. Market-stall food always made a nice change.

As they turned towards that part of the marked, the verd’ika lounging by the intersection pushed away from the wall and started to follow them. There was a small possibility that it could have been coincidence so Pre didn’t act right away, just slowed their pace and kept scanning their surroundings casually as though he hadn’t noticed their tail. Bo looked round in reaction and he had to put a hand on her shoulder to keep her from turning to stare at the zabrak.

“Patience,” Pre cautioned her. “Let’s see what they want.” Given that the adiik was so clearly a traditionalist and a warrior, perhaps they were a Kyr'tsad sympathiser.

There was a flurry of movement as a larger group of people came down the street - when they passed, the verd’ika had disappeared. Pre stopped walking and started looking for them in earnest, impressed despite himself. There was no sign of them. Then Bo swore loudly.

Pre whirled back around to find the verdi’ika standing behind him, close enough to sink a blade between the plates of his beskar’gam . The adiik’s helm tilted, looking him over. “Pre Vizsla?” they asked.

Pre went still. They knew who he was. Yes, he wasn’t wearing his buy’ce but his face wasn’t exactly well-known outside of the ranks of Kyr'tsad . So how did this adiik…?

“You are Pre Vizsla?” the verd’ika asked, insistent.

“I am,” Pre replied warily.

“I challenge you,” the adiik said. “Warrior to warrior.”

Pre blinked. He was already off-guard, and that didn’t help. “What for?” he asked, mostly to buy time.

He felt hidden eyes rake over him, a prickling over beskar’gam that almost had him shivering. The touch of the ka’ra ran in the bloodline of Clan Vizsla but Pre had never felt it quite this way before. “For the right to join Kyr'tsad ,” the verd’ika said, after a long moment. “That’s all for now.”

Pre could have laughed. He grinned instead. “A noble goal,” he said, “but there’s no need to fight me for it. We would be happy to welcome another warrior into our ranks.”

“I want to fight you,” the adiik insisted. “I wish to prove myself.”

It was a fine display of mandokar, and one that was starting to draw attention from the various passers-by around them. People were slowing to watch. “Very well,” Pre said, happy to allow the verd’ika to show what they were made of. “But I don’t know your name even if you know mine. Don’t you think you should introduce yourself?”

“Maul,” the verd’ika replied, after a moment of hesitation. Then, since they were speaking Basic rather than Mando’a he added slightly grudgingly, “He/him.”

“No Clan name?” Pre asked. The boy shook his head. That was curious, but there would be time to investigate later. He relaxed into a ready stance, raising his hands and gesturing for the verd’ika to attack whenever he was ready.

The boy lunged, a swift whirl of punches and kicks that Pre had to actually push himself to block. He circled, keeping up his defence and happy to let the adiik wear himself out, but the boy must have been trained to be more cautious. He broke away - Pre was expecting him to start probing his defence for weaknesses but at the same moment an adult voice called out and someone came pushing through the circle of curious watchers.

“Maul!” The verd said again, a whip-crack of disapproval. “What do you think you’re doing ?”

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

Maul glared at Silas. He had been aware the man would come looking for him after Maul slipped away, but he had expected it to take much longer to locate him than this. He made for a significant obstacle to Maul’s plans, which had been going rather well up until this point. He had been looking for Death Watch but he hadn’t expected to find Pre Vizsla himself roaming the streets of Arakura. Odd though it was to see him looking this young, he was still instantly recognisable. Maul did not sense the Darksaber anywhere on his person even after getting up close, which was a disappointment, but he did not mean to squander this opportunity either.

Now here Silas was, squandering it for him.

Maul craned his neck and saw the rest of their little aliit hovering at the back of the crowd, waiting to provide backup if Silas needed it. Maul managed to keep his flinch of shame internal. They would not understand what he was attempting to achieve here. They would be upset with him, and though it should not matter to him, it did.

Weakness. It was weakness, and he ought to know better, but he could not shake these feelings.

“And you are?” Pre Vizsla demanded of Silas, hands dropping to his belt and hovering near the butts of his blasters. He gave the man a wary look.

“One of the Journeyman Protectors, Kyr’tsad ,” Silas snapped. “That makes me the law around here.”

That took some of the wind out of Vizsla, although Maul was irritably impressed at the manner Silas had found to frame his interruption, deflecting attention from the possibility that this could be personal. “The verd’ika challenged me,” Vizsla said. “It’s a fight to prove himself, not a fight to the death. Are you really going to tell me that’s illegal on Concord Dawn?”

“It isn’t,” Silas growled. “Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

“What part do you object to?” Vizsla asked, his gaze cold and calculating. “Are you some kind of Kalevalan pacifist, wanting to stamp out our traditions? I doubt it, given the armour you wear. Or could it be that you overheard that this verd’ika supports our cause and is interested in joining the ranks of Kyr’tsad ?”

Silas hadn’t known about that - his surprise was obvious. Maul cursed Pre internally. It would have been better if that little fact remained secret.

“You seem to know him, at least,” Pre continued, gesturing to Maul. “You knew his name anyway.” He turned his head slightly to address Maul. “Are you running away adiik ? Is that why you wouldn’t give me your Clan name?”

Maul looked again at Savage and Feral and Kilindi though the press of bodies and considered the fact that perhaps he hadn’t thought his actions through fully. It had only been a faint hope that Pre had the Darksaber, but he could have stepped away once he discovered that it was too early for that. What had he really intended with his request to join Death Watch? Would he have left with them? Left his brothers and Kilindi behind? That was not what he wanted! He would require all the allies he could get when it came time to find and kill Kenobi and Sidious.

Had he imagined he could bring them with him? They had already made their opinions about Kyr’tsad very clear.

“His aliit will be worried about him,” Silas said. “I’ll see him safely home.”

“He’s old enough to make his own choices,” Pre said, voice sharp. “Old enough to decide if he wants to work to free our people from the tyranny of the New Mandalorians.” Again, he looked to Maul, one eyebrow raised, awaiting his response.

Frustration built inside Maul’s chest, the Dark Side rising with it. If he had not been watching Pre’s face he might have missed the small reaction there, a startled blink, a faint shiver against a chill that was not physically present. Curious, Maul reached out just enough to brush the edges of his beskar’gam and felt something there running underneath it. It was not obvious at all from the outside, caged within the metal, but the plates did not offer complete cover and when he felt beneath them…

Soul made manifest in beskar , the goran had said. Stronger in those touched by the stars - in other words those touched by the Force. Maul had not noticed any such thing from Vizsla the first time around, but neither had he been looking for it. Pre had been better with a lightsaber than Maul might have expected for a Force-null, but he had assumed that was simply the Mandalorian’s weapons-training showing through.

If Vizsla had a trickle of Force-sensitivity that was interesting, but not particularly relevant to him right now.

“I should return to my family,” he told Pre. “I apologise for the interruption.”

“We’re going to be in town for a while,” Vizsla replied. “If you consider changing your mind.”

Maul nodded, turned away and endured the weight of Silas’ hand falling on his shoulder - though not before giving one final glance at the young woman in bajur’gam standing just behind Pre. Her face might have been concealed but her presence was one that he knew even though it had been many years since the last time he sensed it. That was Bo-Katan Kryze. Very curious. She was supposed to be kidnapped and missing, not wandering around in the company of her captors.

It appeared she had joined Death Watch at an earlier age than he had imagined. Was she going to be a problem and an obstacle once again? Maul supposed that would depend on what had been at the root of her rejection previously. Had it been something as simple as a deep friendship with Pre, such that she could not bear his death? Had it been because Maul had not sworn the Resol’nare? Perhaps some other factor he had not considered, or a combination of things?

He was in a better position to take command of Death Watch now, though he could admit it was unlikely any of their warriors would agree to take commands from one as young as him.

“We’re going to be talking about this when we get home,” Silas said to him, as soon as they were out of earshot of Vizsla.

“Not on the flight back?” Maul asked, keen to get this over with.

“I need a chance to think first.”

Maul sighed. They got past the obstacle of the slowly-dispersing crowd and Savage, Feral and Kilindi fell into step around them.

“Is that really what you were trying to do?” Kilindi asked him. “Join Kyr’tsad ?”

“It was meant to be an infiltration,” Maul replied, the not-quite-lie coming easily to his lips.

“There’s no need for that,” Silas told him, each word bitten short. “There’s nothing they know that we need to know anymore.”

“Are you certain?” Maul replied. “There are many secrets they would surely tell only to their own.”

“Even if they did, we would never ask or expect an adiik to go in to find that out.”

Maul caught Savage and Kilindi exchanging uncomfortable looks over the top of his head. Kilindi had gone through a growth spurt over the last few months and now she was taller than him, a state of affairs that was likely to continue given that Maul had always been shorter than he liked. They both knew what Maul’s true desires were. They knew what he had said of Kyr’tsad in the past. He braced for the moment they would reveal this to Silas but it did not come. All he sensed was their unease, sticky and cold in the Force.

Silas marched them at a fast pace through the streets and back to where the Promised Revenge was parked. Jango had bought passage on a merchant’s ship to go after Tor Vizsla, rather than risk losing a vessel which meant something to them all as a price for his vengeance. Maul went up the ramp with his head down and frustration a solid weight under his breastbone.

The flight home was just as awkward as he expected. Silas was leaking worry and fear into the Force for the length of the journey and the temptation to reach out and try and perceive his surface thoughts was intense. Maul held back because he did not know how to do that without causing damage and pain. His Master had not wanted him to be subtle when it came to that particular skill.

“All right,” Silas said finally, once they were back in the main room at the homestead, all sitting around the heavy wooden table. “What was that really all about?”

“I said already,” Maul replied. “To be a spy in their ranks.”

Silas shook his head. “You’re no fool Maul, and I’m not either. You knew Jango and I would never have approved of an action like that - and what did you think would happen if that ramikad had taken you on? Kyr’tsad could have shipped you off to complete your training on Concordia - unless that was something you didn’t mind happening?”

“I… I do not want to leave any of you,” Maul said, the words almost dragged out of him. It was hard to admit such a thing. Every instinct screamed that such a connection was a weapon to be used against him. He looked around, meeting the eyes of Kilindi, Savage and Feral. “You’re my aliit .”

Silas looked up at the ceiling, clearly considering his words carefully. “When you were younger,” he said, “when Kyr’tsad had you before…”

“What?” Surprise had him interrupting without thinking about it. He had been aware that Jango and Silas both had their suspicions about the source of his knowledge of Mandaolrians, but they had never pressed him for answers and he had grown complacent. Even so, he would not have imagined they would guess that he had been part of Death Watch.

Silas put his hands up in a calming gesture. “I don’t believe you had any choice about it,” he said, clearly trying to be soothing. Did they think he had been a slave then? A kidnapped child? “You aren’t to blame. But you don’t have to go back to them. They have no hold over you anymore.”

“That is not what this was,” Maul replied sharply. He should not care what false assumptions they might have made, yet it did matter.

“What was it then?” Silas asked.

Maul paused, considering his words. The truth could not be fully concealed, but nor did he have to admit to everything. The less believable parts he would omit. “I was… with Kyr’tsad for a time, yes,” he said carefully. “They did not mistreat me, if that is what you believe. For a while I was… safe , with them - before my Master came for me.” He knew Silas would assume he meant his owner, his slave-master, whereas Kilindi and his brothers would perceive the true meaning of his words.

Silas blinked. His hands flattened out on the table. “Ah,” he said. “Then… are you so sure they were trying to help you?”

“They did help me.” There was no question about their loyalty. Maul was unsure why he felt so defensive over those who had in the end been only tools, but it seemed this was more important to him than he had realised. “I understand how greatly they have hurt you, but they are still Mandalorians, are they not? They still follow the Resol’nare.”

Silas’ face twisted in discomfort and disgust. “That’s arguable, since they certainly didn’t follow Jaster as the true Mandalor.”

“You do not argue that they care for their ade ? Or adiikla in general?”

Silas sighed. Around the table, Savage and Feral and Kilindi watched the back and forth with concern but said nothing to add to it. He did not sense rejection from any of them, but they were not best pleased with him either. No doubt he would need to justify himself to them separately, explain that he truly had not meant to abandon them. It had just been a decision of the moment, an impulsive chase after an unlooked-for opportunity.

“I’m not going to argue with you about how you were treated,” Silas said. “Not when you feel they were kind to you. But I don’t think you understand that it might not have stayed that way. I haven’t seen it for myself, but there have been reports for a long time about the way that Kyr’tsad train their verde, the ramikade most of all. It’s brutal to the point of being abusive - I’m sure they don’t see it that way, but there’s no reason to beat your verde for the slightest mistake, or punish them in the cruel ways I’ve heard about.”

Maul gave Silas a wary look. He recalled nothing particularly severe about the training he had seen during his time with Death Watch - and he had been around in their camp often enough and for long enough that surely he would have noticed. Yes, the Kyr’tsad trainers could be harsh at times but no more so than Maul’s lessons at the Orsis Academy. They had never been anything like Sidious - and even then Maul hesitated to call that abusive since it had been necessary for his development as a Sith.

Whatever Silas saw in his expression, he didn’t like it. There was a question hovering at the forefront of his mind but after a moment he moved away from it. Instead, he said, “So they helped you out. They taught you some of what it is to be Mando’ade . Did you swear loyalty to them? Did they adopt you into a Clan?”

“It did not go that far,” Maul replied.

“But you wanted it to?”

“I wanted to be free of my Master.”

Another moment of uncomfortable silence. “Are you unhappy here?” Silas asked him finally, quietly.

Maul shook his head firmly. “No. No, that played no part in my reasoning.”

“Then why?”

Now they touched upon a subject where Maul would have to be careful, for the same reasons he had wanted to be careful with his knowledge of the Force. Jango had not probed him for the truth then, but… “I am concerned that my Master will track us down,” he said. “We will not be strong enough to stand against him alone, not as we are. Not without more allies.”

Silas frowned. “Your Master… He’s some kind of Force-sensitive, isn’t he? Jango and I both survived jetiise before. We’ll kill him for you, don’t worry about that.”

“You assume he will come alone.” He likely would, but admitting that would not convey the true power and menace of Darth Sidious.

“Who exactly is this man?”

“I cannot tell you that,” Maul said. “You must not go looking for him.”

Silas growled in frustration. “It’s going to be hard to protect you if we don’t know who we’re protecting you from.”

“If you and Jango face him alone, you will die ,” Maul said, slamming his own fist down on the table to emphasise his point. “ That is why we need Kyr’tsad . Or we need Jango to reclaim the title of Mand’alor, but we both know he will not do that.”

Silas looked at him uncertainly. He seemed to have run out of things to say. Maul gave him a sharp nod. “I will do what I must for our safety,” he told him - he told all of them. “Even if it means working with your enemies.”

----

Jango ripped his buy’ce from his head and splashed water onto his face before leaning down to drink greedily from the fast-flowing river. His brain was throbbing inside his skull and his throat felt as dry as if the deserts of Tatooine had been poured down it. Every muscle ached as the poison left his system. That fight had been close. Too close for comfort. He’d made a promise to himself and to the adiikla that he wouldn’t do anything rash, that he wouldn’t risk his life just to get revenge. In the moment he’d been caught up in adrenaline and he hadn’t been thinking about that. He had only thought of Jaster, of the Haat’ade , of Galidraan. Rage had pumped with every beat of his heart. Taking on an entire ship’s worth of Kyr'tsad to get to Tor hadn’t phased him.

He hadn’t actually needed to fight anyone except Tor. Sacrificing his stolen ship to destroy their engines had bought him the chaos and opportunity to go straight for Vizsla… and it had still been a struggle that ranged through the corridors of the cruiser, into an escape pod, and down to the surface of Corellia.

Jango looked sidelong at all that remained of Tor’s body. The hungry dire-cats had torn through his kute , scattering immaculate plates of beskar aside to get at the meat beneath, frenzied by the scent of blood. Jango didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it had been long enough that not much more than blood-stained bones remained, half-hidden in the long grass. The grisly sight didn’t seem to phase the Corellian kids that had found him - they were hanging back and watching him clean himself, but it was only curiosity in their eyes rather than fear.

Jango scooped water over his head, scrubbing dried and foul-smelling sweat from his skin. Then he pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly with a moment of dizziness. The wind against his damp cheeks felt too good to put his buy’ce back on. It was enough to be wrapped in the embrace of the rest of his beskar’gam , for all that it had been defiled by the governor of Galidraan. The hut’uun had stripped it of its paint, clearly ignorant of what the colours meant. During the journey here whenever he’d caught sight of his own reflection it hadn’t looked like him, but like a stranger.

Could he really call himself the same person now as the last time wearing beskar’gam ? He’d been a leader then, Mand’alor to his people. Now he was a failure, no leader at all. Looking after four ade was about as much as he was capable of handling, and even then he felt inadequate more often than not.

Cin vhetin . Snow on the battlefield, deeds of the past hidden by a veil and no longer spoken of. Bare beskar wasn’t the same as snow-white, meaning indecision rather than a new start… but perhaps that was just as appropriate.

“Are you okay?” one of the Corellians asked him. “We can take you to a medic.”

That might be wise, but it would be safer if no-one knew he had been here - or that he was still alive. Kyr'tsad saw him up on that cruiser. Tor had recognised him even without the right colours, had shouted his name to his verde . He must have seen the governor’s stripped trophy, Jango realised, with a stab of fear and hate. Why did that feel like more of a violation than the governor doing it in the first place?

Because Vizsla knew what it meant.

“Did you hit your head?” another of the adiikla asked. Jango realised he had been silent too long.

“I’m fine,” he said, voice coming out rough. “Thank you.” He forced himself to get moving. With slow, halting steps he went over to where Tor’s remains lay and sank down to one knee, checking over the man’s beskar’gam and equipment. Tor hadn’t used the dha’kad at any point during their fight, but it was the symbol and validation of his rule. Surely he would have had it on him?

Finally his questing fingers found a slender, blade-less hilt in one of the pockets on Tor’s belt. The moment Jango’s hand closed around it he felt it buzzing against his palm. Or not buzzing but… alive somehow. A pulse like a slow heartbeat. It was quiet. Sleeping? Jango held it uncomfortably, feeling uncertain. What did he do with it now?

If he left it here, Kyr'tsad would find it when they came looking for Vizsla’s body. They would hand it on to the heir of his House, but... was Jango really going to claim it instead? He could - he’d beaten Tor in combat. It hadn’t been witnessed, but it wouldn’t be hard to get the support of the clans in order to legitimise his rule. He could have done that already, if he’d wanted to.

That was the problem. He didn’t want to. The thought of being Mand’alor curdled something in his belly, something sickening, something between horror and denial. It was a responsibility that he didn’t want - but someone had to rule. The New Mandalorians were still reeling from the death of the Duke, and Jango didn’t really know how he felt about them. They had never been the threat - Kyr'tsad were their enemy. The Kalevalans were pacifists, but they were constrained by their own ideals. Before all of this, when Jaster first re-wrote the Miit’akaan Ori’ramikad it wasn’t like the Kalevalans had done anything to stop him or the Haat Mando’ade.

He needed to think about this, and the dha’kad would stay with him until he decided. Jango tucked it into his belt and rose.

Time to go home.

----

“You never told me any of that before,” Kilindi said, once Silas had left the adiikla to their own devices.

Maul found he could not meet her eyes. "There is much I have not told you."

"And you never have to talk about things, but it might have helped us to understand why you thought Death Watch was so important to your plans."

"What does knowing this change anything?" Maul asked, lip curling into a slight sneer. "The facts I gave you already have not changed."

"We didn't know that they had already helped you before," Savage said. There was sorrow in his eyes and leaching out into the Dark, edging too close to pity for Maul's liking. "Who would not wish to repay such assistance?"

"This is not about repaying them," Maul corrected him. "I fully intend to take their strength for our own, win a place of authority within their ranks."

Kilindi and Savage exchanged looks he could not read. Savage sighed, pushed his chair back from the table and came over to stand next to Maul. "You have been through a lot in your life, brother," he said quietly. "It is not fair."

"Life is not fair," Maul said, with a slight roll of his eyes. "Wallowing in emotion over it does not change reality, or do anything productive at all."

"Isn't emotion the way of the Force?" Savage challenged. "We are your family. If we want to be upset about what this Master has taken from you, don't we have that right?"

Maul glared at the polished wood of the table, his jaw clenched. He could not make them feel any differently but that did not mean he liked it. It was... strange. They should not feel that way. The reason Maul hated Darth Sidious was for the way he had betrayed him, held back from teaching him the true strength and glory of the Sith, abandoning him after Naboo. It was not for any of the other parts of their relationship. Sidious had treated him the way a Sith Apprentice was meant to be treated.

Savage's hand came up to rest on his shoulder. Maul almost flinched at the unexpected touch, caught up in his thoughts as he was. This was hardly the first time Savage had touched him though, in either version of history. During the months they had spent building the first iteration of the Shadow Collective he had gotten used to Savage's frequent need to place a hand on his arm, or shoulder, or the back of his neck. Maul had not allowed himself to miss that after Savage's death, not as anything more than fodder for his rage and hate. Even now that Savage was alive and with him again, each touch was as much a reminder of what Sidious had taken from him as it was anything else.

"Perhaps Kyr'tsad is not all bad, if they protected you," Savage said quietly. "But you have us here to protect you now."

"I've told you we will not be enough," Maul hissed. "If you cared for me so much you would believe me."

Savage bent his head, and rather unexpectedly tangled his horns with Maul's own. The argument that had been waiting to spill from Maul's mouth vanished in a surge of unfamiliar emotion. It was as though some hunger he had not realised he possessed was being sated, a warm flood of endorphins washing out from the points of connection. "We do care for you," Savage said. "We all do. I wish you were able to believe that."

Maul frowned. The temptation was to relax into this strange embrace, but he was a Sith. He was not made for such soft things. Nor did he fully know what he wanted Savage or Kilindi or even Feral to say. People did not do things out of love, not solely. There would always come a point where self-interest over-rode it. He could believe that their self-interest still lay with him, that he had knowledge and strength that they benefited from, but it became harder and harder to remember that these days.

At the corner of his eye he saw Feral get down from his chair and come over, bracing himself against the edge of the table as he strained upwards and then gave a little grunt of frustration when he wasn't tall enough for his own horns to make contact with anything. The rumbling, quiet laugh Savage released was felt more than heard, a vibration in the air between them.

"Here little brother," Savage said, moving his hand to the back to Maul's neck and gently pushing them both down into reach. A faint purr rose up through Maul's chest and escaped before he could stop it. Embarrassment flushed over his cheeks.

"I'm not sure how I'll join," Kilindi said, also from close by. "I don't have horns."

"It's not so different from the keldabe ," Savage replied. "Come here."

They remained like that in a tangle of arms with heads pressed all together for some time. Maul did not bother to measure it. It was easier simply to breathe and exist in the moment. There was pain aching through his hearts but it did not feel truly unpleasant. It was more like... ice over a river cracking with the spring thaw, allowing water to flow once more. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He could only hope it was not the kind of weakness that would cost them dearly in the end.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

Given the transgression inherent in even considering joining Death Watch, Maul expected to receive some manner of punishment for his actions more than just the mildly agonising conversation they’d had about it, but no such punishment came. Maul wasn’t sure if Silas had actually accepted that his argument had some merit, or whether he believed acting further would only do more harm than good. The other possibility was that he was attempting to lull Maul into a false sense of security before striking. He doubted that was the case - Silas was too straight-forward for such tricks. Either way, Maul was still permitted to go with the others into town for the usual supply runs. He was always accompanied, but that had been the case before. If he wished to slip away once again, it would not be impossible.

Something else held him back.

Guilt was an unfamiliar emotion to him, but Maul supposed the slightly sick feeling in the pit of his stomach must be that. His point still stood - they needed Death Watch - but… it had upset Kilindi and his brothers, and he did not like to have done that to them.

Maul did not immediately attempt to contact Pre Vizsla again. He was no longer sure what path he should take. Silas was right that Kyr’tsad would not let him stay here with his family. They were only on Concord Dawn at all because Satine Kryze was still missing. Maul’s aim regarding Death Watch was to get more allies at his side, not to leave the ones he already had behind. He wasn’t old enough to take command of Death Watch, not yet - perhaps it was better to wait a few years more.

The temptation was still there in the back of his mind, a few days later when he went into Arakura again with Silas and Kilindi. Savage and Feral remained at home, studying some of the old farming equipment with the idea of getting it back into some kind of working order again. They would have to give some thought to their food supplies as the months ticked on.

Silas had some business to conduct with the local office of the Protectors. “Don’t get into any trouble,” he told the two of them. “I won’t be long.”

Maul eyed him suspiciously. He was leaving him alone already? Did he not worry Maul would run straight to Kyr’tsad ? Perhaps the doubt in his heart was more obvious than he thought.

“You assume I can make Maul do anything he doesn’t want to,” Kilindi told Silas cheerfully. Silas sighed, but left them to their own devices all the same. “So,” Kilindi said, turning to Maul. “Window shopping? Or do you want to track down that Kyr’tsad ramikad from before?”

For some reason the lack of any obvious judgement or disapproval in her face was more painful to him than the reverse. “Not at the present moment,” he said. “Otherwise, I have no particular preferences.”

“You told Silas you would work with our enemies if you had to,” Kilindi pointed out, as they started to walk.

Maul winced slightly. “I may have been too hasty in my actions. We… have more time.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

Maul gave her a wary sideways glance, but her breezy acceptance appeared genuine.

Arakura was not large enough to be separated into districts. There was a single town center where the non-residential buildings were clustered - and even there, plenty of the shopkeepers lived above their businesses, scattered around the central market square and its many stalls. Maul and Kilindi spent half an hour strolling at a leisurely pace, nodding greetings to people they recognised after several months living here. Kilindi had always been more gregarious than Maul was, so he let her make small talk while he kept his eyes and ears open.

Maul did interject with questions at several points to seek word of what Kyr’tsad had been up to in the past few days. Word of his aborted duel with Vizsla had apparently spread, which he ought to have expected, and reactions to it were mixed. He got some disapproving looks, and more than a few questions about whether he had genuinely been intending to join a group that were famous enemies of his buir .

Maul did not bother to correct them that Jango was not his buir . They were supposed to assume that this was the case. Kilindi managed to deflect most of those questions, suggesting that the rumours had been overblown, but it was not quite enough to quash the wariness that had grown up about him for many. Others were more positive - clearly they had some sympathies towards Kyr’tsad themselves.

It was helpful to know the general feelings of the populace towards the civil war still ongoing. Many here were still supportive of the Haat’ade and Fett despite that Fett had no intention of doing anything with that support, but not all. Opinions of the New Mandalorians were low across the board at least.

“I can’t see the Kalevalans winning this war,” Kilindi said, as they headed through the market. “Not unless Jango manages to kill Tor, and even then someone else would just take his place.”

Maul nodded. He didn’t recall exactly what factors had decided the outcome of this conflict the first time around, and he could not see the path that led from here to there. He doubted he could have changed all that much simply by freeing Jango Fett. He must have escaped enslavement at some point on his own, otherwise he would not have become the notorious bounty-hunter with a reputation that led the Sith to him.

Kilindi slowed their pace to browse some of the stalls. Maul kept a watchful eye scanning their surroundings, less interested in such trinkets. He knew Kilindi enjoyed the experience of looking at them more than actually buying anything. At first, the teenager in rough brown garments did not catch his attention. It was not until the second look that a creeping sense of familiarity rose in Maul’s mind.

He might be young, fifteen or sixteen perhaps, without a trace of that famous beard on his cheeks, but Maul had the image of a bare-faced padawan on Naboo seared into his memories. The shape of the face was the same. The build was the same.

“Kenobi,” he whispered, an expression of purest hate.

Kilindi said something next to him, but Maul was already moving. There was no space in his mind to question what Kenobi was doing here, or to wonder if this was really the wisest course of action. There was only the familiar rage flooding well-worn channels in his soul, the desperate need for revenge born from every moment scraping through the garbage to survive and drowning his mind in the Dark to force himself to keep on living.

Kenobi wasn’t expecting him. He was not yet fully trained. He was not obviously armed. It was the perfect moment.

----

The first warning Obi-wan had of any danger was when the Force screamed inside his head to move, now . He obeyed its command instinctively without thinking, ducking backwards out of the way and dropping the bags full of supplies. Fresh fruit rolled out over the dusty stone cobbles. The incoming vibroknife that would have skewered him in the shoulder met thin air instead of flesh.

“What…?” was all Obi-wan had time to say before the knife was coming around again. Obi-wan dodged, bringing an arm up to deflect the strike and cursing as he was met with armour that made the impact judder through his bones. He backed up several steps, trying to open space between them, to see who this was and try and work out why in the name of the Force they were trying to kill him.

His assailant followed him, pressing the attack and giving him no room at all to breathe and take stock, to get his balance and re-centre himself. They were wearing Mandalorian armour, painted a dull green shade with little in the way of markings or ornamentation. The shape of the helmet suggested it was making room for horns beneath it. A zabrak? What didn’t fit was that… this was a child! Or at the very least a teenager younger than he was! Obi-wan knew from Satine that Mandalorians judged adulthood to start from the age of thirteen, but there was still a transitional period. They didn’t just drop their younglings into combat straight away.

Or the ones Satine knew didn’t. Death Watch might be a different matter.

This youngling had to be part of Death Watch. That was the only reason Obi-wan could see for this swift and vicious attack - he just didn’t understand how they had guessed who he was!

The young warrior circled, vibroblade a glimmer of wicked durasteel in their hand. Obi-wan was on the defensive - he looked desperately around the marketplace to see if anyone would help him, if anyone was even paying attention to this fight in their midst. It did appear to be causing some consternation, but nothing near what he would have expected from any civilised planet. There were a few calls in Mando’a - it was hard to concentrate on translating them inside his head as his attacker came for him once again. Something about Protectors? Something about this not being the first time ‘Maul’ had started a duel in public?

So he had a name for this person. It didn’t help him right now.

The zabrak was growling, a low and constant sound. His knife wove patterns in the air as he struck over and over, looking for the gap in Obi-wan’s defences. Obi-wan was drawing on the Force, using it as he had been taught to boost his speed and agility, but it did not seem to be enough. There was something else in the Force with him, felt rather than seen, like shadows blocking out the heat of the sun. He knew it. He had felt it before - the memory of Xanatos looming over him and feeling just like that in the Force made him shudder. It was the Dark Side. He took a breath in, made short and sharp with shock.

Why was his attacker wrapped in the influence of the Dark Side? Mandalorians didn’t use the Force - but that did not mean they were impervious to its influence. Whether it was instinct or training from some Dark Side cult not known to the Jedi didn’t matter. What did was that this zabrak was no ordinary opponent.

Bright lines of pain rippled across Obi’s skin - his left bicep, his cheek, the outside of his right thigh - as he did not quite manage to get out of the way in time. The zabrak didn’t fight like a child, but like a trained warrior twice his age. Fear flooded like ice into his heart as he realised he was losing this fight. His attacker would wear him down and eventually these small cuts would turn into much worse injuries until he was too weak to defend himself any longer.

He couldn’t wait for someone to come and help him, if anyone even would.

His lightsaber was a heavy weight against his skin, strapped close to his waist beneath his loose shirt. He couldn’t draw it, not without giving away what he was. He remembered all of Qui-gon’s warnings about Mandalorians. They were not at all fond of Jedi. He might only make things worse.

Another flash from the vibro-knife. Obi-wan leaned backwards but the zabrak drove on, pushing the blow. It lashed across his forehead in a line of cold fire. Blood started to well in a slow but steady stream down his face, stinging and sticky into his right eye. Obi-wan stepped backwards trying to duck his head and wipe it clean on the sleeve of his shirt but that was a mistake. The vibroblade sank into the meat of his left thigh and the muscle gave out under him. Obi-wan staggered, almost falling, pulling the vibroblade from his enemy’s grasp with the sudden jerk of movement. It was a small mercy. Opening his one good eye he saw the zabrak simply pull another one from a hilt at his belt.

There was no choice. Obi-wan was not going to die here. He pulled his lightsaber free and ignited it in one smooth movement, holding the blue blade as a barrier between him and his enemy.

Silence fell in a circle all around them. Obi-wan hadn’t been aware of the noise until it was gone. He looked desperately for someone who might help him, the lightsaber enough to hold the zabrak back for now. A crowd had formed, drawn by the violence. He saw several other Mandalorians in various amounts of armour, though few in a full suit of it as his attacker was. Only four wore full beskar’gam . There was a young nautolan similarly garbed watching passively with arms folded in front of their chest, a human pushing their way through the crowd, and another two humans one of whom…

One of whom had the shriek-hawk symbol of Death Watch on their shoulder-plate.

Obi-wan’s heart sank.

“Maul!” The older Mandalorian called out, making his way to the front of the crowd. “ Again ? What are you…” His words cut off immediately, then he snarled, “ Jetii ,” with unmistakable hatred.

“I believe you have just answered your own question,” the youngling replied, surprisingly articulate for someone who had attacked him in the street . “Stand back and let me finish killing him.”

The Death Watch trooper snorted. “He’s got a lightsaber,” he pointed out.

“A minor obstacle,” this ‘Maul’ replied.

“What is a jetii doing on Concord Dawn anyway?” the trooper said. “That’s a question we need to answer before you kill him.”

Another growl ripped from Maul’s throat. He lunged for Obi-wan again - Obi jerked his lightsaber through a spin that should have taken the boy’s hand off at the wrist but apparently the zabrak was anticipating what he would do. The attack had been a feint - he flipped the vibroknife into his other hand and stabbed towards Obi-wan’s ribs.

The Death Watch trooper grabbed Maul by the shoulder and hauled him back before the attack could land. “That wasn’t a request,” he said, an edge in his voice. “The only reason a jetii would be here at all is because the Republic sent them. We need to know why.”

At least he didn’t appear to suspect they had been sent to help Satine and the New Mandalorians. Or perhaps he did, but didn’t want to say that out loud in a public place.

“I’m not intending on answering any of your questions,” he told them both. His leg hurt very much, a steady agony and a weakness that meant he couldn’t put much of his weight on it at all. The dampness of his own blood was spreading down his thigh.

“No?” the trooper said. It sounded like he was smiling under his helmet. “I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

The older Mandalorian cleared his throat. “If anyone is asking anybody questions here, it’s me,” he said. “A jetii infiltrating our borders is Protector business.”

The Protectors were the local law enforcement on Concord Dawn, Obi-wan knew that much. By the way that this one said the word “ jetii ”, he wasn’t sure he would be much better off with them than with Death Watch - but at least the Protectors were some kind of legitimate part of the governing structure of Mandalorian space. They weren’t terrorists. They might not treat him well, but they weren’t likely to summarily execute him without a trial, or vanish him somewhere he couldn’t be tracked down by Qui-gon.

“It seems more appropriate that I go with you, officer,” he said, nodding to the man.

There was a tense moment as the Protector and the trooper glared at each other - or whatever the Mandalorian equivalent was when neither party could see the others’ eyes. The trooper was still holding Maul loosely by the shoulder - the boy gave a low snarl and sheathed his vibroblade.

“ Jetiise are slippery creatures,” the trooper finally said, voice soft and threatening. “Perhaps we should come with you and ensure they don’t escape along the way.”

“I know how to handle jetiise ,” the Protector snarled.

“Do you? Apparently you can’t even handle this verd’ika .” He nodded down at Maul. The boy pulled away from his grip.

“I do not require to be handled Vizsla,” he said irritably. Obi-wan’s heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t just any soldier of Death Watch, but part of the Clan that made up the heart of it, a relative of its leader. The political dimensions of this were getting all the more complicated.

The Protector sighed. “Fine. Maul, Kilindi, Kyr’tsade , come with me then. We’ll take this jetii to the station, get them some medical care, and then we can all ask whatever questions we need to.”

----

Anger was still stoking the fire of the Dark in Maul’s heart but he hauled it back and got it under his control. There were too many people around who would stop him from attacking Kenobi again and he could not get past them all. His revenge could wait. Once Silas discovered the Jedi’s reason for being here on Mandalore his own need for vengeance would surely be enough of a lever to get him to stand aside and let Maul finish what he had started.

Now that he took a moment to consider the situation, Maul realised that Kenobi must be here to protect Satine Kryze. He knew the story - Kenobi had spent months in Mandalorian space acting as a bodyguard for the future duch*ess, protecting her until she could take her place on the throne - but none of the details. Even now those details were of no particular interest to him, but they certainly were to Pre Vizsla and to Silas. Maul toyed with the idea of simply telling them the truth himself. It would be easy enough to present it as just a suggestion, something he was guessing from the observable facts.

Only it would not get him Kenobi dead any quicker. Nor did he really care what happened to Kryze. She had only ever been a means to an end - he bore her no particular malice despite the hatred Death Watch had for her.

Maul trailed the rest of their group to the Protectors’ station building, glaring daggers at Kenobi’s spine. His enemy’s young age had been obvious during their fight. The perfect defence which had become his trademark in later years was nowhere to be seen and his skills at unarmed combat had been mediocre compared to the martial arts drilled into Maul from the moment he was old enough to hit a training droid. He would have killed the boy, he was certain.

Something about that felt… off. It should not have been that easy. Kenobi was his greatest challenge, the one he measured himself against. This version of him was lesser. Unworthy.

“What was that all about?” Kilindi asked, bending close to him so that they would go unheard.

“He is a Jedi,” Maul replied - the most honest answer he could give.

“You said a name,” she said. “His name I’m guessing.”

Maul clenched his jaw. Yes, he had done that. It had slipped out of him without thought of the consequences. He had no excuse for this, so he made none. Seeing that he wasn't going to answer her, Kilindi shrugged and stopped pushing. Perversely, that only made him want to tell her the truth.

That would be foolish. He resisted the urge.

Silas stopped at the entrance to the station to exchange words with another Protector, then led them through the building past wary glares directed at Pre and Bo-Katan into an interrogation room. Someone brought a medkit and Silas helped Kenobi spray the stab-wound in his leg with bacta before wrapping a bandage around his thigh. Then he pushed gently Kenobi into a chair on one side of the table, fastened his wrists into the cuffs welded to the surface, and sat down opposite him. Maul leaned against the wall, Kilindi at his side. The two Death Watch verde took the other side.

“So,” Silas said, folding his hands on the table in front of him. “Let’s start off with something simple jetii . What’s your name?”

Maul could see the indecision warring behind Kenobi’s eyes. He was wary of Maul, and he was very wary of Pre. He knew he was in enemy hands and that his fate might already be sealed. The wisest course of action for the truly committed would be to say nothing at all and go to one’s death protecting all the secrets you held. The man Kenobi would grow up to be would have spun a pretty tale of half-truths and had Silas believing him in less than an hour. This boy was used to a weak and corrupt galaxy that asked little of him. He answered honestly.

“Obi-wan Kenobi,” he said. “Might I have yours?”

“No,” Silas replied. “What about the name of your Master?”

That startled Kenobi. “My Master? I don’t know what you mean.”

It was a bad lie, and all of them knew it. “We aren’t ignorant of Jetiise ways here,” Silas growled. “You’re a Jetii’ad . A padawan. You wouldn’t go anywhere without your Master. So who and where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is right at this moment,” Kenobi protested.

“But you know his name, I presume.”

Clearly the boy thought it did not matter if they knew something as simple as names. “Qui-gon Jinn,” he said. “We mean the Mandalorian people no harm, I promise you. We are here quite by accident…”

Pre snorted. “You expect us to believe that?” he asked. “ Jetiise don’t go anywhere by accident.”

Silas nodded with reluctant agreement. “ Jetiise answer to the Republic. I assume they sent you. This is meddling in the affairs of a neutral sovereign sector.”

“We were invited here by Mandalorians,” Obi-wan said. He appeared to be offended by the insinuation that they were doing anything wrong, which Maul found wonderfully hypocritical. Of course when Jedi meddled in the affairs of others it was only correct and righteous, but when Maul assisted a faction at their own request it was enough to prompt an invasion of Republic troops to bring down his rightful government.

It had not surprised him. It had been his own design, well aware that the Republic would run roughshod over any neutral system they wished if it served their own ends. He merely disliked the pretense that this was anything other than what it was.

“Let me guess,” Pre said, a sneer in his voice. “At the request of the New Mandalorians. Dar’manda aruetiise. ”

“They are still a legitimate part of the government,” Kenobi said, self-righteous in a way that made Maul want to tear out his tongue. “Unlike Death Watch.”

That got a laugh out of Pre. “According to who? The Kalevalans? Tor Vizsla bears the Darksaber. That makes him the Mand’alor by the traditions of our people.”

“Arguable,” Silas snapped.

Pre might be wearing his helmet but Maul still sensed the way his attention sharpened in on Silas. Suspicion was hovering at the forefront of his mind. This was not the place or time for that particular debate, something of which Pre was well aware. “My point still stands,” he said instead. “Our claim to be the legitimate government of all Mando’ade has at least as firm a basis as that of the Kalevalans.”

Kenobi was frowning. Had this not been in his mission briefing? Poor little Jedi.

Silas turned back to him. “Alright, you were asked to be here. To do what, exactly?”

“That is between the Jedi and the New Mandalorians.”

“If the Kalevalans are thinking about asking for Republic aid, then that’s our business,” Silas said. His interwoven fingers tightened, the tension visible even through his gloves. “And Jetiise aid is even worse than only Republic aid.”

Thoughts whirled behind Kenobi’s eyes, detectable in the way his gaze flicked around the room. “Have I actually done something against the law?” he asked. “Or do you simply object to the fact that I am a Jedi?”

“He has a point, Journeyman Protector,” Pre said. “Perhaps you have no reason to hold him here at all. Perhaps you should turn him over to me and know that I’ll see an appropriate punishment meted out for his transgressions.”

“Breaking the treaty Mandalore has with the Republic sounds like breaking the law to me,” Silas replied.

“And what court will you prosecute this Jetii in? The Republic’s? The Kalevalan’s? Who does Concord Dawn answer to in times like these?”

Kenobi shifted uneasily in his seat. “If you’re suggesting that a treaty has been broken then surely that is a matter for the galactic courts,” he said. “As far as I understand it, the New Mandalorian faction petitioned the Jedi for aid directly. I’m sure that the Republic wouldn’t want to look like they were meddling to the other neutral parts of the galaxy…”

Maul laughed. He could not help himself.

“I’m not lying,” Obi-wan said sharply, as though that was what Maul had been responding to. “The Republic Constitution prohibits…”

“That has never stopped the Republic from meddling in Mandalorian space before,” Maul said. Or in the future either.

“What would you know about that?” Kenobi said, a slight flush rising over his cheeks. “You’re just a child!”

“And you’re not?” Maul replied.

“Maul is more educated in Mandalorian history than you appear to be, Jetii ,” Silas said, “and I don’t think Mandalore is some kind of special case.”

“How did you even know who I was?” Obi-wan said, frowning at Maul. “I wasn’t doing anything. I was just shopping in the market and you attacked me.”

That was a question that Maul had been expecting to come up, but he had hoped it would be in private with Silas and Kilindi, not in front of Vizsla. “You were… suspicious,” he said, which he knew very well was a pitiful reply. He had not managed to come up with any reasonable excuse.

That made Kenobi all the more suspicious himself. “You sensed me in the Force,” he said. “I felt you using the Dark Side. Who taught you?”

That got Pre’s attention, and Bo-Katan’s too. She had been staying very quiet throughout this, doing her best not to draw any attention to her. Maul didn’t imagine either Silas or Kenobi knew enough about her to recognise her, but it was wise anyway. Now she stood up straight from the wall, tensing in surprise.

“I was born on Dathomir,” Maul replied, choosing another selective truth. “The Jedi have taught you what that means, haven’t they?”

“The witches?” Kenobi said, puzzled. “I thought only the women were Force-sensitive.”

“And the Jedi believed that?” Maul supposed he should not be surprised. They saw only ever what they wanted to see.

Kenobi looked ready to ask more questions, but Silas rapped on the table to call his attention back to him. Before he could speak, there was another knock - at the door this time. One of the Protectors stuck their head in and spoke in Mando’a .

[ Your comrade is here to see you. Thought you’d want them involved. ]

Silas straightened in his chair. They couldn’t be talking about another Protector surely - Maul’s guess was proven correct when the door opened more fully and Fett entered, clad in shining silver beskar with his helmet tucked under his arm.

The Darksaber was tucked away on his belt, hidden at the base of his spine. It wasn’t visible but Maul could sense it there, a razor-edged shiver in the Force. He took a sharp breath in. This situation had just become significantly more complicated.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

The moment that Jango stepped off the cargo transport that had served as his ride back to Concord Dawn he tried to call Silas on his comm. He still felt physically worn and tired - his stomach had been slow to settle from the after-effects of the poison - and having the dha’kad on his person just felt weird , but he was settling back into his skin with the weight of beskar on him.

Silas didn’t pick up. Jango checked the local time. It was the middle of the day, so possibly he was busy with his actual job. He called the homestead instead.

“Jango?” Savage said, picking up quickly. “You’re back?”

Some weight that he hadn’t even been aware of lifted from his shoulders. He smiled. “Yeah. Vizsla is dead. I got what I needed.”

“That is excellent news,” Savage replied. “I’m glad for you, buir .” It wasn’t the first time he’d called Jango that, but it never failed to affect him. It was a good feeling, but slightly staggering all the same.

“Where is everyone today?” he asked. “At the farm with you?” Savage didn’t call him buir in front of Maul, but Maul could be out in the fields, or training.

A pause. “Several things have happened while you were away. Not… not bad things exactly. No-one is hurt. Just things Silas will want to talk to you about.”

That was ominous, and more so since Jango knew Kyr’tsad was also lurking around here. He had no idea how quickly word of Tor’s death would have been passed between them. The survivors from the cruiser above Corellia would have wanted to find the body first, to be sure that he actually was dead before spreading something that would be such a crushing blow to their morale, and that wouldn’t be an easy task given what little the dire-cats had left of him. Even if the ramikade here knew about their duel and its outcome, he wasn’t certain they were aware that Jango lived on Concord Dawn. He thought most of his neighbours or those that knew him in town liked him enough not to mention it.

“Silas isn’t answering his comm,” he told Savage. “He’s in Arakura today?”

“He took Maul and Kilindi with him,” Savage confirmed. “He should be at the Protectors’ station.”

“I’ll meet him there,” Jango said, and headed that way.

His shining, almost-bare beskar’gam drew more than a few sidelong glances and double-takes as he made his way through the streets. There had been no time and none of the right supplies to consider painting it, or even to mark it with symbols of Clan or the Haat’ade . He was a stranger to everyone. He could have taken his buy’ce off, been recognised that way, but it would only lead to conversations he didn’t want to deal with yet.

At the steps of the station, a Protector standing guard moved into his path and held out a hand to stop him. [ Identify yourself, cinyc’gam , ] they said, in Mando’a.

Jango reached up and disengaged the seal on his buy’ce , removing it and tucking it under his arm. [ Jango Fett, ] he replied.

The Protector gave him an obvious once-over. [ First time I’ve seen you in beskar’gam , ] they said, and stepped aside with a respectful nod. [ Mand’alor. ]

[ I’m not. ] Jango replied.

[ There are plenty still loyal if you changed your mind about that. ]

Jango shook his head. [ Looking for Silas, ] he said, words clipped. [ Where are they? ]

[ I’d better show you, ] the Protector said. [ There’s a situation. Death Watch are involved. ]

Great. Of course they were. Jango followed his guide down the corridor round back of the main office area before they stopped and knocked on a door, opening it and going in straight after.

[ Your comrade is here to see you, ] the Protector said - to Silas presumably. Jango didn’t have a good look inside the room past their shoulders. [ Thought you’d want them involved. ] Then they moved aside so that Jango could go in.

The scene that met him was an unexpected one. This was one of the rooms used for interrogation, with bare walls and ceiling, a single one-way window, only this one door, and lights inset behind protective transparisteel. There was a teenager sitting on the far side of the table in the centre of the room, hands locked down into the stasis cuffs that were part of the table itself. Silas sat opposite him, but the room was crowded by four others in full beskar’gam. Kilindi and Maul were two of those, but the other pair could only be the Kyr’tsad verde that the Protector had been referring to.

“Who is this?” the older of the two said, jerking slightly towards Jango and the open door, going for their weapons. Calling them older was only a relative term - they still had some of the lanky awkwardness of youth - but the other verd was still in bajur’gam . “What right do you have to be here?”

Jango frowned. They were speaking in Basic. Why? That wasn’t like Kyr’tsad - could it be for the prisoner’s benefit? [ Gotta talk to Silas, ] he said, not about to introduce himself yet. This was a delicate situation. He had no doubt that between the four of them they could overpower the two Kyr’tsad teens, but that was risky when he didn’t know what was going on or why they were here in the first place.

Maul’s buy’ce co*cked in a way that promised Jango wasn’t going to like what he intended to pull. [ Perhaps it should wait until after we’re done speaking to this Jedi, ] he said.

[ Jedi? ] Jango’s gaze trained immediately on their prisoner. If they were a Jedi then they had to be a padawan, which meant their Master couldn’t be far away. [ What the f*ck are Jedi doing on Concord Dawn? ]

[ That’s what we’re trying to establish, ] Silas said, his tone rather dry. [ Before you came barging in here - not that I’m not very happy to see you. I expect you’ve got good news to share. ]

[ Might do, ] Jango said, the corner of his mouth curling up into a smirk.

“You still haven’t introduced yourself,” the Kry’tsad verd said. “What are you anyway, in that armour? A bounty-hunter unable to wait patiently for the Protectors to give you your pay?”

That was pretty close to what Jango might have guessed under the circ*mstances. [ No friend of yours , Death Watch, ] he replied.

On the other side of the room, Maul visibly sighed. [ This is Pre Vizsla, ] he remarked, as though he were sharing a fact about the weather. [ Tor’s heir. ]

Ossik! Jango really wanted to know why Maul knew that to begin with, but that was secondary to the much larger problem facing him. He wasn’t the only one surprised by this news though. Silas turned in his chair with coiled fury in every line of his body.

[ You left that bit out when we talked about this before, ] he said to Maul.

Vizsla’s helmet tilted, an expression of incredulity. “Is that really so significant to the Protectors?” he asked, still sticking to Basic. “Right now I’m a ramikad like any other. Or are the Protectors arrogant enough to want to start a fight with Kyr’tsad by trying to kill me?”

Jango could have drawn this out with meaningless scenarios about taking him captive, ransoming him to his buir in exchange for their own demands, but he wasn’t that cruel. Vizsla might not have recognised his face, but he would certainly recognise his name.

[ Your parentage matters because I’m Jango Fett, ] he said, [ and I’ve just come back from killing Tor Vizsla. ]

----

Shock hit Pre with a visceral punch that left him reeling. His ears rang - a high-pitched whine like the after-effects of an explosion. He couldn’t breathe. It was like being dunked in ice-water, heart pounding, struggling to make sense of up or down or to fight back to open air. On the inside he was numb and cold. He didn’t know what to think or what to feel.

He knew what he should be feeling. He just… didn’t.

[ You’re meant to be dead, ] was what he ended up saying, rather than anything sensible.

Jango Fett co*cked his head slightly, looking puzzled at that. [ That so? Interesting. I wonder why Tor didn’t tell you the truth. ]

Tor had known Fett was still alive? Then why hadn’t he tried to track him down and finish what they had started? What had the trap on Galidraan been for if not dealing with their enemies once and for all? His body felt slow and heavy, not quite real. None of this felt real. It would have been easy to doubt that Fett was who he said he was, but for some reason Pre could tell that he was telling the truth about all of it.

He bit his bottom lip until he tasted blood, the pain helping to anchor him. [ Do you have proof? ] he demanded.

Fett sighed. He reached slowly around to his back and pulled something free that fit neatly into his palm. He held it out for Pre to see.

It was the dha’kad .

He knew his duty as Tor’s heir. He had to kill Fett for this. He was tempted to lash out, to start the fight here and now, but there were adiikla present. He couldn’t control collateral damage in a confined space like this, and even if they were verde it wouldn’t be honorable to involve them in something that was between him and Fett. There were also the Journeyman Protectors to consider. Fett had been referred to as this one’s vod . They were likely to side with him and then Pre would find himself fighting alone against all of them.

Honour dictated he ought to avenge Tor or die trying. Every moment of inaction brought shame on him. Knowing that made discomfort squirm through his belly like tangling serpents, but he also had a duty to act in a way that was most likely to achieve success.

Fett let his hand and the saber in it fall back to his side. He shifted his weight, looking equally uncomfortable with this situation. [ Someone said something about a Jedi, ] he said.

[ That’s it? ] Pre said. [ You’re going to march in here and tell me that and change the subject? ]

[ You want to have this conversation here? ] Fett replied.

Pre hesitated. The Jetii might not understand anything that they were saying, but the Protector did, and so did Maul and his nautolan friend. Were they his vod perhaps?

[ We have a lot to talk about, ] Fett continued, [ but we should deal with one situation at a time. ]

Still sitting at the table, the Protector sighed. [ A lot has happened while you were away. The Jedi is the least of it. ]

“You’ve mentioned Jedi several times now,” the jetii’ad said, perking up as he perhaps sensed that he was being discussed. “If you’re deciding what to do with me I would appreciate being told about it.”

“Nothing’s been decided yet,” the Protector said.

“Who are you, exactly?” the jetii’ad asked Fett. “Why do you have a lightsaber?”

Fett turned his attention on him, and his glare could have stripped paint from the hull of a kom’rk . “Jango Fett,” he said. “That name mean anything to you?”

The boy didn’t shrink despite the obvious hatred. “No. Should it?”

Fett said nothing for a long moment. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Pre wondered if he would kill the jetii’ad . He had reason - the jetiise had slaughtered the Haat’ade, doing Kyr’tsad’s work for them . Had their Order ever found out that they had been manipulated? Did they know they had killed verde innocent of the supposed crimes of which they had been accused?

Those crimes were not crimes outside of the weak laws of the Republic. Those Kry’tsad had killed had not been warriors. If they couldn’t defend themselves, they were not worthy to continue living. They existed at the mercy of those who were strong, to be spared or slaughtered at the whims of their masters and betters.

Fett looked down to his vod . “What has he said so far?”

“That he and his Master are here at the request of the Kalevalans,” the Protector replied. “He’s been very cagey about the details. He did give his Master’s name - Qui-gon Jinn, and his own - Obi-wan Kenobi.”

[ Not familiar names, ] Fett said in Mando’a.

[ The padawan didn’t react to your name either, ] the Protector said. [ They must have known how inflammatory it would be sending the murderers of our people into our territory. ]

“Are you part of Death Watch?” the jetii’ad asked.

Fett bared his teeth at that. “No,” he said, with obvious disgust.

Obi-wan’s brow furrowed. “But you were giving that one orders,” he said, pointing at Pre.

“That’s… that’s not what we were talking about,” Fett said.

“You’re someone important though,” the jetii’ad said, giving him a cautious, speculative look.

Fett held the dha’kad . He had won it in combat - or Pre assumed that he had. From what he knew of Jango Fett he couldn’t imagine the man would have killed his father with some kind of trick. By the traditions of House Vizsla and Kyr’tsad , didn’t that make him the Mand’alor?

Pre could have laughed, but the sour irony of it caught in his throat. Fett was Mereel’s heir as well, so he had claim to the title twice over. He wasn’t Kyr’tsad but at least he wasn’t a pacifist like the Kalevalans. He respected the traditions of their people. It was only his weakness and reluctance to act against those same pacifists that made him unworthy. Pre had no idea where he had been in the years since Galidraan, or if he had approached any of the other traditionalist clans to seek their approval, but… they might give it if Fett asked.

Kyr’tsad respected the rule of the Mand’alor - they had just disagreed with the Haat’ade about who that was. On the other hand this didn’t have to be a problem or a conflict in his duty. Fett still owed Clan Vizsla a debt of blood. Pre could challenge Fett for the dha’kad and take back everything his Clan had lost.

Fett was a formidable fighter if he had defeated Tor. Pre was not about to let something as petty as that stop him. He knew what he had to do, as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“If the Mandalorian government really does have some issue with the Jedi being here, then you should take that up with the Republic,” Kenobi said earnestly. He leaned forwards over the table. “I’m certain this can all be resolved peacefully.”

Maul cleared his throat. In the tense atmosphere it was all that was needed to draw attention to him. “The question of your mission here has not yet been answered,” he said, his voice soft and with just as much threat in it as Fett’s. Pre had noticed his familiarity with the Protector, and he had shown no surprise when Fett arrived. The verd’ika was presenting a greater and greater mystery. That hadn’t bothered Pre before, but it was starting to now.

“Which Kalevalans asked you to come here, specifically?” Fett asked. Obviously the same thing had occurred to him as it had to Pre earlier - that it had something to do with Duke Kryze’s death. Satine was still out there in hiding, quite possibly under Jetiise protection.

That would just be another painful irony to pile on top of the others, if she had been here on Concord Dawn all along.

“I’m not sure it’s wise for me to answer that with Death Watch here,” the jetii’ad said.

“Was it House Kryze?”

The lack of answer went on just long enough to be an answer in itself. “Right,” Fett said, slamming his hand down on the desk. “Where’s your Master? Obviously we’re never going to get this sorted out unless we talk to him.”

“I’m not going to give up his location so that you can kill him,” the boy said, raising his chin defiantly.

"Well I'm not ruling that out," Fett snarled. "I'm not planning on starting a war with the Order of the Jetiise though. If you and your Master really want to claim you're abiding within galactic law, then you'd better be ready to justify your presence on our planet or get out of the Mandalorian sector entirely."

Obi-wan hesitated. He was caught in his own moral code, or at least what he claimed that to be. He didn't want to be proved to be a hypocrite. Beneath his buy’ce Pre smirked. He had no love for the Jetiise , old enemies of their people that they were. "I... would be willing to contact my Master," the boy said. "I'll explain the situation and see what he wants to do. He'll know what's best - but I'm only going to do this under the supervision of the Journeyman Protectors. Not Death Watch."

[ The Jedi will not negotiate, ] Maul said to Fett. His Mando'a was good, but that wasn't a Concord Dawn accent. All that meant was that he hadn’t grown up here all his life. It didn’t add much to the picture. [ Silas doesn’t speak for the Protectors. The Jedi don’t acknowledge Death Watch to have any legitimacy at all. Why should they pay you any respect or listen to what you think when you’re refusing to claim any kind of authority? ]

Pre expected Jango to react with anger, which would have been understandable given how bold the verd’ika was being. Yet Maul was not wrong. Fett wasn’t leader of the Haat’ade anymore, and that hadn’t saved him from the Jetiise before. Instead he stood silent for a long moment. His hand closed into a tight fist around the hilt of the dha’kad .

[ Politics, ] he said, spitting the word out as though it tasted foul. [ I’m not made for that. ]

[ The simple solution would be to kill this one, ] Maul said, gesturing to the jetii’ad . [ We’ll find the other one shortly now we know they’re here. If doesn’t matter why the Republic sent them if they’re dead. ]

There was something slightly disingenuous about the verd’ika’s words. Pre frowned as he tried to work out what wasn’t sitting right, but it wouldn’t come to him.

[ It matters when the Republic send more, ] Silas replied. [ When they decide it’s a pretext to invade and install some Kalevalan puppet on the throne in Sundari. ]

[ They may do that anyway, ] Pre said, a little surprised to find himself speaking. This was important though, just as important as the leaden weight inside him, as the duty he was putting aside for the right moment. It would do no good to get rid of Fett and turn around to find the Republic on their doorstep ready to destroy them. The Republic might not have its own standing army, but that had never stopped them before. Plenty of their planets had defence forces that would be enough for a short campaign against a single, weakened sector.

Fett took a deep breath. [ I see what you’re doing, ] he said quietly to Maul.

[ Someone has to rule Mandalore, ] the verd’ika replied. [ If you won’t do it, then turn the Darksaber over to Vizsla now and let them get on with it. ]

Pre couldn’t entirely hide his reaction to that. For a moment he wondered if it would be that simple. It would certainly make killing Fett easier.

Fett bared his teeth. [ That’s not happening. ] A brief moment of deep weariness passed over his face before he visibly steeled himself. To Kenobi he said, “Call your Master then. We’ll make whatever arrangements we need to. Let’s deal with this.”

The jetii’ad nodded. The tense conversation going on around him that he didn’t understand had clearly made him nervous and uncertain, but he was getting what he’d asked for.

[ Now for those other conversations we need to have, ] Fett said to the rest of them. [ Silas, can you get someone else in here so our prisoner can make contact with their Master? ]

The Protector nodded. [ We should be able to get some privacy in one of the other rooms, ] he said. [ Are you going to deal with Vizsla first? ]

[ I think we need to hear how Maul knows them before we do anything else, ] Fett said.

Pre wanted to know the answer to that question as well, but he felt oddly protective of the verd’ika who had shown so much sympathy to the Kyr’tsad cause. [ How do you know Maul? ] he asked, voice sharp. [ What business is it of yours who they chose to associate with? ]

[ Maul lives with me, ] Fett replied, giving him a deeply annoyed look. [ I’m their teacher. It very much is my business. ]

Yet another surprise to add to all the other ones this day was bringing. Pre glanced Maul’s way. The verd’ika looked annoyed by all of this, not guilty or ashamed. He didn’t appear to be worried about whatever Fett would say to him. Was he Clan Fett? Clan Mereel? Part of one of the other clans that had sworn to Jaster Mereel years ago?

Had he really been interested in joining Kyr’tsad at all, or had that been a ruse?

Fett and Silas hadn’t known all the details about it so probably not.

[ Let us get this over with, ] Maul said with a sigh.

----

This was going to be a tiresome conversation. Maul did not have good answers for many of the questions he was sure both Silas and Fett wanted to ask. He was deeply irritated by Kenobi’s fumbling attempts at diplomacy, all the worse because they had actually been successful. He was going to summon his Master and then they were going to talk . The prospect of dealing with Kenobi once and for all was looking further and further away, and there was nothing he could do about it without seeming deeply suspicious.

He looked suspicious enough already without piling more on top.

As they moved through to another room within the station, Kilindi nudged his shoulder. It wasn’t with the intention of getting his attention, but Maul wasn’t entirely sure what she did mean by it. “It’ll be alright,” she whispered. “I’m sure Jango won’t be angry at you.”

“Why would I concern myself with that?” Maul replied. “I do not care what he feels.” That was true, at least inasmuch as Fett didn’t regard his recent actions as enough of a betrayal to throw him out. Of course Maul would survive and would find somewhere else to go - perhaps even to Death Watch - but… he did not want to leave Savage and Feral and Kilindi behind.

“Alright,” Fett said, as soon as they were in private. “Exactly what sort of ossik has been going on while I was away?”

Maul only half-listened as Silas pulled off his buy’ce and started to tell him about the last week; Maul’s first encounter with Pre Vizsla, where Silas had to break up their duel, and the conversation they had after that where Maul had explained his motives. He was trying to invent an excuse for knowing Vizsla’s identity, since they would almost certainly find it unlikely that Vizsla had been around during the previous period that Maul was supposed to have spent under Death Watch’s care. So far the best he had come up with was ‘the Force’. That was only just believable, and not something he wished to rely on too often, not when it had also been his excuse for how he knew about Kenobi.

Silas was telling Fett about that supposed time period now, and he was just as unhappy about it as Silas had been. Silas moved on quickly to the next fight, the one with Kenobi in the market, and everything that had happened between then and now.

Finally Fett gave a very deep sigh. Under his breath he muttered, [ Where do I start with this? ]

Silas gave him a rueful look.

[ Did you know that was Pre Vizsla from the start? ] Fett asked Maul. [ Did you know they were Tor’s heir? ]

“Pre’s companion used his name,” Maul said, deciding that on this particular occasion an outright lie was his only option. “I knew he was of Tor’s Clan, but that’s all. I put his identity together later on.”

Fett gave him a not entirely believing look. “I can understand this… this desire for more allies,” he said, “and they helped you before. My fights aren’t your fights, but if they found out who I was, who the rest of your family was staying with…”

Maul bristled. “They would not have discovered that from me.”

Fett shrugged. Deep irritation was pouring off him even through the muffling effect of beskar covering most of his body, but it wasn’t aimed Maul’s way. “Now we’ve got this whole other problem to deal with. The Jetiise . The Republic. I wouldn’t have believed it of the Kalevalans to invite them in like this, but I guess it’s just more of the same nonsense they’ve pulled since the Excision. Trying to supplicate the Republic in the hope they won’t come back and finish what they started.”

“Jango…” Silas said. He was hesitating over his words. “There’s no good choice right now between Kyr’tsad and the New Mandalorians. The civil war can’t go on forever. Maul was right in there. One of them is going to triumph unless you step in. I know it isn’t what you wanted…”

“What makes you believe I won’t just make things worse?” Fett replied. “It’s not like either of those factions is going to stop fighting just because I wave a title and the dha’kad at them.”

“You killed Tor Vizsla in combat and claimed the Darksaber from him,” Maul said. “Won’t Kyr’tsad respect that? You’ve become Mand’alor by their own rules.”

“I don’t believe what they believe,” Fett said bluntly. “I don’t want to raise the Clans and go out there and conquer the galaxy, so they’ll just throw themselves at me until one of them gets lucky, kills me, and wins the dha’kad back. Pre’s going to be first in line.”

Maul growled in frustration. Leaving aside everything with Kenobi, some small part of him had seen this as an opportunity. He still needed Death Watch for his own plans, and since that would not be possible while they remained Fett’s enemies the obvious solution was that they should not be enemies any longer. Mandalore united was a weapon that could perhaps hope to stand against Darth Sidious. Divided and scattered in the previous timeline, they hadn’t stood a chance against the coming Empire.

“Does that mean you’re not going to try?” Kilindi asked.

“I’ve got to do something,” Fett said, glading down at the dha’kad again. “Vizsla’s going to want to fight. Since I’m not about to let him win… Kriff . I’m not diplomatic, but…”

“He’s a Kyr’tsad ramikad,” Maul said. “He will submit to a greater martial power.”

Something about that sparked an idea in Fett’s head. Maul could almost see it forming. “Let’s get this over with,” Fett said, after a long moment of thought. “If the kid does kill me, at least then he’s the one that has to deal with the jetiise .”

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Silas went to get something sorted out with the jetii padawan and left Jango alone with the adiikla and his own thoughts. There was a lot to take in - not just what had happened today but everything from earlier in the week as well. He shouldn’t have doubted Maul’s ability to get into trouble even with Silas around to watch him. He was such a fiercely independent kid. It would have been enough to make Jango very proud of him if it wasn’t for the fact that it clearly hadn’t grown out of self-confidence but from the necessity of a harsh and cruel life.

This wasn’t the way that Jango had imagined having his suspicions confirmed about Maul spending some period of time with Kyr’tsad , but it was a relief to know that it hadn’t been full of the kind of pain and abuse that Jango was most worried about. He had expected that running into Kyr’tsad would bring up painful memories for Maul, not that they would be people that he actually missed.

Did it have to have been Pre Vizsla though? The ka’ra were having a laugh at Jango’s expense with this entire tangled, complicated situation. Kyr’tsad and Jetiise and probably Kalevalans and the Republic as well. This wasn’t what Jango wanted to get caught up in. Political matters were something he meant to leave in his past, but he wasn’t being given a choice.

Not a choice he could live with anyway. Maul had been right - he could give the dha’kad to Vizsla and let him go off and keep on fighting the civil war. The boy was too young to have been involved with Galidraan. Jango’s revenge had been completed with Tor’s death - but surrendering the dha’kad wouldn’t erase the blood debt that was now starting to pile up between Clan Fett and Clan Vizsla. There was only so much running he could do. He had things to protect now. He might not be worthy of that responsibility, but he’d taken it on all the same and there wasn’t anyone else.

Jango had to do the best he could.

Pre Vizsla and his little verd’ika shadow were loitering in the corridor outside the interrogation room. The dull sound of people talking could just be made out through the closed door, although not any of the details. Silas had found a comm for the jetii’ad to use then. Good. He could monitor the transmission well enough without Jango’s input - there was something more pressing to deal with.

[ We have unfinished business, you and I, ] Jango said to Pre.

Vizsla straightened up. [ Yes. We do. ] His buy’ce tilted in a wary gesture as though he thought Jango was going to start a fight right here in the station.

[ Out back, ] Jango told him. [ The Protectors have a training yard. ]

Pre gave a sharp nod. Jango turned to lead him out there and found Kilindi and Maul staring at him - or that was what it felt like even through their visors.

[ Be careful, ] Kilindi said.

[ Don’t worry, ] he told her. [ I have a plan. ] One he could credit Maul for, in fact. The boy had a good grasp of how Kyr’tsad’s mentality worked, and Jango could make himself think that way too if he focused on it. The culture of the old Mandalorian Empire had been harsh and cruel, but it followed its own rules - and so did Kyr’tsad , stamped in that same mould.

They got a few side-ways glances from other Journeyman Protectors in the corridors as they made their way out back, but there was no attempt to follow them or to stop them. Jango wondered if Silas had spoken to his comrades. The person who had greeted him at the front door had been eager enough to call him Mand’alor, but what about the rest of them?

It wasn’t his problem. He didn’t care who wanted him to be Mand’alor and who didn’t. If there was anyone else out there who would do a better job, he would hand the title over without blinking - but there wasn’t.

The training yard was a large space with room to run drills of all kinds. A few trainees were putting in time at the shooting range, but they were alert enough to their surroundings to notice the small group exiting the building. Jango would rather have not had the audience, but he didn’t have any authority to ask them to leave. Vizsla examined the area, pacing. He lowered his head to say a few quiet words to his verd’ika .

The verd crossed arms over their chest. They weren’t happy about what they were hearing.

“I have to do this,” Pre said, not keeping his voice quite quiet enough. He was speaking Basic again. So it hadn’t been because of the jetii - but why would he talk in anything other than Mand’oa to a House Vizsla trainee?

A puzzle that would wait until after their duel.

[ You’re ready? ] Jango asked.

Vizsla nodded to him, spinning away from the verd and taking his place opposite Jango on the packed dirt. His hands hovered over his pistols. Clan Vizsla were rich enough that his beskar’gam was almost certainly pure beskar or a very high-content alloy. If Jango was going to shoot at him he had to be sure of hitting the gaps between the armour’s plates. Getting into close quarters would be a better bet, particularly since he was aiming to subdue rather than to kill. Pre had him at an advantage there. He wasn’t going to be holding back.

There was no need for a signal to start. They were both circling, watching and assessing, deciding who was going to make the first move. A touch of impatience burning in Pre got the better of him - he went for his blasters, pulling them from their holsters in one smooth motion and snapping off several shots in Jango’s direction. Jango had been waiting for this - he juked left to lead his fire before darting to the right and closing the distance. A few of the shots clipped him, but hit armour and were deflected. They would leave score-marks on the mid-grade alloy, but it would stand up well enough to glancing blows.

Then he was in and up close, his hands flicking out in strikes aimed at the gaps in beskar’gam . Pre blocked on his forearms, not willing to drop his pistols and without the space to holster them. He whirled back and managed to activate the flamethrower on his bracer - Jango rolled to get away from the torrent that spat out towards him. He could feel the heat even through his kute .

[ What are you doing? ] Pre snarled at him, as he circled and kept the jet of flame aimed towards him. [ Fight properly! ]

Jango kept back and waited for the weapon to run out of fuel. The training yard had plenty of space for him to back up and keep out of the way, and he could be patient. If he had wanted to kill the kid, he could have drawn his pistols now and lined up a shot, forcing Pre to let up with the flamethrower, but he didn’t want to take the chance. There was a way this had to be done, if he wanted it to work.

He didn’t actually like this idea. It was the kind of barbaric practice that belonged in the savage past their people had left behind, but that would only recommend it to someone like Pre, raised with Kyr’tsad ’s fervour for just that. What worried Jango more was how Maul might react to it…

There wasn’t time to doubt himself. Pre leapt upwards, a tail of fire sprouting from the jetpack at his back, switching back to his blaster pistols. Jango snapped his arm forwards, aiming the whipcord at Pre’s legs. The cord flew true, wrapping tight around one ankle with the barbed metal tip catching and snarling in the ramikad’s kute. Jango jerked towards himself with all his strength, hoping the advantage of surprise would be enough to pull Pre off-balance. Jetpack flight relied heavily on keeping the right position in the air, particularly in those first few moments. Pre’s legs were pulled out from under him, bringing the force of the jets round horizontal rather than vertical - which was just a fancy way of saying he ended up in an uncontrolled somersault in the air before planting right back down into the ground, cursing loudly all the way.

Jango clenched his fist to make the whipcord thrower cut the line loose before breaking into a run. He wasn’t intending to give Pre any time to recover after that impact. In the space of a few breaths he was next to him, snapping a boot up into his ribs and making sure he couldn’t get any air back into bruised lungs. Pre wheezed, curled over himself. Jango kicked him again, pushing him over onto his back and dropping his weight down to half-kneel on the boy’s chest. He pulled the dha’kad from its place at the small of his back and pushed the activation switch for the first time since picking it up. The black blade crackled into life with a noise that was unmistakable. He felt Pre momentarily freeze underneath him.

That didn’t last long - he was going for a knife in the next heartbeat, stabbing it towards Jango’s knee and the unprotected back of his thigh. Jango grabbed his arm and twisted, forcing him to drop it or have his wrist broken. He brought the plasma blade down to lie hovering above Pre’s throat. He must have been able to feel the heat of it even through the protective layer of his kute .

[ Do it then , ] Pre snarled. [ Prove you’ve got the stomach to rule as Mand’alor. ]

It didn’t help knowing Pre might actually derive some satisfaction from being executed like this. He was an adult by all Mandalorian tradition, old enough to take up his parent’s mantle of leading Kyr’tsad if House Vizsla accepted him as its head, but that didn’t change the fact that he was still painfully young. Jango looked down at him and saw a dark mirror of himself after Korda Six - father dead, slain by an enemy, forced into a position of leadership far before he was ready for it. Jango had led the Haat Mandoade to their doom because he hadn’t yet been worthy of taking charge of even House Mereel, let alone the mantle of Mand’alor.

Could he really say that things were different now?

They had to be. There were no other options. He could see that now.

[ You’re no use to me dead, ] he told Pre. [ That’s not how we’re doing this. ] He lowered the dha’kad further, until the kute at Pre’s throat began to smoulder, the threat evident. His words fell poisonous and ashen from his lips - he could only make himself say them because it was this or death. [ I killed your parent.Your clan is far away. There is no-one else to watch over you, so. I take your name as my child. Pre Fett. ]

The ramikad struggled beneath him as Jango spoke - it had to be panic more than anything logical with the dha’kad ready to strike his head from his shoulders - but he gave up as he utterly failed to move Jango’s weight off him. As the words - the battlefield adoption meant for stealing war-orphans, meant for growing an army’s ranks with the children of slaughtered foes - sank in, echoed into the silence of the still air, Pre grew still again. The only noise was his panting.

[ Well? ] Jango said, not taking the dha’kad away.

There was a long moment. Then Pre’s chin dipped in a shallow nod. “‘ Lek, buir ,” he said, clearly not happy about it, but accepting it anyway.

Jango gave his own sharp nod in reply, then stood up. He offered Pre a hand to rise as well, but after hauling the boy to his feet he looked for Maul next. His stomach was churning with an uneasy nausea. He’d promised Maul that family was a choice and not something forced upon another and now he did something like this? The adiik would be more than justified calling him on his hypocrisy.

It was hard to read Maul’s expression beneath the concealing barrier of his buy’ce , but body-language was easier. Maul held himself very still, like a predator waiting to strike - or prey about to flee. Jango’s heart ached at the sight. He needed to talk to Maul about this - but not here and now. He couldn’t afford to do or say anything that might appear to repudiate what he had just done. That would only start the blood feud up all over again.

Pre jerked his arm away from the clasp Jango was still holding it in. He too was holding himself stiffly, a mixture of wounded pride and uncertainty. He might have said something to Jango, but in that moment his vod came rushing over, grabbing onto him to check him over for injuries. There would be bruises, Jango was sure, but aside from perhaps a burn at his throat where the dha’kad had been held he wasn’t wounded.

“What was that?” the verd’ika hissed, speaking Basic. “Why is the fight over?”

Jango’s head tilted instinctively in confusion. This kid was Kyr’tsad , wearing their armour. Why wouldn’t they know about these kinds of historical customs that Kyr’tsad loved? Pre certainly knew them.

“This might not be the best place to explain,” Pre said, also in a whisper. His buy’ce was turned towards Jango, his stance wary.

“I have some questions of my own,” Jango said, deactivating the dha’kad and locking it magnetically into place against his beskar’gam again. “Starting with - who are you, exactly?”

“That’s none of your business,” the verd’ika said, spine ramrod straight and no doubt glaring at him beneath their visor.

“It is now.”

“Why?” they demanded. The pricklyness reminded him somewhat of Maul. Jango was glad neither Maul, Kilindi or any of the Protectors were interfering in this conversation - they seemed content to watch and see how this played out.

“Are you part of Clan Vizsla?” Jango asked. “One of the clans sworn to House Vizsla, perhaps?”

“I don’t have to say anything to you at all.” That was suspicious in itself. Kyr’tsad weren’t ashamed of their identity or their allegiances. Just one more thing that didn’t add up about this adiik .

“She’s under my protection,” Pre said, shifting slightly to put his body between the verd’ika and Jango - and also clarifying the kid’s pronouns in Basic. “Our feud doesn’t need to extend to her.”

There was a very quiet huff from the girl which suggested that she disagreed.

“Whose protection are you extending her now, ad ?” Jango asked him, knowing he would understand the implication without needing it to be spelled out. He wasn’t Clan or House Vizsla anymore. He was Clan Fett, House Mereel, which meant if he still wanted her safe he needed Jango’s approval.

“What is he on about?” the verd’ika whispered to Pre. “Death Watch’s, of course! Unless… you didn’t surrender, did you? I mean obviously you didn’t win the fight but that wouldn’t affect all of Death Watch...”

Pre bristled at this suggestion of dishonour. “It isn’t as simple as that,” he replied. “Look I… did I explain kir’manir ad’akaan yet?”

A faint shake of her head, and yet more confirmation that she was not what she appeared to be. Jango supposed she could be a recent adoption, but Kyr’tsad didn’t take in outsiders - unless they had been doing what Jango had just done without him having heard of it.

“The object of war is to defeat our enemies entirely,” Pre said, speaking softly, “but after a battle, once all of the warriors are dead, sometimes they leave children behind. Sometimes we have killed anyone who could look after them. Or sometimes you can’t count a victory a victory while any trace of your enemies yet live. Children grow up to carry on their parent’s fights. But killing children is… dar’manda . Better to make their strength our own. Adopt them, make them part of a clan, and bring them up as Mandalorians.”

Erase any trace of who they were before, Jango thought to himself. That was a kind of death, arguably. It was a practise out of their people’s crusading, colonising days. Jaster had never approved of it - it had been one of the things he carved out of the Miit’akaan Ori’ramikad . Jaster would never have approved of Jango doing it, even if it was to deal with one of their greatest enemies.

“What does that have to do with our situation?” the verd’ika asked.

“Because Jango has invoked that practice now,” Pre told her, his shoulders tense as though preparing for a blow.

“But…” the girl whirled on Jango, sticking a finger up in his face. “I could have parents! You don’t know if I’m an orphan or not!”

“He’s not talking about you,” Pre said, as Jango’s thoughts went into a whirl trying to put that telling reaction into the picture unfolding of this child. “He’s invoked it for me.”

“You’ve… got a father.”

Pre flinched, a full-bodied shudder. Her words were more proof if any had been needed that she really didn’t understand Mando’a. “Not anymore,” he told her. “Jango has killed him. That’s why he has the dha’kad .”

She must not have put that part together either - or perhaps she was seeing only what she wanted to see. It would be an understandable response.

“ Shavit ,” she said, after a long moment. “ Shavit. What now?”

“Now you tell me who you are, and I decide what to do about you,” Jango said.

“And then you’ll try and make me a Fett? No thank you.”

“It was the only way to erase the debt of blood between our Clans,” Jango said, gesturing to Pre. “Depending on who you are, I hope there’s no vendetta between us that we need to address.”

There was another pause while she thought. Then she pulled her buy’ce off, revealing pale skin, ginger hair cut around her jaw, and a furious expression. “Fine,” she said. “I’m Bo-Katan Kryze.”

----

This was not how Obi-wan had imagined his day going when he woke up this morning. His thigh was still aching from the stab wound, but it had been tended to appropriately and he could feel the itch of bacta doing its work to heal the incision. It wouldn’t be a good idea to get into a fight and tear it open once again, but he was well past the point where physical action would solve the problem he found himself entangled in.

The only good thing was that he wasn’t dead yet. It had been close though, with the zabrak Maul urging for the Mandalorians to opt for that particular solution. He didn’t understand what the younger boy had against him. He hated him, and that was no simple or surface emotion either. Obi-wan had sensed the edges of it behind Maul’s mental shields and had shied back from the intensity and Darkness of that pure loathing. Was it because Obi-wan was a Jedi? What had Maul been taught about the Order? He said he came from Dathomir - Obi-wan didn’t know a great deal about the witches that lived there or their Force traditions, but he knew that they were dangerous. If they were all as Dark as Maul, he didn’t know why the Jedi Order was happy to let them be. Wasn’t that a risk? Weren’t they the same kind of people as the Sith, at that point?

How had Maul come to be here in Mandalorian space, following the ways of Mandalore’s warriors, for that matter?

Figuring out the puzzle of Maul was not Obi-wan’s greatest concern right now either, which said a great deal about how bad things were. It seemed the briefing that he and Qui-gon had been given missed out many of the subtleties of the political situation here. Death Watch were terrorists - that was what Satine had told them. Of course terrorists claimed legitimacy, as any dissenting political group would, but that didn’t mean anything! He hadn’t been expecting this strange back and forth between Pre Vizsla and what appeared to be a third faction that Obi-wan knew nothing about.

Who was this Jango Fett? Why did he have a lightsaber? There was nothing that suggested Force sensitivity about him. He spoke with such authority that he had both the Protector and the Death Watch soldier paying attention to his words, acknowledging his opinions.

Qui-gon would be able to sort all of this out. Obi-wan just had to keep that in mind and release all of his anxiety and worry into the Force. He could not focus on things he had no power to change.

The noise of the door opening and shutting again roused Obi-wan from his thoughts. It was Silas the Journeyman Protector, returning with the promised communicator. He set it down on the table in front of Obi-wan where he could reach it easily, then pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down in it.

“Make your call then,” he said, nodding to the comm.

“Might I have some privacy?” Obi-wan asked, though without a great deal of hope.

Silas shook his head. Obi-wan sighed, and put in his Master’s code.

It rang for a few long moments, and then Qui-gon’s holoform appeared above the emitter, looking as calm and relaxed as he always was. Obi-wan let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. Seeing his Master was even more of a relief than he had expected. He couldn’t find the right way out of this situation, but he trusted that Qui-gon would know what to do.

“Obi-wan,” Qui-gon said, greeting him with a nod and a cautious look. Good. He had seen that Obi was calling from an unfamiliar comm and even though the pick-up from the device didn’t show any more of the room than just where Obi-wan was sitting he was wise enough to assume that there might be someone else present. “You never returned from the market this morning. I assume some trouble has found you again?”

“Yes Master,” Obi-wan replied.

“What did you do, my impetuous padawan?” Qui-gon said, raising an eyebrow at him. Obi-wan felt this was slightly unfair. He wasn’t impetuous. Trouble found him, not the other way around.

“It’s… complicated to explain,” he said. He wanted to talk not just about the political situation and the ultimatum Jango Fett had given him, but also about Maul and Dathomir and his use of the Dark Side - but what significance would that have to Silas? It was clear he and Fett knew the zabrak. One or other of them might even be his guardian - he thought he had caught a reference to teaching amongst the rapid-fire Mando’a. “I’m in the Journeyman Protectors’ station in Arakura right now.”

Qui-gon looked even less impressed. “Do they believe you have committed some sort of crime?”

“They know I’m a Jedi - I didn’t tell them,” Obi-wan added quickly, seeing the beginnings of disapproval on his Master’s face. “There was a boy in the market - he was Force sensitive, and a Mandalorian warrior, and he started a fight. There happened to be some Death Watch soldiers nearby…” He did his best to go step by step through what had happened, and as much of the conversation here in the station as he had understood. All the while Obi-wan was aware of Silas watching him, though he couldn’t get a sense of how he felt about any of this.

“So they’re saying that we don’t have a right to be here,” Obi-wan concluded. “That we’re breaking Mandalore’s treaty with the Republic. They want to talk to you - to both of us. They’re giving us a chance to prove that we’re here for good reasons.”

The look Qui-gon gave him was blank and impassive, but Obi-wan didn’t miss the way his fingers tapped against his robes at the place where they fell over his lightsaber. He gave a very small shake of his head. Silas had taken his saber from him as soon as they arrived at the station. It was sitting in an evidence locker somewhere, and he really hoped they would give it back to him once this all got sorted out.

“I am sure that we can clear up this misunderstanding,” Qui-gon said. “I am happy to meet with these Mandalorians - but perhaps not in that station. I am sure we can find a neutral location that will satisfy both parties.” And one where these would be less of a disadvantage if it turned out that ‘aggressive negotiations’ were necessary, Obi-wan imagined.

There was Satine to think of as well. The danger to her was greater than ever - Qui-gon couldn’t leave her unguarded. Not for long.

Silas got up from his chair and came round to stand next to Obi-wan so that the comm picked him up. “If that’s what you want Jetii , then let’s talk about the details,” he said.

Chapter 14

Chapter Text

Maul watched the duel through the eyes of experience, remembering an older Pre Vizsla and a battle of his own in the throne room of Sundari for a similar prize. The gap of years was obvious when he compared how Pre was fighting now to that time, but Fett did not have the advantages of the Force that Maul had possessed. Indeed, there was something about his actions that suggested he was holding back. He was being foolish if he hoped to end this duel with some appeal to the mark of first blood, or by taking the ramikad captive. Pre would rather die than submit. He had made that choice in the end many years ago - or many years in the future, depending on how you looked at it.

Jango was a cunning fighter, Maul could admit to that much, particularly when it came to his skills in close combat. He could understand how he had come to kill so many Jedi on Galidraan. Once he had Pre up close it was the work of mere moments to bring him to the ground and pin him there. Fett drew the Darksaber and held it to Pre’s throat, batting aside the knife that Pre pulled on him in response. Maul waited for him to drive the plasma blade down and take the ramikad’s head from his shoulders as Maul had once done, but instead he hesitated. Maul could not sense his thoughts properly through the beskar of his buy’ce . He could only guess what was going through his mind.

[ Do it then , ] Pre snarled in Mando’a. [ Prove you’ve got the stomach to rule as Mand’alor. ] That was the Pre Maul knew. He smiled even though the memories superimposed upon what was happening now had an oddly bittersweet quality.

[ You’re no use to me dead, ] Jango said to Pre. [ That’s not how we’re doing this. ]

Maul’s smile disappeared. Muscles tensed ready to propel him forwards, but he held back - he couldn’t act here. This had to be Fett’s decision, Fett’s actions. He wanted to yell at the man to stop being a fool and do as Vizsla requested. Deathwatch did not respect mercy. Pre would not answer it with loyalty. Was this the plan Jango had claimed to have? If so, then he had learned nothing from his war with these warriors and really was not fit to lead his people.

Maul would step in if he had to, but that would not be the path he had envisioned, or lead to the best outcome.

[ I killed your parent. ] Jango continued. [ Your clan is far away. There is no-one else to watch over you, so. I take your name as my child. Pre Fett. ]

Maul’s eyes went wide beneath the concealing visor of his helmet. This was… not at all what he had expected. Fett clearly thought Pre would understand what he meant by this, so it must be some ancient tradition of the Mandalorian people that Maul was unaware of. He did not need to know much - the implications of it were clear enough.

Where were Fett’s protestations that family was something one chose? That it would not be forced upon another? Of course Maul had known those words to be lies from the moment Fett said them, so it should not really be a surprise to see that his actions proved that now. He pushed away the uneasy sense of discomfort in his stomach. This was good. This would work. This was proof of the ruthless streak that Fett would need in order to claim the throne.

This was what Maul wanted. It was foolish that he needed to remind himself of that.

Pre struggled on the ground beneath Fett’s weight, but as the Darksaber was brought even closer to his neck he went limp again. His head nodded, very slightly. Maul’s acute hearing just made out his acknowledgement of his sudden adoption, barely more than a whisper. Fett nodded and helped him up. His head moved enough to show he was scanning their surroundings. Maul held himself still as Fett’s gaze moved over him.

This was just another opportunity. There was no other meaning to it.

“That’s interesting,” Kilindi whispered from her position by his shoulder. “I suppose that makes him our vod now. Are we going to bring him back to the farm?”

Maul hadn’t even considered that. His initial reaction was instinctual rejection, but there were advantages to the situation. Vizsla would be another soldier around to train with them in Mandalorian techniques - and Maul now knew that he was Force-sensitive to some degree. It might not be to a degree that would allow him to use it as a Sith or Jedi would, but even milder degrees of sensitivity gave one an edge in battle.

The more allies the better in the fight against his former Master, in Maul’s opinion.

As Fett stepped away from Pre, Bo-Katan came running over. Now there was another opportunity that Maul intended to leverage as soon as the moment came where he could do so subtly, not giving away that he knew things he should not. “What was that?” she asked her protector, looking him over and checking his injuries. “Why is the fight over?” She really didn’t know any Mando’a at this point in her life, did she? She had not spoken it in front of Maul during his past life either, but none of the soldiers had. He’d assumed it to be simple politeness to outsiders.

In moving she had drawn Fett’s attention. He began to speak to her, question her, making the salient point that with Pre now part of Clan Fett he could no longer offer her the protection of his House. Maul had taken a half-step forward, thinking he might join their conversation and tease her identity out, but now it appeared that he would not need to. Under the weight of Fett’s own interrogation, and Pre explaining what this battlefield adoption meant, Bo-Katan came to a decision.

She pulled her buy’ce free, revealing a much younger version of the face Maul knew well. “Fine,” she said. “I’m Bo-Katan Kryze.”

“Bo-Katan Kryze,” Fett repeated in a flat voice. She nodded, her jaw set, glaring at him. “Well shavit , you wouldn’t make something like that up if it wasn’t the truth.”

“Well?” she demanded. “Is there a blood debt between our Houses that we need to settle? Are you going to try and make me part of your Clan too?”

Fett remained silent and motionless for a long moment. Then he let out a short laugh, and removed his buy’ce . There was a wry, humourless smile creasing his lips. “You’ve made it pretty clear you don’t want that. It would be within my rights if I wanted to - the New Mandalorians weren’t exactly our enemies before but they certainly weren’t friends. But I’m not sure I want to do that.”

This only seemed to make her more angry. “Oh, am I somehow not good enough for you then?”

“Why are you even here?” Fett said, with a flash of irritation. “With Pre and Kyr’tsad , I mean. I assume this means that you don’t agree with your father’s opinions about our culture?”

“I know that Kyr’tsad killed him, but it had to happen,” Bo-Katan said. Her tone was frosty, still angry. Maul listened with curiosity. He had never cared about these details of her life before when she had been simply another soldier and then an enemy to be dealt with. “Without him in the picture, the New Mandalorians are going to crumble and we can go back to being the people we used to be before they capitulated to the Republic.”

“A true believer then,” Fett said.

Bo-Katan raised her chin slightly. “Death Watch is right. We used to be great. The galaxy knew that Mandalore and its territories weren’t to be messed with. We were warriors, and people like my father changed that. They made us weak. At least this way, there would be less bloodshed than continuing the civil war as it had been.”

It was clean and ruthless. Maul approved, although it didn’t change his dislike for the girl. If she really did believe in the ideals of Kyr’tsad , then why had she opposed him?

He would never get to ask her that question. That version of her was long gone.

“What about your sister?” Fett asked. “Satine? If she felt the same way as you do then Kyr’tsad wouldn’t be looking for her this hard, so were you planning for her to die as well?”

The question appeared to take Bo-Katan off guard. Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“We wouldn’t have killed her,” Pre jumped in to say. He seemed subdued, perhaps uncertain of his new place in the world. He hesitated over his next words, but then said, “At least, that wasn’t the plan as I understood it. I’m… not so sure what Tor would have done. He told me we would teach her that the old ways were superior. We might have completed kir’manir ad’akaan with her, as you did to me. Or he might just have killed her. He did… do things like that sometimes.”

Fett sighed, deep and heartfelt. “What do you plan to do now?” he asked Bo-Katan.

“I…” she paused. “I don’t know.”

“I’m ending this war,” Fett told her. “Tor is dead. I have the dha’kad now. I plan to ask the old warrior clans to stand behind me as their Mand’alor - even the ones who are sworn to Kyr’tsad right now. I hope that Kyr’tsad will accept my victory over Tor. We’re all going to have problems if they don’t - but I see now that I can no longer hide from this.” He turned his head to glance Maul’s way as he said that. An ember - a shiver - of warmth went through him.

It wasn’t the same as taking power for himself, but there would be time for that when he had grown out of this child’s body. For now, this was the safest that things could be.

“Do you expect me to swear to you?” Bo-Katan asked, sneering.

“You could,” Fett said. “But you’re not the eldest Kryze, are you? Satine is the one I have to speak with to gain the loyalty of your Clan - and for that I need to deal with that jetii’ad in there.” He gestured over his shoulder back towards the station building.

“She’s not going to follow you,” Bo-Katan said, crossing her arms. In the privacy of his own head Maul agreed. duch*ess Satine had not bowed in her principles even when her whole world was crumbling around her. She wouldn’t do so now either.

“I’m not planning on giving her much choice.”

Bo-Katan shifted her stance. Without her buy’ce Maul could sense her discomfort, the fear that lay at the heart of her anger. “Am I free to leave?” she asked.

“And go where?”

“To the other Death Watch soldiers here.”

“No,” Jango said. “You’re staying with us until everything is sorted out with your sister.”

“So I’m a hostage.”

“You could call it that,” Fett replied, shrugging. He turned to Pre. “I assume you have comm codes for relatives in House Vizsla, or officers in Kyr’tsad ?”

“I do.”

Fett nodded. “Then let’s make some calls. Maul, Kilindi, can you watch Bo-Katan for us? I’m not sure how long this will take, but Silas should be finished with the jetii soon.”

Maul was rather curious to listen in on those holocalls, but being there would not materially change anything and Kryze did need a minder. “Of course,” he replied.

Fett and Pre walked away, disappearing inside the building and leaving the three of them alone in the training yard, aside from a pair of Protectors who appeared deeply invested in pretending that they were unaware of everything that was happening around them. Bo-Katan gave Maul and Kilindi an unimpressed once-over. “Who are you two supposed to be then?”

“I’m Kilindi Matako Fett,” Kilindi said, before Maul could say anything. “This is Maul.”

“Not Maul Fett?” Bo-Katan asked, picking up on that immediately.

“No,” Maul replied. “Just Maul. Jango Fett is my… teacher.” That was not precisely the right word, but it would serve here.

“You’re just a couple of kids, and you’re supposed to stop me escaping?”

Maul smiled. He did not mind being underestimated. She would swiftly learn her error if she did make an attempt.

Bo-Katan shook her head. Her anger was pouring out of her, frustrated and powerless. She glanced at the door, then back to them, biting her lip. “Pre… What’s going to happen to him?”

“You’re very attached to him,” Maul observed.

“He’s my friend,” she replied. Pressing against the surface of her mind Maul was half-expecting to sense some manner of juvenile crush or a hint of romantic feelings, but they were absent. It truly was just friendship, though the emotions were still intense. Perhaps he was her only friend.

“I don’t think anything bad is going to happen to him,” Kilindi said. “He’s part of our family now, so why would we hurt him?”

Bo-Katan gave this a suspicious look in response.

Kilindi shrugged. “Okay, I suppose that might not be the best argument. Families can hurt each other, but ours doesn’t do that. Jango is a good person. He cares about his children.”

“Children? You’re not the only one?”

Maul’s mouth opened to tell her to mind her own business, or to tell Kilindi not to answer that, but Kilindi was already shaking her head. “If you’re going to stick around you might find that out,” she said.

“Why would I do that?” Bo-Katan said, folding her arms over her chest. It was not a convincing display of self-assurance when Maul could feel what her emotions really were.

“If Pre is your friend, then wouldn’t it make sense to stay with him?” Kilindi asked her. “Maybe you have other friends amongst Death Watch though. Or perhaps you would rather go back to your own family? To your Clan?”

Bo-Katan could no longer meet her eyes. She shifted uneasily. “I don’t want to go back to them ,” she said. “They’re all pacifists and cowards like my father was. They always talked about our history like they were ashamed of it. Like we are something to be ashamed of. And… they’ll want to know where I’ve been.”

“And your sister?” Maul asked her. He was curious about their relationship. Bo-Katan had seemed happy enough with the idea of overthrowing her when Pre was the one taking her place, but after Maul’s ascent and her subsequent treachery she had used her sister’s name to garner support as though she was some kind of martyr. It might have been simple expediency and hypocrisy, but… perhaps she had only understood how much Satine meant to her once she was dead.

A faint flush rose over Bo’s cheeks, accompanied by a whirl of cold guilt he could feel through the Force. “She’s the worst of them. If she found out about everything with Death Watch…”

“Do you lack the courage of your convictions?” Maul asked her. “Are you afraid of her judgement?”

“No!” Bo-Katan snapped back. Her anger was only a brief flare, unable to overcome her uncertainty. Biting her lip, she said, “She’s my older sister. It’s… harder. I know it shouldn’t matter, but…”

“But she’s family,” Kilindi said.

“I’m worried about her,” Bo-Katan said. “I meant what I said - she isn’t going to accept someone like Jango Fett as the leader of our people. She’ll try and stand up to him and…”

“She may bring about her own death,” Maul said. He did not bother to deny the possibility.

“Maybe he could just exile her?” Bo-Katan said, with the desperate edge of someone grasping for a lifeline.

“And give the Republic a weapon to use against us?” Maul said. His Master might not be the Chancellor for years yet but whoever the Chancellor was right now would not miss an opportunity to weaken a potential threat at their borders. The Jedi had been sent here for a reason.

Whatever Bo-Katan might have said in reply to that was cut off by the sound of the door to the station opening on the other side of them. Silas stepped out, looking their way.

[ The Jedi has agreed to meet us, ] he said. [ How did things go with Vizsla? I tried to ask Jango on the way past but he said he had to make some calls and to talk to you two. ]

[ A lot happened, ] Kilindi told him. Maul let her tell the story, keeping his attention on Bo-Katan. He couldn’t predict what way her loyalty would turn yet and that made her dangerous. He would kill her if he had to - but he didn’t have to yet.

----

Jango Fett returned with Pre Vizsla at least an hour after Obi-wan finished talking to Qui-gon over the comms. Obi-wan could sense that he was tired, and there were some new marks on his armour that hadn’t been there before, carbon scoring that looked like blaster fire and perhaps real fire as well. He didn’t appear injured and he had no idea who the man might have been fighting, but perhaps that was simply the way of these warrior Mandalorians. Satine hadn’t mentioned Death Watch dueling each other regularly, but Fett claimed he wasn’t part of that group.

Obi-wan really didn’t understand the political situation on Mandalore. He was supposed to understand it; that was part of the role of a Jedi, diplomat and negotiator and bodyguard and investigator and whatever else they needed to be. The briefing had looked complete, but obviously there were things that had been missing, context he was lacking. He could only hope that Master Qui-gon’s greater experience would allow him to fill in the blanks.

The first thing out of Fett’s mouth was an order. “Get up jetii’ad ,” he said. “Time to go and meet your Master.”

Obi-wan raised his wrists, letting the chains securing him to the table clink. Fett sighed, his expression unreadable again beneath his helmet, and tapped something on his vambrace. Emitting a soft beep, Obi-wan’s cuffs clicked open. He shook them off and stood up, putting weight slowly on his injured leg. He had used the long hour of waiting to push the Force into the wound to aid it in healing and he thought he would be able to walk on it fine and perhaps even run, just not do anything particularly acrobatic. No Ataru then - not that it had been on the cards anyway.

“Are you going to return my lightsaber?” he asked.

Fett snorted. “Do you think I’m an idiot, jetii ?”

Obi-wan hadn’t expected that to work but it had been worth a try. He shrugged and followed the two Mandalorians out of the cell, intentionally limping much more than he needed to. Better not to let on how physically capable he was. Quickly they collected the Journeyman Protector Silas along with Maul, Kilindi, and the other young Death Watch soldier whose name he still didn’t know, then left the station for the arranged meeting point.

Obi-wan understood why Qui-gon had chosen to meet in the centre of the town, although he was concerned that given the gaps in their knowledge it might not turn out to be as safe as hoped. In theory there would be too many civilians around for either party to want to escalate their negotiations into open combat, but that assumed the civilians didn’t decide to take sides themselves.

What choice did they have? There weren’t a lot of other options.

The Dathomiri zabrak was glaring daggers into the back of his neck. Obi-wan could feel his quiet rage like a heavy, sickening blanket in the Force, smothering the boy in the Dark Side. It made him genuinely nauseous. He was glad he hadn’t eaten recently.

He was going to tell Qui-gon all about Maul if - no, when - they got out of this. He would know what to do about a Darksider like that.

Their little group drew plenty of stares as they made their way through town, but nobody tried to stop them and speak to them. When they arrived at the arranged location, Qui-gon was already sitting in the outside seating area of a restaurant that bordered the market square, sipping from a steaming cup of tea. A tightness in Obi-wan’s chest relaxed at the sight of him even though they were both still in a great deal of trouble. There had been plenty of time for Qui-gon to case the meeting spot from a distance beforehand as well, so it was unlikely the Mandalorians had been able to set some kind of trap for them, but they were still outnumbered and Obi-wan wasn’t armed.

Qui-gon wasn’t alone. The smaller, heavily robed figure next to him with a cowl tossed up over their head had to be Satine. Obi-wan knew that Qui-gon couldn’t have risked leaving her on her own at their accommodation - Death Watch were still out there - but that didn’t mean he was happy to see her. Of course, knowing Satine if Qui-gon had tried to leave her behind she would have objected vociferously.

Warmth pulsed through Obi-wan as he imagined her standing up to Qui-gon, something fond and admiring. He had plenty of examples from their time here to draw upon. Her determination to her ideals truly impressed him.

Qui-gon stood as the Mandalorians approached, tucking his hands into his sleeves and bowing respectfully. “You must be Jango Fett,” he said, nodding to Jango. “I apologise that we are not meeting under better circ*mstances.”

Fett grunted, pulling out a chair and swinging down into it, hands kept close to his blasters. “I wouldn’t be happy to meet a jetii under any circ*mstances,” he said. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Qui-gon said, gesturing at the rest of the group, “and we can discuss our presence on Concord Dawn.”

Silas and Vizsla both looked to Jango, who nodded. They sat. The younglings had already gone for chairs, having to take them from other tables. They must make a strange sight, outsiders and armoured warriors meeting in front of an ordinary dining establishment like this.

“There’s no need to ask who your friend is,” Jango said, with a brief gesture towards Satine. “Lady Satine Kryze, I presume.”

For a moment Satine didn’t reply. She appeared distracted, her attention caught by the nameless Death Watch recruit who was still following Pre around. At the sound of her name she started slightly. “I am,” she said. Her tone was cool and cautious.

“Good,” Fett said. “We can get all of this business out of the way at once.” He looked back to Qui-gon. “Let’s hear it then. What right do you think you have to be here in Mandalorian space?”

“Why are you even asking about their right ?” Satine cut in before Qui-gon could speak. “What does Death Watch care about galactic law or about rights? You want me alive because you think that’s going to legitimise your rule and you’re playing nice because you’re scared of the consequences of trying to fight Jedi Knights, so don’t pretend that you’re the ones who have the moral high ground here!”

Fett had one hand resting on the table in front of him - now it tightened into a fist hard enough that the synthleather of his glove creaked. “You don’t seem to know who I am,” he said. “Your father must have wanted to pretend that the Haat Mando’ade never existed. I am Jango, Clan Fett, House Mereel. We are not Death Watch.”

“You have two Death Watch soldiers in your party,” Satine replied. Her face was pale, her jaw set. She glared at the young warrior as though her gaze could pierce through their armour.

Jango’s head tilted. There was something unspoken here, something that Obi-wan was missing. He reached out with the Force to get a sense of Satine’s emotions and felt her cold shock, something halfway between disbelief and a desperate denial.

“I also have this,” Fett said, reaching to the small of his back and pulling out the strange lightsaber he carried. “Did your father tell you about the Darksaber?”

“Of course,” Satine snapped, then paused. “But only Death Watch believed that having that conferred leadership. I’m really not following your argument here.”

“He is claiming the title of Mand’alor,” Qui-gon said. His voice was calm as ever, but Obi-wan could see the tension held in his body and feel his readiness to act in the Force. “I do know about the True Mandalorians, Jango Fett, and I know your name.”

“Your padawan didn’t,” Fett said.

“The Jedi Order believed that you died along with the rest of your people on Galidraan.”

Obi-wan suppressed a shiver as a wave of cold shock swept through him. Galidraan. That name had been in their briefing, though there hadn’t been a great amount of detail about those involved for the very reason his Master had just mentioned. It had been the last time Jedi and Mandalorians fought, and it had been a slaughter on both sides.

“I am very much alive,” Jango said. “If you know about Galidraan then you know why I don’t want you jetiise anywhere near my planet.”

“Your planet?” Qui-gon said, with a polite smile. “My understanding of the title of Mand’alor was that it required more than just possessing the Darksaber.”

“Good thing I’ve spoken to the heads of the warrior clans then,” Jango said, and Obi-wan could hear the smirk in his voice. “Plenty of them are sick of the New Mandalorians, and they’re sick of Death Watch as well. Even House Vizsla saw the wisdom of accepting me as Mand’alor after I put Tor Vizsla in the ground.” He didn’t sound like he was lying.

Qui-gon sat back in his chair. “It appears that we were misinformed about the political situation in Mandalorian space,” he said. “On behalf of the Jedi Order, I apologise for the misunderstanding.”

“Even if the political situation had been exactly the way you thought it was, you still had no right to come here,” Jango told him - it was close to a snarl. “Does the Republic make a habit of meddling in civil wars outside of its own territory now?”

“It is the role of the Jedi Order to support just causes and promote peace throughout the galaxy,” Qui-gon replied.

“Not in Mandalorian territory,” Jango snapped. “Your kind isn’t welcome here.”

“What are your intentions towards Lady Satine?” Qui-gon asked.

“That depends on her,” Fett said.

“The title of Mand’alor belongs to a time of savagery and barbarism,” Satine said, her chin rising as her eyes sparked with determination. “I do not recognise it as legitimate.”

Obi-wan felt less and less happy about the way this whole conversation was going. Qui-gon was meant to be fixing things, but the more that they learned the less possible it seemed that would be. Obi-wan couldn’t see a way out of this that didn’t involve violence. They had to get Satine out of here - it was the only way to keep her safe. That was what they had to focus on right now - supporting the New Mandalorians as the only peaceful faction in Mandalorian space would come later. The idea of Mandalore returning to its warrior ways was genuinely alarming. He hadn’t been thinking about the ramifications of that before because it hadn’t quite felt like a real possibility but now that Jango Fett was explaining who he was it was taking shape as reality.

“So you want this war to continue?” Jango Fett asked Satine.

She bristled. “Of course not! You are the ones who insist on fighting!”

“Fighting? We’re protecting our culture. The things that make us Mandalorian.” Fett shook his head. “Look. I’m not Death Watch. I’m not a conqueror. I wouldn’t want to be in charge at all if everyone else wasn’t kriffing it up so badly.”

“The culture you’re talking about is vile,” Satine said. “It is inherently corrupt, warmongering, violent…”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Vizsla said, slamming his hand down on the table. “You heard her. She’s going to keep on being a problem.”

“I thought the plan wasn’t to kill her,” Jango said. Obi-wan really wished he had his lightsaber on him. This could turn ugly very quickly.

After a moment, Pre said, “That’s up to you, Mand’alor.”

“I’m not afraid to die for what I believe in,” Satine said.

“I’m not planning on riling the New Mandalorians up even more,” Jango said. He turned his attention back to Qui-gon. “Look. Will you jetiise leave without a fight if I give you my word I don’t intend to harm Lady Kryze?”

“What would you intend?” Qui-gon asked, getting in before Obi-wan’s automatic objection.

“Having her as a political prisoner ought to keep her faction quiet for the most part,” Jango replied. “Mistreating her would be counterproductive.”

Qui-gon nodded. “As you say Mand’alor, the Jedi Order has no right to operate within your territory without your permission, and you have made your position on that very clear. We apologise for trespassing.” He stood up.

Obi-wan blinked at him, not moving. What… what was happening?

“Come along Obi-wan,” Qui-gon said. “Our business is done here.”

“I am not some animal to be bought and traded,” Satine shouted. “Are you really going to let this happen?”

“I’m afraid galactic law is clear upon this matter my lady,” Qui-gon told her. “Our hands are tied. The Republic would not wish to start a war with Mandalore.”

“We can’t do this!” Obi-wan said. He understood on some level that Qui-gon was right, that legally they had to leave now, but that didn’t mean that it was the right thing to do! They couldn’t just leave Satine to her fate! “We can’t go!”

Qui-gon’s look of disapproval felt like a blaster bolt driving into him. “You allow your emotions to blind you to your duty Obi-wan,” he said. “This is not the first time you have made this mistake, but I had hoped you had learned from your previous experiences.”

He was talking about Melida/Daan. Obi-wan flinched. “No Master,” he said. “I… understand my duty.” He just didn’t like it.

“Obi-wan…” Satine said. Her voice was pleading. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But my duty is to the Jedi Order.”

He walked away, following Qui-gon. With the Mand’alor wanting them gone, he didn’t think they would have any difficulty finding a ship to transport them back to Republic space.

Chapter 15

Chapter Text

The Jedi turned their backs to her and walked away.

Satine was frozen in her seat, the high-pitched noise of static filling her ears and her mind. That was it? They weren’t going to… they were just leaving?

She could have called after them, said something, shouted… a scream welled up in her chest, but it couldn’t get out of her too-tight throat.

“Good riddance,” Jango Fett said, his arms crossed over his chest, before continuing on in Mando’a. The words meant nothing to her.

This man… this man had scared off two Jedi with just a few sentences, staking his claim in a way that shouldn’t have mattered. His title was empty, it belonged in the past. If he had any kind of legitimacy, why had she never heard his name before today? What right did he have to sweep in here and turn the world upside-down? Who was he, that the Clans would throw their names behind him – if that claim had even been the truth.

It was said that Jedi could discern truth from lies. If Fett was bluffing, wouldn’t they have known?

Satine ripped her gaze away from her retreating protectors only once the flow of people in the town centre blocked them from view. People in armour were all around her, hemming her in. A cold shiver swept through her body. Awareness of her vulnerability was acute and terrifying.

“Come on then duch*ess,” Fett said, not exactly sneering, but certainly not friendly.

“Should I walk to my execution without a protest?” she replied, taking some pride in the fact that her voice didn’t shake.

“I don’t intend to go back on my word,” the man said. “You may be a prisoner, but you’ll be well treated. You’re no use to me dead.”

The older of the two soldiers in Death Watch armour turned to him and said something, his tone one of disagreement. It wasn’t hard to guess that he was pushing for her death – he was a violent animal like all the rest of them. No doubt he’d take pleasure in killing her. Satine sat with her spine straight, refusing to hunch or cower and show them that she was afraid. She was not prey. They could do whatever they wanted to her, but they couldn’t touch her pride or her heart.

Jango Fett shook his head, sighing. His reply was longer – a justification for his own course of action. Then he reached down and grabbed Satine around her upper arm.

Immediately she did her best to shake him off, but he was a lot stronger than she was. He dragged her out of her chair and forced her to either stand or fall over. Satine got her feet under her and glared at him.

“It’s rude to take up a table if we aren’t going to buy anything,” the man in Journeyman Protector colours said. Satine turned her heated gaze to him. She didn’t appreciate being made fun of.

“We’re just lucky nobody is paying too much attention,” Fett muttered under his breath.

“Sorry to tell you, but they’re just being polite,” the Journeyman said. “This will be all over town before nightfall.”

Fett grumbled something. He pushed Satine in front of him. “Walk,” he told her.

There was protesting, and then there was throwing a tantrum like a child. Satine walked.

As they moved through town towards the outskirts, Satine found her eyes coming back again and again to the second of the Death Watch soldiers, the shorter woman who seemed somehow familiar. She hadn’t spoken yet, either in Basic or in Mando’a. Why did Satine feel like she knew her?

The woman was aware of her attention, but she only shifted uneasily. She still didn’t speak. Why not? Even the most fanatical members of Death Watch spoke Basic, so it couldn’t be a language barrier. Was she afraid she would give something away?

Deep disquiet grew in the back of Satine’s mind. Realisation hovered on the edge of her thoughts, like a forgotten word on the tip of the tongue. She knew…

The last buildings of Arakura fell away to the fields, revealing a small starship parked on one of the areas marked off for the purpose. This would be the time to run. She might not have another chance after this. Even so, she didn’t see a way to break through the surrounding ring of bodies, no matter where she looked. They marched her up the entry ramp, which hissed closed behind them shutting off all hope of escape.

Fett turned to the older Death Watch soldier and asked a question. The reply must have satisfied him, because he turned and left the main hold with the Journeyman and the two teenagers – the zabrak and the nautolan. That left her alone with Death Watch. Satine watched them warily. She wasn’t bound, and she knew how to defend herself – but the training she’d had probably wouldn’t stack up well against the violence this pair must be used to dealing out. They could overpower her, pin her down and slit her throat before Fett could make it back in here to stop them…

“Relax duch*ess,” the older said, using her title with heavy sarcasm. “You’re safe enough. You heard the Mand’alor.”

“Are Death Watch’s loyalties so fickle?” Satine replied. “Killing your leader is all it takes to make you bow to him?”

The young man’s whole body went stiff. He took a sudden jerking step towards her – sharp enough that she flinched before she could even think to stop herself. It was his companion’s thrown-out arm that stopped him – he stood there for a moment with his shoulders shaking.

“I gave my word,” he said, after a moment. His tone was furious. “I will not be an oathbreaker.” He turned away as quickly as he’d moved before and stalked over to the side of the room. A deafening clang rang through the hold – he had punched the wall.

His companion looked at him, at Satine, and back again. She approached him hesitantly and put a hand on his shoulder.

The young man straightened up after a moment. In a dead voice, he said, “Perhaps you should just deal with your sister by yourself.”

Once again Satine could hear nothing past the ringing noise in her ears. Her mind had emptied out completely. She was barely aware of it when the man left the room. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from the guilty hunch of too familiar shoulders, a familiar body under unfamiliar clothing and armour. Some part of her had known since the very first moment she saw Bo-Katan approaching across the town square, but she hadn’t been able to acknowledge the thought, hadn’t admitted it to herself.

“Bo-Katan?” she said, the words emerging quiet and small.

After a moment Bo-Katan removed her helmet, tucking it under one arm. She did not meet Satine’s eyes but stared at the floor in front of her. “Yes?” she replied, half-way to venomous.

“Bo… how can this be? Why are you here? Why are you wearing that armour? Did those Death Watch assassins capture you?”

“There’s no point trying to make this something other than what it is,” Bo Katan said. “You shouldn’t make excuses for me, and I’m not going to take them either. You might have been taken in by our father’s foolishness, but you aren’t an idiot, Satine.”

Satine’s mouth was dry. Words did not want to come. She stood in silence, staring.

Bo-Katan did meet her eyes then. The expression on her face was complicated; Satine could read it as contempt and disgust, but there was conflict there as well, she was sure of it. “I joined Death Watch,” Bo-Katan said, a flat challenge. “I saw the future Father was leading us towards. A future of subservience to the Republic, relying on others for strength and protection – calling in Jedi only proved that! It might have taken Pre to open my eyes…”

“Pre… Pre Vizsla?” Satine knew the name of their enemy’s heir. Surely he wouldn’t stand idly by while this Jango Fett took over his father’s faction? Where was he in all this? She couldn’t worry too much about that just yet though. “Why would you ever listen to him! Death Watch want our whole family dead!”

“And yet here I am,” Bo replied, spreading her arms. Her lips quirked upwards in a brief and humourless smile. “Alive and well. Our father was the only one who had to die. Once we captured you, it would be just like it is with Fett.”

Satine narrowed her eyes. She knew her sister and she knew her tells. “You don’t actually believe it would have turned out that way,” she said coldly. Frigid water was pouring into her heart, numbing her whole body from the inside out. “You… you were willing to let Father die… just how much did you tell Death Watch? What did you give them? The security codes? Plans for the castle? Guard schedules? Bo, did you let them in?”

“He had to die for our people to survive!” Bo-Katan shouted, denying none of it. Satine gasped in a shocked little breath, turning away. She shut her eyes, pushing the lids together as tightly as possible until it hurt. No. No, it couldn’t be. She couldn’t accept that her own sister had done something so horrid.

“He had to!” Bo-Katan insisted.

“Didn’t you love him at all?” Satine asked her, holding back a sob. “He loved you. He loved both of us. And now… now he’s dead. He is dead and you are this and some stranger has claimed rulership over the entire sector and everything that our family, our House worked for… it is going to disappear. Do you have any idea… Can you even imagine… Bo-Katan, don’t you know what they’ll do to us?”

“Do to us?” Bo-Katan replied. “Don’t you mean, what have we done to them? What has House Kryze, the New Mandalorians, done to our traditions, our people, our culture? Why should we tear the heart out of who we are to appease the rest of the galaxy? Why should we shed our armour and weapons just so they feel more secure in their beds at night? Why does their peace of mind matter more than our very existence!”

Satine whirled around to face her again. “This isn’t about the rest of the galaxy! It’s about right and wrong! It’s about peace! It’s about stopping needless bloodshed, about stopping the endless infighting once and for all, it’s about the future, not the past! Didn’t you listen to anything that Father had to say? Just what kind of poison have Death Watch dripped into your ear?”

“Oh yes! Stopping infighting,” Bo-Katan sneered. “Father managed that so well! It’s been so peaceful for the last few years!”

“This is a process!” Satine snapped right back. “Mandalorians can be better than this! We can be civilised and work together! We can turn away from war and become something new! Why should we be beholden to traditions of barbarity…”

“Barbarity by whose standards?”

“By the standards of every right-thinking sentient being!” Satine said. “This is not relative!”

“Not relative?” The new voice cut through their argument, reminding Satine suddenly that they were not alone on this ship and it was not big enough that their raised voices would go unheard. She turned to see the Journeyman leaning against the doorframe leading to the rest of the vessel, appearing quite relaxed. “Kyr’tsad have their point of view, and so do both Haat’ade and you Kalevalans. If right and wrong were that objective, surely you could just convince people with argument?”

“I’m sure I can,” Satine told him. “If you would just listen…”

“We’re not valuing the same things here,” the man replied. “What you think is good and what other people think is good… if that’s so different, how is that not relative?”

“Does sentient life have value, or doesn’t it?” Satine said. “Surely we can agree on something as basic as that! Everything else goes on from there.”

The man sighed. “I actually came to say we’ll be landing again momentarily. The farm isn’t far from Arakura.”

“The… farm?” Just what did they mean by that? The Mand’alor wouldn’t live on an actual farm, so perhaps it was code for something else. A training camp perhaps? A site of indoctrination?

“We won’t be staying for long,” the man told her. “We just have to make some arrangements for more suitable accommodations, is all.”

“If you can’t guard her properly, you shouldn’t let her out of the hold,” Bo-Katan said.

“You…!”

Bo-Katan rolled her eyes. “I’m just complimenting your excellent skills at running away and escaping,” she said.

“Not really anywhere for her to go,” the Journeyman replied, somewhat sardonic. “It’s just fields. All the locals are friends of ours too. Let her tire herself out if she wants – it’ll all be the same in the end.”

Horrifically ominous as that was, Satine ignored it. “I have a name you know,” she said instead.

“Apologies duch*ess,” the man said. “I should have introduced myself properly as well. Silas, clan Dirn, House Mereel.”

Satine inclined her head in a formal nod of greeting. She hadn’t forgotten her manners entirely. “Well,” she said, “you know my name already.”

The ship tilted under their feet, banking then hovering slightly nose-up as it descended smoothly. The landing was equally gentle. Momentarily, the rest of their group appeared in the hold.

Jango Fett looked around the room and muttered something in Mando’a that got a huff of amusem*nt from Silas. Then he hit the ramp release and they descended out into the light of evening.

Satine stared.

It… it really was just a farm.

---

The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force, Qui-gon recited inside his mind as they retreated from the beskar-blank wall of hostility, hoping this had been enough to avoid violence. I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it. Obi-wan was injured but alive. The young duch*ess was alive. Their mission here was an abject failure, but no Jedi blood would stain the ground of Concord Dawn as it had soaked the dirt of Galidraan.

“Master…” Obi-wan mumbled, once they were out of earshot.

Qui-gon raised his hand. “Later, padawan. There is much to discuss, but this is not the place.”

Concord Dawn was far from a cosmopolitan planet, and for the most part its residents could call upon Clan connections if they needed transport outside the bounds of atmosphere. There were no spaceports where they could book a departure. Despite this it wasn’t entirely closed off to outside trade, and visitors still needed somewhere to dock. Qui-gon led them to the outskirts of town where several dilapidated vessels had parked up. The Mand’alor hadn’t given them a deadline to leave the planet, but remaining a moment longer than necessary could easily be taken as a provocation.

“Master, shouldn’t we… do something?” Obi-wan said. His jaw was set with youthful determination. It made Qui-gon feel very old, all of a sudden. “This… how can we just leave like this? It isn’t right!”

No. Indeed it should not have turned out this way. Qui-gon sympathised with his padawan’s frustration, but they had been left with little choice. “The situation has grown too complicated,” he replied.

“Satine Kryze needs our protection. This isn’t protecting her.”

If only it could be so simple. If Jedi were both free to follow their hearts, to think of nothing but the will of the Living Force and trust that it would give them all the power and wisdom to win the day then much about the universe would be better. The galaxy they lived in was not so black and white. The Jedi were not free – a point Qui-gon had often argued against in the past. Under other circ*mstances he wouldn’t be bending to failure so easily, but he had only to think of how the memories of Galidraan haunted his own Master to know that the ramifications of these events were rippling out far beyond what had been there before.

“I doubt this will be the end of our involvement in Mandalorian affairs,” he replied quietly. Obi-wan shot him a sharp, questioning look, but Qui-gon had said as much as was safe for now. He approached one of the vessels that was currently being loaded, a bored-looking human woman overseeing it.

“Madam, a moment of your time…”

The pilot was happy to take their credits, and before a few hours had passed they were breaching atmosphere towards the void of space.

In the privacy of the cramped passenger cabin, Qui-gon could finally relax.

“Master, you…” Obi-wan’s hands fisted in his robes. “I haven’t seen you so troubled for a long time.”

A long time? No. Unfortunately there had been a great many troubling incidents over the course of Obi-wan’s training so far. This was just another one. At least the boy had not attempted to stay behind for a second time. The sour lesson of Melida/Daan was painfully learned.

“I might say the same of you, Obi-wan. Release your worries into the Force. You had some time to take the measure of that Mandalorian. What manner of man was he? Do you believe that he will keep his word where duch*ess Kryze is concerned?”

To his own senses, Jango Fett had been hard to read. Part of that must be the beskar in the armour he wore – Qui-gon had extensively researched the history between Mandalorians and the Jedi Order before coming here, including the reasons they had such a reputation as Jedi-killers. The ability of their armour to block the Force and resist lightsaber blades was certainly a significant advantage. Qui-gon just couldn’t say how much was the beskar, and how much was the man himself.

How had Jango Fett survived Galidraan? The menace of the “True Mandalorians” should have been ended then. What else would have been worth so many lives?

Obi-wan thought about his question. “He… really didn’t like us,” he said. “I can’t say I had that long with him. Mandalorians don’t feel the way they should in the Force so it’s hard to say, but… he seemed honest.” He shook his head in simple frustration. “I wish I had been able to learn more of the language! Who is this Jango Fett? You said you knew who he was. I heard him mention Tor and Pre Vizsla, and Death Watch, so at first I assumed he was one of them, but he was quick to correct me about that. Back at the café just now he even said he’d killed Tor Vizsla! Who are these True Mandalorians? What do they have to do with the battle of Galidraan?”

There was no reason for Obi-wan to know these things. The briefing materials for this mission had not mentioned the True Mandalorian faction because as far as anyone back at the Temple knew, there was no reason to do so. Their part in this sector’s politics was long over and done with. Qui-gon only knew about them because of Yan Dooku’s involvement in Galidraan. Qui-gon might have mentioned them to Obi-wan briefly in passing, but that was all.

“Indeed Jango Fett was the leader of the True Mandalorians, another traditionalist faction who we assumed were wiped out at the battle of Galidraan three years ago,” he said.

“If they were wiped out, where did Jango Fett come from?”

“That is indeed the puzzle in front of us. Where has Jango Fett been since then? Here on Concord Dawn? Or somewhere else?”

Obi-wan frowned. “Master, can you please explain just who the True Mandalorians are? What sets them apart from Death Watch?”

“As far as I know, very little,” Qui-gon replied. “The True Mandalorians followed the war-like ways of their forebears, as do Death Watch. They often acted as mercenaries outside of Mandalorian space. The main point of contention appears to have been their leaders – each faction had their own idea of who should be the Mand’alor.”

“That explains Fett – and why you addressed him that way. But… if he and Death Watch hate each other so much, why was he working with those two Death Watch soldiers? Or perhaps it would be better to ask why they were working with him, if he was their enemy and recently killed their leader? That has to have been a recent development or the Shadows wouldn’t have missed it and it would have been in the briefing.”

Waves of confusion swirled around them, and the Force rippled. Qui-gon could draw no conclusions – not that the Force was a source of simple, easy answers. It merely pointed the way. He released his concern and disquiet, clearing his mind.

“Mission report, padawan,” he said. “Tell me what you do know, before we begin questioning what we do not.”

Obi-wan gathered his thoughts. Over the comm call before, it had been apparent he did not feel able to speak freely. The Protectors were clearly listening. Now he explained his trip to the marketplace, the sudden attack by a zabrak boy in Mandalorian armour named Maul with no provocation or cause, the shadowed currents in the Force that surrounded him… Qui-gon marked that as important, but did not interrupt. He would ask further questions at the end. His padawan continued with a description of the fight, of the choice between exposing himself as a Jedi or risking death, and the subsequent arrival of the Protector and the two Death Watch soldiers. He went through his interrogation before and after Jango Fett’s arrival.

“That’s when he brought out that lightsaber for the first time, the one they called the Darksaber,” Obi-wan said. “Master, why would the Mandalorian leader have a lightsaber? How did they even get their hands on it.” He shut his mouth quickly, a faint sheen of nausea coming over him. “Is it… a trophy?”

“Not in the way you are imagining,” Qui-gon replied. “That blade is a relic of the Mandalorian House Vizsla dating back a millennium to the days of Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian Jedi.”

“Vizsla… like Tor Vizsla?” Obi-wan did not require any further explanation. “So having that is why nobody questioned that he really had killed Tor Vizsla. But what about his son? Doesn’t that leave another challenger… or has he dealt with that problem already?”

Qui-gon said nothing. Obi-wan was right to be concerned. Mandalorians of this kind – warriors and pragmatists with a moral code very different to that of the Jedi – did not leave threats behind to stab them in the back.

“But we left Satine with them.” Obi-wan’s eyes burned fiercely, though it wasn’t anger that radiated from him into the Force. It was simply determination to do what was right. Obi-wan’s idealism and heart did him credit. “If he’s killed the heir to Death Watch then she isn’t safe!”

“She is young, and barely a Mandalorian as they would see it,” Qui-gon did his best to reassure him. “I believe that Fett’s faction will not view her as a threat.” If he hadn’t been reasonably confident about this he would not have left Concord Dawn so easily.

Once again Obi-wan’s fists clenched tightly. “Is there really no way… we could sneak back onto Concord Dawn. We could get her out, take her back to Republic space…”

“And risk starting a war,” Qui-gon replied.

“Aren’t these True Mandalorians terrorists, just like Death Watch?” Obi-wan demanded, gesturing with a wild sweep of his arm. “Why is it any different when Jango Fett declares that he’s the Mand’alor compared to Tor Vizsla?”

Qui-gon did not sigh externally, but released that too into the Force. This was why Jedi could not allow their emotions to rule them. Any positive quality taken to the extreme became a fault. Seeking to do right became self-righteousness. Determination became unyielding stubbornness. Seeking justice became seeking vengeance. Wanting to save duch*ess Kryze from peril was in no way a bad thing, but Obi-wan had become enamoured with the young woman’s point of view and forgotten that Jedi could not afford to be so partial. They could only do their best work as neutral parties, taking a side only when it would become completely immoral not to.

Or, to his shame, when the demands of the Galactic Republic put a heavy hand on the scale.

“Remember your lessons,” he said now, chiding his padawan. “What is it that gives a government legitimacy?”

Obi-wan’s brows furrowed, not best pleased to have to dredge up dry knowledge from the creche classroom. “Um. Recognition by the wider galactic community, the consent of the people, and the ability to exercise military, economic, judicial and social power. By those marks, surely only the New Mandalorians can be the legitimate government of the Mandalorian sector?”

“That has only been true since the destruction – the supposed destruction – of the True Mandalorian faction,” Qui-gon replied. “Jango’s father, Jaster Mereel, had the backing of at least half the Mandalorian clans. The remaining half were split between Death Watch and the True Mandalorians, with Death Watch representing the smallest faction. Even if we disregard Fett’s claim to have gained their backing, let us consider the facts. With Tor Vizsla dead, Death Watch is on unsecure foundations. It seems inevitable that their backers would go over to Fett rather than submit to the incompatible ideals of duch*ess Kryze.”

In many ways he was grateful he’d read up more deeply than strictly necessary before they left on this mission. If he had not been aware of this background then the pair of them could easily have been the cause of a calamitous diplomatic incident. With the information they had available it was impossible to say to what degree Mand’alor Fett had genuinely secured his power base amongst the clans and whether the Mandalorian sector was anywhere close to being able to go to war if it wanted to, but the risks were too great to take lightly.

“You’re saying that Jango Fett would have the consent of the people,” Obi-wan said. “But what about the rest of it? Surely the Republic wouldn’t acknowledge him…”

“They may have little choice.”

“So, we’ve just failed? A violent warlord is going to take over the Mandalorian sector and there’s nothing we can do about it?”

“It is one thing to protect a ruler’s daughter from terrorists, and quite another to attempt to depose the ruler of a system and put a replacement on his throne,” Qui-gon said.

“That’s not what I…”

Qui-gon fixed him with a serious look, and Obi-wan was quick to back down.

“I do understand,” he said in a low voice. “We represent the Republic, right? I just don’t know why we went in the first place, if what we were doing was interfering in a sovereign system’s politics. Isn’t that against the Code? Or at least, against what the Jedi Order is meant to do?”

“In politics and in life, there are more grey areas than any of us would like to admit,” Qui-gon said. “Adonai Kryze specifically requested assistance from the Jedi, but the Chancellor would not have agreed to it if there was no potential benefit in it for the Republic.”

“Why is it up to the Chancellor where we go?” Obi-wan asked, with a hint of genuine anger.

“We must abide by the wishes of the Republic’s governing bodies within its borders,” Qui-gon replied, maintaining his own calm. “However the Chancellor does not tell us where we must go, nor who we must help. We are an impartial, peacekeeping body. For matters outside the Republic…” He shook his head. “I won’t pretend to know everything that goes through the minds of the Jedi Council. I suspect they asked for Valorum’s opinion only because of the delicacy of the situation and the Order’s… history… with Mandalore.”

“How do you think Chancellor Valorum will react to… all this?”

“That is above our pay grades,” Qui-gon said, managing to drag a little humour from this dour situation. There was a good reason he had never held any ambitions about sitting in one of those chairs.

“They’re paying us now?” Obi-wan replied, forcing a slightly shaky smile.

Qui-gon laughed softly, but there were other reasons that it was difficult to find even a small amount of levity in this situation. “Now, this zabrak youngling you mentioned. Maul. He told you he was from Dathomir?”

“Yes.” Obi-wan grew serious again. “The more I saw of him, the more certain I am that he has been touched by the Dark Side, perhaps even had some measure of training with it. Do the Nightsisters really use the Dark Side? If so, then why haven’t we done something…?”

Qui-gon held up a hand to stop him before he went too far and assumed too much. “The Nightsisters do not use the Force in the way of either the Sith, or the Jedi,” he said. “There are a great many Force traditions out there Obi-wan – it would do you good to learn more of them.”

Obi-wan’s cheeks flushed slightly. “It’s not as if I haven’t studied anything…” he muttered.

“The Nightsisters do not use the Dark Side,” Qui-gon continued. “Obi-wan, are you certain it was the Dark you sensed? Dathomir’s magics would be unfamiliar to you – mistaking them would be understandable.”

Obi-wan looked down, no longer able to meet his eyes. “It was… it felt like Xanatos,” he said.

The stab of old pain was a familiar one – Qui-gon breathed it out and let it go, passing through him and away. “You are sure?”

“I’m sure.” A long pause. “Master, what could it mean?”

Disquiet stirred Qui-gon’s heart. He opened himself to the currents of the Force, seeking guidance, but no ripples moved. He sensed no danger, nothing but the buzz and hum of life, the white noise at the background of the universe. “I can only assume it means the youngling hoped to mislead you,” he said. “I would worry more about the Master who trained him, whoever and wherever they are.”

Another problem for the council to worry about. The Dark Side was the easy path – practitioners of many traditions could fall and walk that road. It was hardly the sole preserve of Dark Jedi. At the very least it was unlikely to be another Mandalorian – even in the period of history where they allied themselves with the Sith, Mandalorians had too much pride to break from their own traditions. Tarre Vizsla aside, they had little to do with the Force as Jedi or Sith understood it.

“Once we return to Coruscant, we will give our report to the Jedi Council,” Qui-gon said. “At that point it will be out of our hands, but I expect the Republic will ask the Jedi to support any diplomatic overtures to Mandalore.”

“If there’s so much bad history between Mandalore and the Order, is that really a good idea?” Obi-wan asked.

Qui-gon’s smile was thin and lacking humour. “Unfortunately we are also the best placed to protect an envoy if the Mandalorians turn… disagreeable.”

The Force was not going so far as to tell him they would return to this part of space, but nevertheless, Qui-gon had… a feeling. It was the kind of feeling he trusted.

This wasn’t over.

Chapter 16

Chapter Text

“I hate my sister,” Bo-Katan muttered, storming away from the ship the moment they landed. Fett didn’t bother to stop her and no-one else gave her more than a passing glance, so Pre felt like he didn’t have much choice but to follow her. To put it lightly, he wasn’t particularly enamoured of Satine Kryze either. That was nothing new, but so far he’d managed to keep to the oath he’d sworn to spare her life. The least he could do for Bo was to offer a little comfort. Finally finding Satine… neither of them had expected it to turn out this way.

He didn’t have much attention to spare for their new surroundings, but he was still a soldier – some awareness of the landscape was essential. Fett’s farm was nothing impressive. A few small single-story buildings, then overgrown fields as far as the eye could see across the rolling landscape. Somewhere there would be a water source, somewhere the neighbouring farms he’d caught sight of during their approach, somewhere the other younglings that had been mentioned.

His new family…

Pre reached out for Bo-Katan, pushing that thought away. “Hey,” he said. “Where are you even going?”

Bo-Katan finally stopped and turned back to face him. “Nowhere,” she said. “Just putting some space between us before I try and strangle her.”

“Unfortunately, our new Mand’alor has forbidden that,” Pre replied.

“Mand’alor… how can you accept this! How can you accept that whole excuse for, what, forcibly adopting you!” She gestured with a furious sweep of her hand, her tension visible in every line of her body, her fear. It was understandable. Before this, he had been her protector and Kyr’tsad the power that backed and guarded them both. Now everything had become uncertain and she could no longer be sure of her place in the world or of her safety.

Even so… “These are our traditions,” Pre said. “They are what we live for. If I try and find a loophole, some way out, then what is any of this even for?”

Bo-Katan’s jaw twitched, clenching. Still, she could hardly argue with that. “Tradition it might be, but when you spoke about it before you said it was meant for children, those left behind once all the warriors were dead. Since when are you a child?”

Pre hesitated. It wasn’t that he had not thought of this himself – there had been more than enough time for hindsight while he was waiting for Jango Fett to finish making holo-calls. Bo wasn’t wrong, it was just… complicated.

“There are a number of technicalities that could be challenged,” he said. “It’s true I’m too old for most to consider doing that rite on me – but which generation must die and which can be assimilated is a decision for the conqueror, not the conquered. No, the bigger problem would be the rest of Clan Vizsla of my buir’s age. Although none of them are on Concord Dawn, they aren’t dead.”

Bo-Katan’s gaze sharpened, seeing an opportunity. “Can they take you back?” she asked. “Can they rescue you from Fett? Kill him and restore the Darksaber to your family?”

“Fett must be expecting them to try,” Pre said. “Or at least some of them. The title of Mand’alor can be won in combat – the Clan-Heads wouldn’t be happy about it, but all of their support means nothing to Fett if he’s dead. Kyr’tsad would be the only faction left that stands for the old ways, just as it was before, and thus the only real option.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” Bo-Katan said, relaxing. “All we have to do is wait, and your relatives will make sure everything goes back the way it should be.”

“Assuming they win.” Pre didn’t have her easy confidence. Jango Fett hadn’t been fighting him with killing intent and he’d still been very good. He had survived one assassination attempt already – not that his relatives could risk going down that road now. Galidraan hadn’t been honourable and Pre hadn’t approved of it at the time, but eliminating competition was one thing. Trying to win the title of Mand’alor with dirty tricks was something else.

Bo-Katan watched him carefully. “I’m sorry,” she said, after a long moment of increasingly sombre silence broken only by the noise of the wind in the long grass all around them.

“Sorry?”

“Everything my sister said to me made me furious, but that’s nothing compared to what Fett has done to you. You’ve so much more right to be angry, but you’re keeping it under control, the way a warrior should.”

Pre swallowed bile. Anger? Yes. Yes, he should be angry, but he wasn’t. It had seeped from him like water from a cracked canteen, leaving only emptiness. He wasn’t mourning buir like he should. He wasn’t burning for revenge. It must be something wrong with him. He wasn’t what Bo thought.

“We can still make something of this situation,” he found himself saying. “Fett isn’t a New Mandalorian. He’s closer to us than to them. If I’m Clan Fett now he will at least have to listen to what I have to say. I can bring him around to the right path.”

“Perhaps,” Bo-Katan allowed, though with a narrow-eyed look of suspicion. “You persuaded me.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t suppose you could manage it with my sister as well?”

“I doubt I’d have any more luck than you did.” Pre had heard enough of that conversation to tell, after it grew heated.

“Hopefully wherever we end up after this place, I won’t have to look at her too much.”

----

Coming home to the farm should have relaxed him and taken the weight from his shoulders, but after this karking day, that was impossible. Jango stared at his house, the outbuildings, the barn, and wondered what those jetiise and their Republic masters would think if they could see it all. They certainly wouldn’t take him seriously, that was for sure.

[ So Mand’alor, ] Silas said, slapping him on the back and grinning. [ Come up with a plan yet? ]

A gaggle of children followed them out of the ship. Bo-Katan’s argument with her sister hadn’t been subtle, so it was little surprise that she immediately stormed away with Pre Vizsla in pursuit. No. He was Pre Fett now. Damn. That would take some getting used to. Satine was more composed externally, but still clearly fuming. At least Maul and Kilindi were the kind of troublemakers he knew how to deal with. The rest of these kids…

Anyway, that was unfair to Kilindi. She wasn’t the cause of his problems out of that pair.

“Come on.” He gestured to the lot of them. “Inside. duch*ess, have you eaten?”

“I’m not hungry,” the girl said.

“Eat anyway,” Jango told her. “Your stomach will thank you.”

The house door opened. Both Savage and Feral emerged, shooting looks of confusion at all these strangers. There hadn’t been time amongst all this osik to call up and let them know everything that had just happened. He was tempted to just shove Maul at his brothers and run off to think things over with Silas. Actually, that might not be the worst idea. Savage and Feral knew their brother well enough not to be taken in too much by his lack of objectivity, and Pre, Bo-Katan and Satine could speak for themselves. “Time for introductions,” he said, stifling a sigh. “Are Pre and Bo done?”

Maul co*cked his head, taking advantage of that sensitive zabrak hearing. “They will be finished momentarily.”

Okay. This was still going to be a lot of talking before everyone was on the same page, but he didn’t have to be here for all of it.

----

After Maul had finished giving a brief account of the day’s events, there was a brief silence. “Brother, can you please explain to me how this happened?” Savage finally asked, staring at the group of strangers sitting awkwardly around their dining table. “It was just a shopping trip into town.”

Maul was at a loss to account for it himself. “Chance, circ*mstance and the will of the Force,” was all he could think of. He was not overly concerned about bringing up the Force since Jango and Silas were in another part of the house, placing some further holo-calls. At some point they were likely to press him again for answers about why he went after Kenobi, but he would worry about that later. Let Fett come up with his ‘plan’ first.

“What does the Force have to do with anything?” Pre Vizsla said. “That’s jettii osik.”

“Hardly,” Maul replied. “The Force is everywhere across the galaxy, and the Jedi scum do not have the sole right or authority over who uses it and how. You must be aware that the Force is merely another name for what Mandalorians refer to as the ka’ra.”

“That’s completely different!” Pre said. “Our traditions have nothing to do with the sorcery of the jetiise.”

“No, Maul is right,” Savage said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the smooth wood of the tabletop. His expression, as always, was too earnest and open for his own good. Maul would despair of him, but it might be useful for now. “We have even spoken to the local goran about this. Death Watch must have gorane of their own – since you are Force-sensitive yourself, did it never come up?”

Pre jolted in his seat as though a venomous creature had lunged at him. “I am not Force-sensitive. What would you know about such matters anyway?”

Bo-Katan looked confused as well. “I didn’t know that was even possible for Mandalorians.”

“Just another thing our barbaric ancestors must have suppressed,” Satine muttered – mostly to herself. She had taken a seat against the wall rather than joining the rest of them on the long benches either side of the table, her face turned away and her arms crossed, a picture of petulant misery. Maul cared nothing for her option, but even so he found this an odd thing to say.

Observing that they were actually listening to her, Satine glanced their way and added. “The Jedi Order uphold peace and justice. Hardly the Mandalorian way.”

Maul rather enjoyed how much pain this statement clearly caused Bo-Katan. Their argument in the hold on the way here had amused him as well – while he could not truly take the girl to task for her future-self rejecting his rule, he was not above small and petty revenges. At this rate though, the duch*ess would truly test Pre Vizsla’s willpower and sense of honour. Did she want him to try and kill her?

Savage turned to Maul. “Brother, if Pre is part of the family now, we should be honest with him should we not?”

Maul sighed. Yes, that was fair. Besides, Pre’s Force-sensitivity was another opportunity, one he’d be a fool to waste. Mandalorians might have their own traditions, but true power came from the Dark Side – they would need every warrior they could get when it came time to face Sidious.

A very small, old part of him hesitated. The Sith were Two; Master and Apprentice, no more and no less. But Maul had already broken that rule when he started to train both of his brothers, and Sidious had long denied him the true heritage of the Sith. Whatever Maul built would lack that history, that tradition. It would only be what he chose to make of it. His will. His decision. His determination.

There was freedom in that.

“Very well,” he said.

Savage looked back to Pre, whose curiosity had distracted him from his anger for now. “Maul, Feral and I are all what we call Force-sensitive – it means we are able to sense and use the powers of the Force. It’s common on the planet Dathomir, where we were born. Maul was… separated from us for a long time growing up.”

Feral nodded along with this. He had not said much yet, a little intimidated by the newcomers – though Maul could also sense some excitement at having another sibling added to the family.

Weren’t Maul and Savage enough for him?

Maul swallowed down any faint and meaningless sense of bitterness. He saw where Savage was going with his narrative and made the decision to jump in. While he doubted Savage would tell Pre more than the vague half-truths he’d passed on to Jango and Silas, he preferred to speak for himself here. “During that time, I was trained by another kind of Force-user,” he said. “Not a Jedi – or a Fallen Jedi, for that matter. Since returning to my brothers, I have passed on that training to them – I would offer it to you, as well.”

“I am not Force-sensitive,” Pre repeated.

Why was he so insistent on this point? “Touched by the stars, then,” Maul said. “The words may differ but the meaning is the same.”

“All the House heads and heirs of Clan Vizsla have the blessing of the ka’ra. It is the weight of fate and destiny, and part of why it’s our right to rule our people. Or… it was.” Pre hesitated, complicated emotions passing over his face. While there was little to feel in the Force, that was more to do with his beskar than any natural shielding. There was no evidence of those subtle, mirror-like barriers Maul had found in the goran’s mind. “It has nothing to do with the ‘magic powers’ of the Force.”

“Are you or are you not Tarre Vizsla’s descendant?” Maul demanded, growing tired with this denial of the obvious. “Why should he have been the only Force-sensitive Mandalorian in the entirety of the galaxy’s history?”

Pre’s eyes showed a flicker of doubt.

“I refuse to believe Kyr’tsad are ignorant of their peoples’ own abilities.” Maul pressed the point. “Whether or not you have been told of your own potential, if you did not even know that it might be a possibility then you must ask yourself, why not? Has someone been keeping the truth from you? Or even lying to you?” This was a stab in the dark, but one he instinctively felt must be true. Nothing else made sense, given the way Pre was acting.

“It’s not… the same…” Pre said weakly. A faint sense of nervousness escaped the protection of beskar. “Buir said… the blessing of the ka’ra is one thing. The powers of the jetiise are something else. It would be… dangerous. A corruption. Who could trust an enemy hiding in our own ranks?”

Maul frowned. Disquiet grew in his chest with each word, a sense of wrongness. Something sinister lurked here. “You should speak to the goran,” he said. If Pre would not believe it from them, he would believe it coming from the closest thing Mandalorians had to a priest.

In the past that was the future, Death Watch had no qualms about allying with Sith, or with he and Savage using the Force around them. Was it only a concern coming from their own people? Was this why they had never attempted to bring him further into Mandalorian culture despite accepting him as their Mand’alor? Just what did Pre think would happen to him if he admitted that they were right? This wasn’t a fear shared by any of the Haat’ade or the locals of Concord Dawn.

“Perhaps,” Pre replied. His face had turned paler, and he did not add anything further even though there clearly was more on his mind.

Slightly alarmed, Bo-Katan asked, “Are Satine or I Force-sensitive?”

“Not at all,” Maul told her. In the final days before his death at Kenobi’s hands, rumours reached him of another war for control of Mandalore, with Bo-Katan Kryze at the head of one faction. The Darksaber had fallen into her hands – no doubt transported there by Ezra Bridger’s rebel friends. He could not know how well she might have wielded it, but there had been many legitimate Mand’alors in a long line over millennia, and they could not all have been Force-sensitive. He’d never felt it from her.

“What about your friend?” Bo-Katan asked again, nodding at Kilindi.

“Nope,” Kilindi replied, cheerful. “I’m just me. Very ordinary.”

“Speaking of the Force,” Savage said. “There were Jedi in Arakura. Maul, you… sensed their presence?”

“I sensed the boy’s presence,” Maul replied, deciding this would be a good time to lay down some further foundations for his excuses. “He did not realise he needed to be more mindful of his shielding. I did not detect his Master, but from his age it was clear he was a Padawan.”

Pre blinked out of his inner turmoil. “Did they detect you as well? Given that you were trained by a different tradition…”

Maul pressed his lips together, irritated, though not at Pre. “They may have cause to mention me when they report back to their Jedi Council,” he said. “There is little they can do after that. They are not welcome in Mandalorian space anymore.”

In the privacy of his own mind, he could admit he was a little more concerned. He had intended for Kenobi to be dead and quite unable to tell anyone about him. At this point in history the Jedi believed the Sith to be long extinct. It had taken the appearance of his older self – in training and presence undeniably a Sith Lord – for that confidence to be shaken. While Kenobi would surely recognise the feel of the Dark, the Jedi would not suspect that he’d been trained by the Sith. Rogue Force-users were the sole purview of the Jedi Order – there would be no reason for them to mention him in their report to the Senate and more reason to keep that knowledge to themselves.

He did not think that his former Master would hear about this.

He hoped he would not hear about this.

----

In private again for the first time since leaving Arakura, Jango relaxed slightly. Leaving those kids alone unsupervised might not be the best idea, particularly given the grievances between duch*ess Satine and Kyr’tsad, but it seemed Pre was honourable enough to keep an oath. Kilindi and Savage were the most sensible ones out there. They’d keep a handle on things until he and Silas returned.

Speaking of… Jango turned to Silas. He’d managed to dredge up some kind of an idea, but first he needed to know a few things he’d been too cowardly to ask about before now.

“You told me before that you looked for survivors after Galidraan. Did you mean just the Haat’ade who were on the planet? What about the rest of us… the sworn clans, the houses that stood with us…?”

Silas’ brow furrowed. “I tried to talk to you about this before but you didn’t want to know.” He paused, clearly running through a few different sentences in his head before choosing the one he thought would go over best. “Rather than assuming, just tell me what’s changed?”

It was difficult to meet his eyes. “I was running from responsibility before. Now I don’t have any choice.”

“You thought that if you asked, if you knew for sure, you would… what? Have no choice but to become the Mand’alor?”

It was more complicated than that, more a tangled web of guilt and self-loathing and other dark emotions, but Jango couldn’t figure out how to put that into words. He shrugged. “House Mereel,” he said. “Who still lives?”

“Well,” Silas said, picking his words. “It’s not like every single member of our Houses was part of the ori’amikade – the core of the Haat’ade died on Galidraan, but not our supporters, not those who were sworn to us. If Kyr’tsad were capable of challenging us openly they wouldn’t have had to rely on a dirty trick. They tried, afterwards – came with demands and ultimatums. Some of that worked – clans switched sides or promised at least neutrality. Not everyone. House Mereel would never.”

Jango swallowed. He should have been there. If he had… if he had, Kyr’tsad wouldn’t have even set foot on Concord Dawn. “What happened to them?”

Silas snorted. “Have more faith in your clan, alor. They’re dug in well here, and Tor had softer targets to go after.” He meant the New Mandalorians. “He always was a coward when you got right down to the heart of him.”

“They’re alive?”

“They’re alive,” Silas said, his expression softening. It wasn’t until it was confirmed that Jango realised how sure he’d been of their deaths. He believed Tor would never let them live, too vicious in his revenge. “Are you ready to see them again? That’s what you’re thinking, right? Heading to Fort Mereel?”

“Yeah.” Jango’s voice was rough – he coughed and repeated himself. “Yeah. It’s no Keldabe, not even as fine as the House strongholds on Kalevala or Concordia, but it’ll do for this sorry Mand’alor. Do you have their comm codes?”

Silas nodded. “It’s been a while since I spoke to them myself,” he confessed. “Always felt guilty for being the only survivor of Galidraan – but I’m not the only one anymore.”

Jango gestured at the holo-terminal built into the table. Silas reached over and typed something in. All that remained was to put the call through.

Once, many years ago, House Mereel had been only Clan Mereel, small and unimportant. Jaster’s expected career had been that of a simple Journeyman Protector – honourable enough, but not a life of glory and fame. However, that was not the fate the ka’ra had written for him. Jango’s buir was special, his heart great, his mind sharp. For Jaster, ambition didn’t come for its own sake – he only sought power for what he could do with it. After he won the support of those who followed the old ways and was granted the title of Mand’alor, many previously unaffiliated clans swore to the banner of his House, swelling its ranks and bringing their clan-wealth with them. Clan Mereel’s small stronghold on Concord Dawn went through a transformation, becoming something more befitting the ruler of their people.

Jango hadn’t seen it in years, even before Galidraan. After buir died he had avoided the place, pretending that the fight against Kyr’tsad kept him too busy to return to his own home planet. Even now his heart twisted at the thought of walking through those gates – but there wasn’t anywhere else on Concord Dawn he could turn. Even there…

“Staring at the comm won’t get us anywhere,” Silas said. “Do you want me to hit the call button for you Jango? Shavit, I’ll even talk to them for you.”

“I’m being an idiot,” Jango replied. “I know that. No need to rub it in.”

“Is that what I was doing?” Silas gave him a look on innocence.

Jango leaned forwards and slapped the comm before he could start thinking better of it again. The device beeped low tones until the call was accepted at the other end. A helmed Mandalorian appeared on the holo-screen. It took a dizzying moment until Jango recognised the patterns, the build. He still wasn’t fully sure until she took off her buy’ce.

“Jango…?” Jacek Mereel said. “Jango Fett, you absolute shabuir, you’re alive? Where the kriff have you been?”

Guilt twisted Jango’s stomach. “Nowhere good.” The words emerged with rough edges.

“Yeah I… I would have guessed that. You would have contacted us sooner, otherwise.” She shook her head. “Who do we have to kill?”

“Nobody,” Jango said, then paused. While those responsible for selling him into slavery were dead, the syndicate who bought him had only lost a ship, a smuggler and a slave. There hadn’t been time in the past few months to think about them, they were so far down his list for revenge. Even now going after them would just be indulging himself when he had a whole sector of space to tame, but once the idea had entered his mind it was hard to shake.

Jacek knew him well – she narrowed in on that moment of weakness at once. “Just give me names,” she said. “House Mereel might not be much anymore, but we’re dormant, not dead. Especially now you’re back… that hut’uun Tor Vizsla has no idea what’s coming for him!”

“You’re assuming he’s not the one that had me.”

Jacek paused. She leaned forwards over the table on her end of the call, her hands balling into fists. In a low voice, she said, “Forgive me for saying this Jango, but we both know the kind of person he is. If he had you, you’d be missing more parts.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer of vengeance, but it’s not why I’m calling,” Jango said, swallowing the lump in his throat made half of nauseated agreement with her assessment, and half sheer grateful thanks at seeing her alive and well. She wasn’t quite his aunt – she was Jaster’s cousin, not his sister – but she’d been pretty close to it.

She might not be so welcoming if she knew how long he’d been free before this moment. He hadn’t expected her to accept him back so easily though. She knew how badly he’d failed. She knew his weakness as a leader had doomed the Haat’ade and their House.

What was he thinking, daring to call himself Mand’alor? How could this possibly go well?

“No?” Jacek asked. “You need some other kind of help? Are you hurt? You need a pick-up from somewhere?”

“I’m on Concord Dawn. My old farmstead,” Jango admitted.

“Haar’chak,” Jacek said, eyes widening. “Why haven’t we heard about that?”

“I… I wasn’t ready.” He had to force the words out, but then they lingered in the air, like drones waiting for a target.

Her expression softened. “Jan’ika, there’s nothing to fear here. Whatever happened on Galidraan, I’m sure you feel it’s all your fault no matter how much that’s really the truth. It doesn’t matter. You’re alive, we’re alive, the Haat’ade will live on. Kyr’tsad couldn’t intimidate us into surrender even when we thought you were dead. We won’t let them turn our people into monsters. One defeat, two, a hundred. As long is someone is left, we’ll fight on.”

Jango wanted to believe her, but if he had never returned, never reclaimed his armour, never reached out to her… if Kyr’tsad truly won this war, they would have wiped all memory of Jaster Mereel and the Haat’ade from the galaxy. Even if somehow those useless New Mandalorians had prevailed instead, what sympathy would they have for House Mereel? It was easy to claim you would never bow until a boot was on the back of your neck pressing down.

He ripped himself away from flashes of memories of collar and chains and a brand sizzling into his back with the burst of scent of burning, cooking meat. He’d managed not to think about that for months. Why now?

No. This choice wouldn’t come to them. He was Mand’alor and Tor was dead. For now, Jaster’s legacy was the one winning.

“I want to come home,” he said. Admitting it tore something out of his chest, but it was a good kind of pain. “I want… there’s a great deal I have to tell you. Things recently came to a head and I…” He took a deep breath, and reached for the Darksaber tucked into the holster next to one of his blasters. The hilt buzzed in his palm, warm and seeming somehow alive. He held it up so that the holo would register it. “I have this now.” The black blade hissed into being.

Jacek’s eyes widened. “Ke’geteyar ka’ra. Jango. You got him.”

“He’s dead,” Jango confirmed, watching relief wash over her. That lightened his own chest too. “For now, Kyr’tsad are leaderless.”

“Until another Vizsla steps up,” Jacek said. “Tor had cousins, and there’s his heir.”

“About that – the situation is complicated, but for now let’s just say that Pre Vizsla is my captive.” The lie burned on his tongue, but his weak reserve of courage quailed at admitting he’d claimed Pre with kir’manir ad’akaan. He couldn’t look her in the eye and admit he’d used one of Kyr’tsad’s own tactics. Not… not yet.

Jacek’s gaze sharpened. “Just what have you been up to, Jan’ika?”

“I will tell you everything when we arrive.” Jango hesitated. “We… we are welcome?”

“Of course you are. Never doubt that Jan’ika. We’ll be waiting.”

Chapter 17

Chapter Text

The Promised Revenge cut through clouds, passing from a vista of rolling grey then thick mists and ending in heavy rain. The sharp tips of mountains were lost in the haze now above them, a thousand waterfalls gushing down the steep, rocky slopes. The wide flat basin of a glacier-carved valley spread below, wound about with further ribbons of rivers separating and meeting again. Despite the appearance of wilderness, some small signs of civilisation could be picked out when one looked closely. A few low buildings stood along the lateral moraines at regular intervals – barns for herd animals, and no doubt where the beasts were sheltering from the foul weather even now.

Rain pelted against the transparisteel of the Revenge’s co*ckpit, cutting the view into a dozen hazy sections. Their destination was difficult to ascertain.

“There,” Silas said, reaching between Maul and Kilindi and pointing ahead. “Where the valleys meet.”

Maul squinted. Yes… once he knew where to look the outline of a fortress materialised, grey on grey. Cliffs fell away on both sides, not truly vertical but not far from it. It could only be reached from the air, or by the very determined – though Maul’s training quickly kicked in as he mapped possible angles of approach, cracks and faults in the stone that would provide holds for hands and feet, areas of vegetation suggesting slightly flatter ground… Not impossible. No, not impossible at all.

Approaching from the sky was certainly the easier proposition, but only for those who were welcome. As their ship closed in further, he could see the stubby barrels of turbolaser turrets sticking up at key points around the building, both those suited for tackling starfighters or troop-transports as well as those designed for smaller and more mobile targets – those wearing jetpacks, for example.

“So, this is Fort Mereel,” Pre said, with grudging admiration. “I can’t say this is how I expected to see it.” Neither he nor Death Watch would be coming here as conquerors again if Jango’s rule went well.

“What a charming place,” Satine said, scowling. “It certainly looks like a prison.”

Maul looked away. None of this was how he had planned it. He was supposed to be the one who won command over Death Watch, not Jango Fett. Fett, who had dodged responsibility until now, who as far as Maul could see lacked the necessary viciousness to match up against a Sith. There was no going back, no returning to the original path history had taken where Death Watch survived under Pre’s leadership, so all he could do was make the best of it. Hadn’t he challenged Jango himself by saying he should either step into the role of Mand’alor, or accept the outcome of this slow-rolling civil war? Perhaps it would have been better to say nothing.

Plans changed. He would adapt – he always had before.

There was opportunity in this turn of events. Fett hadn’t mentioned this House Mereel or their stronghold before now, leading Maul to assume he had no real allies to turn to. Instead he had been avoiding them, for presumably the same reasons he had avoided resuming any of the responsibilities of leadership. If he truly could unite the remnants of his own former faction with Kyr’tsad and conquer the New Mandalorians several decades earlier than Maul had planned, that could only be a good thing. Mandalorian space would regain its strength rather than ebb in power as it had under duch*ess Kryze. Jango Fett might not cleave to the expansionist ideals of Death Watch or his ancestors, but he was no pacifist. Besides, he would have Maul and Pre to carefully manoeuvre him closer to Kyr’tsad’s philosophy.

Passing through the silent gauntlet of turbolasers, Silas set the ship down on the landing pad outside the walls. More weapons emplacements in the curtain wall covered the open ground between them and the gate, a threat display that would make any predator think twice. There were no other vessels visible out here, but Maul suspected that there were hanger bays concealed somewhere nearby, burrowed into the rock of the mountain. Jango said this had once been the home base of the Haat’ade, a group who ranged across the galaxy. They would need somewhere to moor their craft.

The ramp of The Promised Revenge hissed down at the same time as the gates of Fort Mereel opened. Their welcoming committee comprised of a small group of armoured Mandalorians, five in all, their colours each subtly different but with a uniting theme to the palette and all bearing the same sigil on their pauldrons – a black mythosaur skull on a yellow shield. That must be the mark of either House or Clan Mereel.

Jango was the first down the ramp, Silas not far behind. Everyone else emerged as a clump, Bo-Katan keeping a particularly close eye on her sister. Maul did not care about their reactions. His attention was fixed on Jango and on the strangers.

The woman at the front took off her helmet, revealing short dark hair with a few streaks of grey, and a worn, weather-beaten face. “Jango,” she said, emotion shivering in her voice, spreading her arms. “Welcome home.”

“Jacek…” Fett took a few faltering steps forwards and then hugged her, resting their foreheads together. Maul averted his gaze, uncomfortable with this brazen display of… feeling. While he could not deny that family had its importance, or that he himself had been overwhelmed in the past into embracing Kilindi and his brothers, he had the decency not to do it out in the open with everyone watching.

“Jacek,” Jango said, after a few moments. “Come meet… everyone.”

“Su cuy’gar, Silas,” the woman said, nodding to him. “Have you been keeping Jan’ika out of trouble?”

“Trying my best,” Silas said. He tilted his head towards the rest of their group. “Not really succeeding.”

Jacek chuckled. “You said you were bringing your kids, Jango, but this is a bit more than that,” she said – Maul watched her carefully as she approached. She had an easy, fluid stride, no stiffness in it despite her ambiguous middle-age. Twin blasters sat on her hips as comfortably as they did on Jango’s. She might not have been part of Jango’s active forces, but she was a Mandalorian warrior all the same.

Her gaze was sharp as it ran over them, assessing. In the Force she felt solid and steady, confident and self-assured. Her armour was not pure beskar, likely a low-content blend, so it was not difficult to take her measure. There was no weakness there. It was… reassuring.

Jacek Mereel’s eyes turned to the three teens at the rear of their party and stopped. She was instantly at alert, hands lifting slightly from her hips, the better to go for blasters if need be. “Jango Fett,” she said, unimpressed. “Why do you have two Kyr’tsad trainees with you – and is that Adonai Kryze’s daughter?” Her gaze flickered between them. “Both of his daughters.”

“Ah.” Jango said. “Yeah. About that. I thought it would be better if I explained it in person.”

“Afraid what will happen when people find out I’m your hostage?” Satine said, holding her head up high. “Are you having second thoughts about staking your claim against the New Mandalorians – the legitimate rulers of our sector?”

Her words were naught but a bluff – Maul could sense the depths of her fear. It rolled off her almost strong enough to taste. Here she was, amongst her enemies. She thought them monsters and expected them to treat her accordingly. She was doing her best to bolster her courage, but even she could tell it was unconvincing.

“This seems like a complicated situation,” Jacek said, relaxing again with amusem*nt now seeping into her tone. “Don’t worry, ad. Nobody here is going to hurt you.”

“Forgive me for not believing that,” Satine replied.

“I’ve got a lot of questions,” Jacek said, “but I can see answering them might take some time. Come in and you can introduce yourselves to us properly. We’ve been looking forward to meeting you all.”

“Admit it,” Jango muttered, “you just want to make me wait for my interrogation so you can watch me squirm.”

“Do you have something to squirm about, Jan’ika?” She asked, with a raised eyebrow.

Jango did not answer that. There was some guilt leaking out of him into the Force. It would hardly be the first time that Maul had sensed that emotion from him, but he was less certain of the cause of it right now. It wouldn’t be about the Kryze girls. Taking them hostage was only good sense – not that Bo-Katan’s status was as clear-cut as that. She was more of a mere hanger-on with nowhere else to go.

Then was it about adopting Pre into Clan Fett? Was Jango regretting sparing his enemy’s heir already? Perhaps his kin were more bloodthirsty than he was? No, that would be too much to hope for.

Was it the way he’d done it?

A slight shiver ran up Maul’s spine. Forcing the bonds of family, of dominion, upon another… Fett had promised he wouldn’t do that to Maul, but how far did his word really stretch? If Maul pushed the boundaries too far, if he stretched out his independence beyond some secret standard Fett was holding him to in his mind, would he…

It did not matter if he tried. Maul was not defenceless. He had the Force – and if he was careful and persuasive enough, he hoped he would be able to get his hands on Kenobi’s lightsaber as well. He had not missed that Silas took it with them when they left Arakura. Even now it was tucked away in his belt, the pathetic little kyber within it singing out for its master, hoping to be recovered.

Jango knew he could use the Force, if not the full extent of his background. Surely he could bring him around to the idea of allowing them to train with a lightsaber. He could not get away with bleeding it red without prompting some highly awkward questions he would not be able to answer, but he could put up with a wilful and disobedient crystal.

Justifying his knowledge of lightsaber forms would be harder, but Jango also believed he’d been with Kyr’tsad briefly in the past, and Mandalorian kade were not so different to lightsabers. He could spin some further excuses there.

It was more pleasant to make plans for the future than to contemplate his own discomfort at Jango’s recent actions. Maul followed everyone else into the citadel, watching everything. There was much to learn about this place and these people – once he was familiar with them, he could adjust his plots accordingly.

----

Satine suppressed a shiver as they walked through the halls, flanked by fully armoured warriors. It was only the cold weather on this part of the planet, the cold and the damp, nothing more. Certainly not the fear bubbling like acid through her stomach.

How many people exactly were holed up in this fortress? Aside from the five leading them, she’d caught sight of a number of others here and there as they went past other rooms or corridors leading away. Blank unreadable helmets came up to watch them go past. It was difficult to tell them apart, to know if she had seen them more than once. Everyone looked alike under beskar. There were differences to their paint schemes, true, but she didn’t have experience reading those subtleties.

That was not even mentioning the captors she had been travelling with already. None of them were on her side, not even her own sister. Her sister, who had listened to the poisonous whispers of Pre Vizsla, Tor Vislsa’s heir, who had turned out to be the same young Death Watch soldier following Jango Fett – which she supposed gave credence to his claim that Death Watch had bowed to him as well.

She still didn’t understand why Pre wasn’t reacting more to his father’s death. Satine knew very intimately what it was like to lose a parent. Pacifist she might be, but a part of her wanted revenge – not a part of her she’d ever give in to, but he was one of those warrior savages and had no reason to hold back. Perhaps he was as much a traitor as Bo-Katan? Back at the farm the young zabrak Maul explained that Fett had adopted Pre, that he was now part of their family. What could that be but treachery?

Vizsla must have felt her eyes on him – he turned his head to glare at her. Satine looked away first, dropping her gaze to the floor.

While Satine was caught up in worry, she hadn’t noticed that they had arrived at their destination. The group emerged into a large hall. It had no windows, but light streamed down from sconces on the walls and glow-strips set into the ceiling. The walls were dark, simple pourcrete. Banners with heraldry she didn’t know hung from the arch of the roof and at the rear of the dais at the far end of the room – a dais where a line of chairs sat either side of a central seat that she could only describe as a throne. All the seats were empty at present, but the room was not.

At least two dozen Mandalorians were waiting for them, not all of them human. Armour made it difficult to be entirely sure with the more humanoid species, but there was at least one rodian, a togruta, several twi’lek and… was that a trandoshan?

“Osik,” Jango Fett muttered. “You really did mean all of them.”

“Everyone who can’t be spared from necessary duties,” the woman – Jacek – replied. “Did you think people would stay away when they heard you were alive and coming home?” Was she the leader of this place? What was her relationship to Fett? They clearly knew each other as more than acquaintances.

“Jango! K'olar! Jan’ika! Mand’alor!”

A chorus of voices rang out, a warm welcome. Jango Fett’s shoulders hunched. It seemed he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. “K'uur, k'uur. Stop making such a fuss.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” the trandoshan said. “Turning up alive after years, killing Tor Vizsla, subduing Death Watch, bringing a whole clutch of ade with you – and you don’t want a fuss.”

“Speaking of ade,” Jacek said. “Let’s not overwhelm them too much. Jan’ika can answer all our many questions while this lot get the tour and then some rest.” She turned to Satine, or by extension, the rest of Fett’s group. “My name is Jacek Mereel, my pronouns are she and her, and I have been acting head of House Mereel up until Jango returned to us.”

Fett muttered something in protest, but it was ignored.

“Everyone here is either Clan Mereel, or sworn to our House,” she continued. “You’ll get to know them well, I’m sure. I won’t give you too many names to remember right now, but to start you off, our house elders are Oraya Mereel, he or they,” she pointed to the trandoshan, “Trevis Mereel, she/her,” an elderly human woman, “Mir Shale, he/him, and of course our goran, he/him as well.” The last was a warrior wearing a golden helmet as well as a ruff of fur around his shoulders.

“Goran?” Satine asked. “Is that a title or a name?”

She knew that she was revealing her ignorance, but she refused to be ashamed of it. If the New Mandalorians abandoned the past it was only to stop it weighing them down as they walked into the future. Shedding violence could never be wrong.

“A goran is an armourer,” Pre said, sneering. “It is a holy path. They relinquish any other name – none is needed but the title of their craft.”

“And you are the duch*ess Satine Kryze,” Jacek Mereel said, before Satine could think of an appropriately cutting reply.

She raised her chin, summoning her courage. “That is correct. If you were honourable people, you would turn me back over to my family…”

Jacek ignored her. “I suppose the story of how the duch*ess ended up with you is a long one,” she said to Jango and Silas.

“Maybe not as long as you’re expecting,” Fett replied with a sigh.

“If you want your family, it looks like there’s one right here,” Jacek said, gesturing to Bo-Katan. “Why are you in Death Watch training armour?”

Bo-Katan tilted her head, her expression a mixture of pride and defiance. “Because I’m not a Kalevalan anymore. Kyr’tsad is right…”

“Okay, nevermind. I’m not interested in hearing a bunch of propaganda,” Jacek said, raising her hand for Bo to stop and shaking her head. A few people laughed quietly around the room. She pointed to the next person in their group – Pre Vizsla. “Ramikad. Tion gar gai?”

Pre hesitated. What had they asked him? Then he squared his shoulders and replied, “Pre Fett. He/him.”

Satine hadn’t been certain how far this ‘adoption’ went, but it seemed that he really had rejected and abandoned his father. Spirits, he and Bo-Katan really were two seeds in a pod! Had he planned this, as she had? Was that how Jango Fett managed to kill Tor Vizsla – through underhand trickery, through a traitorous child opening the way? Had Pre been the one to pull him from obscurity, seeking to advance? He was the eldest Fett son now – it was possible that made him this new ‘Mand’alor’s’ heir, a leader who claimed to have united more forces than Death Watch could alone.

“Pre… Fett.” Jacek’s eyes narrowed, and she looked over at Jango. “Pre Fett. Whose idea was that?” Several other voices muttered around the hall, no words Satine could specifically make out.

“Does it matter?” Pre replied, growing even more defensive. “What is done is done.”

Jango Fett briefly closed his eyes. “I’ll… explain all that too,” he said.

“Haar’chak,” Jacek said. “I thought he was another hostage. This story grows arms and legs, huh?” She did not seem to expect an answer. Her expression softened when she turned back to the zabrak boys and the nautolan girl. “Now, how did Jan’ika run across you ade?”

“I think it was more like, we ran across him,” Kilindi replied, grinning with a flash of white, sharp teeth. “We helped him, he helped us, we didn’t really have anywhere else to go and he offered to take us in and give us a place to stay. Things kind of… went on naturally from there.”

“For the most part,” Maul added. “I must make it clear that while my brothers and Kilindi have agreed to formal adoption, I have not. I am simply Maul, and Jango is my teacher, not my father.”

Jacek raised an eyebrow at this, giving Maul a further once-over, but she didn’t ask any further questions. She nodded slowly and said, “As you say, ad.” She looked back over the others. “So, if you’re Maul, then these are Savage and Feral, and Kilindi of course. Jan’ika wasn’t completely evasive about everything.”

Fett shifted, looking up and away. There had been talk of making him squirm earlier – Mand’alor he might be, but it was clear these people had known him too long for that to have them standing on ceremony. It was… strange, to see him like this. It made him appear too normal. She could almost forget the kind of man he was, and the danger she was in.

“Well,” Jacek said, clapping her hands together. “That’s enough of introductions for now. Jan’ika has some questions to answer, so you ade had best be heading off so we don’t embarrass him too much in front of you. Barad has volunteered to give you the tour, so just follow them.”

One of the shorter warriors, still helmeted, raised an arm. “Over here,” they said.

“That’s all?” Pre Fett said. “You have nothing else to ask us?”

“That depends on what Jango and Silas have to report,” Jacek replied. “I’m sure we will have some things to ask you, ramikad, but later.”

Pre gave a sharp, curt nod, accepting this.

Satine had little choice but to continue to follow her captors around. Even if none of them had actually threatened her yet, she didn’t trust that it would last. For now they might respect their leader’s authority, but she was out from under his gaze now. There were plenty of ways to harm someone that did not involve outright violence. They could starve her, shove her in a freezing cold cell, heap insult after insult on her, deprive her of the essentials of dignity… so long as they did no permanent damage, her remaining family would have no grounds on which to object.

As for family, the topic even more on her mind because of Pre Fett… She darted another glance sideways to Bo. Even that brief glimpse sent a complicated wave of emotion pulsing through her. How had it come to this? It didn’t feel quite real. Despite their conversation earlier – or even because of it – she understood her sister’s motivations even less than she had before. Bo-Katan hadn’t admitted just how much she had helped Death Watch, but she had admitted enough. She… she was pleased that their father was dead!

How could such a familiar face conceal an utter stranger? They might have had their differences growing up and Bo had become more and more distant from her over the last few years, but to go this far?

There should have been signs. This much hatred… how had she failed to see it?

Satine could spend an eternity thinking about this. As a prisoner, she supposed she would certainly have the time.

The ‘tour’ of Fort Mereel took them past the kitchens, the mess hall, various rooms for training and sparring, the blast-door locked armoury that must be as much a taunt as anything, the outer perimeter with open slit-windows letting in the biting wind and splatters of chilling rain, and finally ended up at the accommodation wing.

“This is where you’ll be sleeping,” the gruff soldier leading them around said, gesturing to a row of doors.

“What about me?” Satine asked, crossing her arms to hide how shaky she felt. Her present company was not exactly keeping her safe, but she would be in even greater danger on her own.

“You and everyone else,” they told her. “Don’t get the idea we’re being careless – your door locks, and you won’t be leaving again without a guard.”

There was no point in being stubborn here, and she wanted to see just how bad it would be. Satine forced herself to reach out and turn the handle, stepping in.

The door closed behind her with a click that sounded very final. She looked around the room. There was a window high up in the wall letting in dim grey light – it was long and thin and did not appear to open. Rain beaded on the surface and flowed down in streams.

The space was small and simple – one bed, neatly made up with military precision, a mirror over a table bolted to the floor – though the chair was loose and could be moved – and a few doors which led to storage areas and the fresher. The shower had both sonic and hot water settings. She turned both it and the taps on briefly and let them run for a while, for no particular reason.

The flow was strong and the water comfortably warm, not hot. Absurdly, that small fact almost had her bursting into tears and she didn’t know why. Now that she was alone, waves of emotion swept through her, each one building on the last.

Satine shoved off her boots and sat down on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. There was no noise other than the patter of the rain and her own unsteady breathing.

Now what?

----

“Look,” Jango said, once the ade were out of the room. “I get that everybody wants to know what’s going on, but there are some parts of this that are my business. Not every single person in this House has a right to know every single detail of my life in the past few years!”

The beat of silence had an awkward edge. Jango was aware that some of his anger had its roots in shame, but not all of it. He would have to explain just what happened on Galidraan – it was impossible that they’d been able to work it out from the aftermath alone – explain being enslaved, the people he’d been sold to… and that was his pain, his suffering. He wasn’t going to lay it out for the world to pick over. The elders had to know, because he did owe the Pykes some revenge for that and he would need their help, but that was as far as it would go.

Jacek knew him well enough to understand that he had a good reason for asking for this. “That’s… fine. But this osik with Tor’s heir, or what is to be done with the Kryze girls – that’s something that can’t just be between us.”

Jango nodded. He hadn’t even mentioned the presence of the jetiise yet, and that was also the kind of information that had to be widely spread so that the Haat’ade knew what to look out for.

“Alright,” Jacek said, waving the rest of the crowd off. “You heard our Mand’alor. Elders only. You got to see the ade so don’t complain too much.” Of course people did complain, but in a good-natured sort of way, and they obeyed her order.

“Silas,” Jango called out, as his friend also began to step away. “Stay.”

“You’re sure?” Silas asked, with a brief, questioning raise of his brow. “I didn’t want to assume.”

Who else had survived the slaughter that day? Who else had spend the past few years refusing to believe Jango was dead, looking for him for longer than any logic dictated? Who else had helped him settle in on Concord Dawn when every instinct screamed at Jango to run off and hide away, isolated from any sentient contact. He wouldn’t have been able to abandon the ade, not when they needed him, but at least with Silas to help out he knew he couldn’t mess it up – mess them up – too much.

That was too much to put into words here and now. Jango forced out a curt “Yes.”

Once they were down to just the seven of them, he took a deep breath in and out, steeling himself for what was to come. He didn’t like talking about himself, never had. This would be particularly agonising, raking himself open and no matter that these were people he’d known since childhood. That actually made it worse. He didn’t give a kriff about the opinions of strangers.

“It’s best I start after the last time we saw each other. With Galidraan…” he began.

It would take a while to go through it all. He spoke in as cold and clinical a way as he could, an after-action report stripped of emotion. A few years wasn’t long enough – no amount of time would be long enough –to ease the pain of so much loss. Any crack in his façade would be too much. The contract had been a simple one, armed dissidents allegedly causing havoc, the governor willing to pay in both credits and information. If he hadn’t dropped that mention of Death Watch and in a way that suggested he was ignorant of the full context of what that meant, would Jango have looked closer? Would he have been more careful, spotted the trap before the teeth of it closed around him?

Perhaps. He’d been eager. Greedy. The uprising hadn’t been as well-armed or troublesome as he was led to believe – that should have been a warning sign as well. Jango’s head had not been in the present. He was fixed on the future, the scent of the hunt dragging him forwards. The intensity of revenge and single-minded pursuit had stood him well before then – and in more recent days when he went after Tor the final time as well. It was just that one mis-step, that one mistake, where everything fell apart.

“Tor ambushed me in the governor’s castle,” he said. “Shot me out of the sky as I retreated. That’s when the Republic ships arrived and I realised he had tricked…” He swallowed the word ‘us’, the desire to avoid responsibility that in reality rested squarely on his shoulders. “Tricked me. I hoped there would be time before they landed for us to pull out and make our escape, but I couldn’t get through on comms. I followed their flight path through the snow, and got close enough to see the jettise disembark.”

It was easier not to meet anyone’s eyes, to stare ahead at pourcrete walls as though he was dictating this into a datapad. “Republic soldiers would have been one thing. Jettise…” Kyr’tsad truly proved their lack of honour when they set the ancestral enemies of Mandalorians to do their dirty work. Getting the Republic involved at all was a betrayal of their own ideas, considering the legacy of the last war and the glassing of Mandalore, but given how much Kyr’tsad hated the jettise, that had been even worse.

“For jettise to come in such numbers meant they were expecting to encounter a significant threat, one that needed heavy-handed force,” Jango continued. “I might not know exactly what lies that governor passed on about us, but I realised then that the people we killed for him… they weren’t what we had been told. Or even if they were, he would spin it against us. I knew I had to make it back to the Haat’ade first, to warn them of what was coming for us.”

Powering at a run through heavy snow and rough terrain with his body aching from the fall, breath scorching in his lungs, heart pounding, fuelled by adrenaline and desperation… he still had nightmares about it. In them he mostly reached the others too late, found them dead with nothing at all to show for it, Kyr’tsad standing over the corpses and laughing…

Not that reality had been much better.

“I got to our camp moments before the jettise,” he said. “It was too late to run then. There’s no running from jettise.” That might have been the first time Jango fought Jedi, but his tactics were straight out of the old training manuals, the ones that stretched back millennia through the history of their people – not just from that most recent war but earlier ones as well, back to the Sith Wars and beyond. Don’t turn your back. Don’t take your eyes off them. They’ll move faster than you will think is possible, their blades cut through anything that isn’t beskar, shooting them won’t work but getting up close and personal will. Even a fighting retreat lets them divide you and pick you off one by one.

“They offered us surrender,” Silas added, hesitating to interrupt – but Jango’s memories were overwhelming him and he didn’t think he could say any more right now. “We rejected it. In my opinion, Jango was right to. Neither the Jedi Order or their Republic masters have any reason to give Mandalorians the benefit of the doubt, and the planetary governor wouldn’t have called them in without arranging more than enough falsified evidence to bury us. We could either rot in a Republic prison until our execution, or go down fighting.”

“Understandable,” Oraya hissed. “The Republic are far from impartial when it comes to Mandalorian affairs. To their Senate, there’s little difference between Kyr’tsad and Haat’ade. They’d be foolish to have ignored the chance to eliminate at least one faction, all the better to prop up their pawns on Kalevala.”

Some of the tension Jango was holding eased. Once or twice the thought troubled him… what if he had stood down? What if he had surrendered? Would at least some of the Haat’ade have survived that day? Yet there was more than one way to die.

“The jettise paid dearly for our deaths,” Jango said, the words more of a growl, “but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. We… My vode were slaughtered. I… was allowed to live.” He shut his eyes but forced himself to continue. Being dragged half-dead off the battlefield, stripped, humiliated… he could talk about it if he pretended it had happened to someone else. The words emerged, but far distant. It was like being underwater.

With halting sentences, he explained the next few years in brief detail. None of the elders asked questions – but that would come at the end, he was sure. They must understand that if he stopped to answer, he might not be able to go on.

He came to the day he met Maul and Kilindi on Orsis station, two adiika with a toughness and viciousness they were too young for. He mentioned only a few details about their pasts – or what he knew of that. Any more wasn’t his to tell. Jango spoke of freedom, of rescuing Maul’s brothers, of returning to Concord Dawn, of finding Silas. He spoke of a quiet life with no desire for more – at least, nothing more than the revenge that had been his reason for moving forward since he knelt in the mud on Korda 6 ten years ago and watched Jaster die.

Finally, he explained the events of the last few weeks – his hunt for Tor and making the kill, returning to Arakura to find that Maul had embroiled them all in the complications of politics, the jettise, the duel with Pre, and finally what he’d done to drain the venom from the viper – both Tor’s heir and Kyr’tsad as a whole. He mentioned the House and Clan leaders he’d spoken to, though that was only the start of what he would have to do to establish his rule as Mand’alor – and there wasn’t another option left open to him now.

Silence fell once Jango was done talking. The attention was a heavy weight on his shoulders, shame twisting up his guts. Had he done the right thing? Better that barbaric forced adoption than killing Pre, striking yet another debt of blood between their families. He just couldn’t be sure that other people would see it that way – not just the elders, but the rest of the Haat’ade too.

He might be able to bear the disapproval of the elders alone, but as Jacek had pointed out earlier, this affected too much to be kept secret. It was mostly the older retired generation and those too young to fight who had remained behind rather than joining Jaster’s travelling supercommando corps, and so they were the ones who had survived. Who wanted to have to justify themselves to their elders when they weren’t even that damn sure of themselves! Who wanted a bunch of teenagers thinking they could have done better and wouldn’t make the same mistakes when they grew up!

Besides, Pre was raised Kyr’tsad – this tradition wasn’t objectionable to him. Why would he conceal the truth? No, it was better that everyone in House Mereel heard the facts, since otherwise they’d hear it from rumours instead, and those were too easily twisted.

“Jango,” Jacek said, after a while. “You weren’t kidding when you said there was a lot to tell us. I hadn’t imagined… even half of it.”

“The Pykes bought you?” Oraya said, his tongue flicking out to lick past his fangs. The grizzled old trandoshan looked pissed. “We cannot let that stand. We shall hunt them down and pay back the debt with interest.”

“In time,” Jacek said. “Just because Tor is dead and Pre is…”

“Stolen,” Jango said, going for bluntness when she hesitated a bit too long. “Call it what it is.”

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Mir Shale told him. He shook his head, the rings braided into his hair jingling.

“Better than killing the boy.” Trevish was an unexpected defender, echoing Jango’s own yet unspoken justification for his actions. She had always had so much contempt for the old Mandalorian Empire and that period in their history. She’d written at least a dozen books about that era – Jaster had come by his academic tendencies honestly. “You saw him. He can’t be more than nineteen.”

“Old enough,” Mir replied. “At that age a Kyr’tsad rami’kad will have been blooded – knowing Tor, I expect he had the boy make his first kill at his verd’goten.”

[ That is tradition for Death Watch, ] Goran said. It was impossible to tell his feelings on the matter.

“And I was blooded at eight,” Jango said. “Shooting down my birth-buire’s killer.”

Several people winced. “Jan’ika that… that never should have happened,” Jacek said.

“I know it wouldn’t have happened if Kyr’tsad hadn’t turned up at our farm that day. I don’t blame any of the Haat’ade for that – I picked up that blaster, and I killed that shabuir. Jaster didn’t even find me again until afterwards. But even if you would say that doesn’t count, that it wasn’t the same as being blooded as an adult, after the verd’goten, that happened when I had just turned fifteen.”

Jacek’s eyes slid closed. “In battle with Kyr’tsad,” she said. “Not that it changes matters any.”

“Yes. I was only put in that position because Montross betrayed us,” Jango said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know what ‘defending the extraction point’ means – buir meant to keep us out of the main battle and out of the line of fire. The fighting shouldn’t have gotten anywhere near us. Doesn’t change the facts. Korda Six was the first time I shot someone when I really knew what that meant. That time earlier… don’t know that I really understood what I had done.

“Guess that makes me no different to Pre, right?” His first time killing as an adult. The time he saw his buir die in front of him. The time he had the mantle of Mand’alor forced onto him when he was far too young for it, just because there wasn’t anyone else, because he was the heir.

Maybe there were a few other similarities going on here with Pre Vizsla, but he wasn’t going to look at that too closely. He hadn’t made Pre watch his buir breathe his last.

“You misunderstand my reasoning,” Mir said. “Tor’s heir is dangerous, and not simply because he has been raised to kill. If you see yourself in him Jango, I’m sure you’re right – but you were, and are, dangerous too. Tor underestimated the threat that you posed to him and died for it. If he was less focused on his own sad*stic, vindictive nature, if he hadn’t wanted to make you suffer, you would be dead and he would still be alive.”

Jango crossed his arms over his chest, his sharp grin only a baring of teeth. “Anyone would think you’re not happy I survived, Mir.”

A brief flash of pain passed over the old man’s face. “Jan’ika, I am so very happy to see you standing here alive. I want to see you live for a long time yet – and that means not making the same mistakes as Tor Vizsla.”

“Tor never tried to adopt me.” A wash of cold went through him at the thought that such a thing would technically have been possible. Under kir’manir ad’akaan he had more of a right than Jango had with Pre – whatever ties his birth parents had to the historic Fett clan were tenuous, and he hadn’t taken Jaster’s clan name. If Tor had tried, Jango would have done his best to kill him in his sleep at the first opportunity… so he could see where Mir was coming from.

“Whether or not Pre is willing to give up his hopes for revenge, whether or not he might come to genuinely see you as family,” Mir said, “the fact remains that the rest of Clan Vizsla can still use him as a rallying point.”

“They have no right to him anymore,” Jango replied. “Even if they wanted to, they can’t legally reinstate him as the head of House Vizsla.”

“They don’t have to,” Mir said. “They just have to kill you and make him a Kyr’tsad Mand’alor, whatever his clan name.”

Again, Jango’s grin was all teeth. “They can try.”

Trevish sighed. “The ad can’t be held accountable for the crimes of the buir,” she said. “It was right to spare his life and give him a chance to prove himself more reasonable than Tor Vizsla was. That doesn’t mean you should have adopted him in the way that you did.”

Jango flinched minutely. “I didn’t see any other way to avoid killing him,” he said. “That ramikad’ika was going to keep trying to kill me otherwise.”

[ It is still legal, ] Goran said. [ If the words were said and the child accepted. Pre named themselves Fett. They do not resist it. ]

“Perhaps,” Trevish said, “but it sets a bad precedent. We have to be better than Kyr’tsad, or all of this feuding was for nothing.”

Jango wanted to deny it, but he was Mand’alor now. He set an example and others would follow. He couldn’t afford hypocrisy.

“Is it really the main thing we should be focusing on here?” Silas asked. “Surely the wider political situation is more pressing? I don’t agree with most of what Mir said, but he was right that House Vizsla won’t give up on their ambitions this easily. They might have claimed they would swear to Jango as Mand’alor, but this would hardly be the first time that Kyr’tsad have broken their oaths.”

“Giving a promise over a holocall and formally swearing aren’t quite the same thing either,” Jacek added. “You do know you’re going to need to have a coronation ceremony at some point, right?”

Jango couldn’t prevent the horror from showing on his face. It might be necessary, but it would be agonising.

“And I doubt we’ve heard the last from the jettise and the Republic,” Oraya added, scowling. “The faster we can consolidate the better – we need to be able to present them with a united front. We must hold a council, take oaths in person, and begin arrangements.”

Jango sighed. “At least this way we can get a better feel for what House Vizsla is planning.”

“I’ll put the word out,” Jacek said. “Both to the other sworn Haat’ade Houses, to Kyr’tsad, and to the ones who have stayed neutral. For now though… you need your rest too, Jan’ika. I know this… wasn’t easy.”

At the mere mention of sleep, Jango became aware of how heavy his body felt, down to his bones. More emotionally than physically, he was exhausted. “Is my old room…?”

“Of course.” Jacek’s eyes softened. “We’ll sort things out while you recover, alright?”

Jango grunted a few goodbyes and turned to leave. Before he got more than a few steps, Goran spoke.

[ Your children – you are aware some of them are blessed by the stars? ]

“Might have come up,” Jango replied.

[ Do I have your permission to speak with them about it? ]

“They have some traditions of their own already,” Jango told him. “Up to them though – they spoke to the goran in Arakura when they got their bajur’gam and seemed to find it interesting.”

Goran nodded. [ Thank you, Mand’alor. ]

That seemed to be all. Jango left, Silas trailing behind him.

Jango followed muscle memory through Fort Mereel more than any prompting from his waking mind. He’d expected talking about all that osik to take it out of him, but he might have underestimated how much. When he got to the door he stood there for several moments while his brain did its best to remember how handles worked.

“Jango,” Silas said, slightly hesitant. “Do you… want company right now?”

Jango thought about this. “Yeah,” he replied quietly.

He managed to get the door open, a bit clumsily, and went in. The room smelled faintly musty, although someone had been in to dust and clean and put fresh sheets on the bed – laundry soap mixed with that still-air disused scent. Jango collapsed face-down on the bed, tilting his head just enough to not smother himself. He muttered some soft curses.

The bed sank as Silas sat down next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Jango turned enough to look at him. “Sorry for what?”

“You might have given me permission to be there, but if you had any other choice, I don’t think you wanted to say all that.”

Jango sighed. “You know now.”

Silas said nothing for a moment – long enough that Jango’s eyes were trying to close of their own accord. His expression was twisted with frustration, that particular look when he was trying to work out how to get his thoughts across in a way that made sense. “Jango…” he said, “I know this isn’t the best time, but I need to know I’m not going to overstep a boundary here. What… are we?”

Jango frowned. “Hm?”

Silas gestured between them. “What is this relationship? What am I to you? Because I’ve been your friend, your soldier, your vod, for years, and I know you’ve never shown any interest in finding a riduur – or even something casual. I’m not saying I expect anything from you, or that anything at all should change, but we’ve been living in the same house, looking after ade together, there’s definitely been some platonic cuddling… I’m just saying that some people could read into all that.”

Jango closed his eyes, his cheeks heating. Now that Silas pointed all those things out, he could see how it could be interpreted… but he had never thought about it before. It had simply been… easy. Silas was dependable, he could relax around him, talk to him, rely on him. If he said they were only comrades and Silas decided that meant it would be more appropriate to pull away… Jango didn’t want that. But he had never looked at Silas and wanted to get him into bed.

Not that sex was completely off the table, if Silas was keen. Jango wasn’t exactly experienced but he’d given it a try in the past. The experience hadn’t been overwhelming, but it hadn’t been awful either.

“This wasn’t the time to ask,” Silas said – Jango had been silent for too long. He started to stand up, but Jango reached out to grab him by his belt and pull him back down.

“We’re… something,” he said. “More than friends, just not sure what else.”

Silas thought about this for a moment. “Then, if it won’t be overstepping, let me take care of you tonight? Not in a sexual way!” He was quick to add.

It would be nice to share a bed right now, Jango thought. “Sure.”

Silas reached out slowly, ready to snatch his hand back if Jango looked at all uncomfortable with it. His palm became a warm weight on the back of Jango’s neck. Fingers pressed in, gently massaging tension away. Jango’s eyes slid completely closed as he sighed with pleasure. That felt good.

Silas moved around, the quiet noises made by his armour and kute letting Jango know where he was. He began to work at the fastenings of Jango’s beskar’gam, removing the pieces one by one. Jango drifted close to sleep, letting this happen. At some point the warmth and heat of another body joined him underneath the sheets, wrapping close around his back.

Jango slept, and his dreams were not so terrible as he had feared. Everything else, he could deal with in the morning.

Chapter 18

Chapter Text

Maul woke up to the sensation of a small finger poking him in the cheek insistently. The Force was still and silent around him – there was no threat, so he did not react with violence, instead opening his eyes to see what was going on. Feral’s face filled his vision, his younger brother crouching by the side of the bed with his chin hooked over the edge of the mattress. He jerked his hand back when he saw that Maul was awake.

“You slept in!” Feral said. “You never sleep in. Is something wrong?” His eyes were big and bright, more curious than truly worried.

Maul pushed himself into a seated position, the blanket falling from his body. He took stock, his head groggy. The chrono on the wall proved that Feral had spoken truly – it was hours past dawn. In fact, he was the last one up. Savage was sprawled on one of the room’s two chairs with his usual need to take up too much space – he was sixteen now but starting another growth spurt, which Maul refused to be jealous about. Kilindi sat on Savage’s bed with her legs crossed underneath her, grinning at him. She and Feral were even already dressed. Their accommodation comprised adjoining rooms each with twin beds – the pair must have come through to find them. Maul was usually the one kicking his younger brother out of bed, not the other way around.

This was not like Maul at all. He was usually the last one to fall asleep, and the first one to rise. He couldn’t remember the last time he had such a deep, restful night, not even disturbed by any dreams.

“Are you sick?” Feral asked him. He reached up towards Maul’s forehead, trying to take his temperature. Maul batted his hand away gently.

“I am not sick,” he replied.

“I would have woken you already,” Savage said. “But you looked so peaceful, brother.”

“I don’t think we did anything that tiring yesterday,” Kilindi said. “Travelling doesn’t knock you out like this. Maybe it’s something about the surroundings?”

Maul got out of bed. He didn’t intend to be put off his normal morning routine because of this – he began his usual set of stretches.

“You do this every morning as well?” Feral asked. “That’s waaay too much effort. Why don’t you just do it before training, like the rest of us?”

“I stretch when I get up too,” Kilindi told him. “You just don’t usually see it because you’re such a sleepy-head.”

“Hey!” Feral replied. He jumped over Maul’s bed to tackle Kilindi – Maul ignored this childish nonsense.

“You have far too much energy this morning, Feral,” Savage said.

“It’s because Maul didn’t wake me up before I was ready, for once!” Feral replied, sticking his head up from the tangle of wrestling limbs. Kilindi used the opportunity to her advantage, getting his arm in a lock and pinning him.

“Haha!” she crowed. “That means I get the biggest portion at breakfast!”

“Noooooo,” Feral cried dramatically.

Maul hadn’t woken up with a headache, but he might develop one quickly at this rate. He rolled his eyes and dropped out of a handstand. “I will finish up away from your foolish behaviour,” he said, and retreated to the fresher.

The meditative exercise of limbering up left his head comfortably empty, passively absorbing the sense of the Force from the fortress around them. Aside from the familiar presence of his brothers next door, he could also feel Pre Fett the next room over as a weight or warp in the Force. Maul sensed worry and trepidation within him, logical responses to the situation he found himself in. Not all of House Mereel might accept him here despite his new affiliation. He would have none of the authority or camaraderie he would be used to from his Kyr’tsad comrades.

Beyond that, he could sense nothing dangerous. Beskar-shielded minds moved around, a low thrum of busy warriors. Professional, disciplined, sure of themselves…

The pipework gurgled briefly when Maul turned the shower on, but the water that spurted down was warm enough. His mind turned to questions again, starting up out of the stillness the stretches brought on. Why had he slept so soundly? Even now he was not as worried as he usually would be. He might even describe this as being… relaxed.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this. Or… could he? Wasn’t there something oddly familiar about this whole situation? Maul chewed that over mentally, trying to work it out. Every night he had to know that the rest of his family were safely sleeping before he allowed himself to drift off – he worried about the past and the future, about the threat of Darth Sidious lurking in the Core, about how he would get the revenge he so desired… but those concerns had slipped quickly away last night. Somehow, he had known he was… secure. Safe.

Why? Fort Mereel was not inviolable. It had taken him only a few minutes during their flight in to work out a way to infiltrate it, if he had been an assassin sent after a target here. His rational mind knew they were only marginally safer here than they had been back on Fett’s farm, yet his subconscious clearly felt differently.

He dried off and dressed in his underclothes and kute, patting the towel delicately between his horns so it didn’t catch and tear. When he came out of the fresher he found that Feral was standing on Kilindi’s shoulders so that he could see out of the window high up on the wall.

“It’s stopped raining,” Feral told him. “What do you think we should do today? There’s no farmwork, so maybe we could explore? There’s a whole mountain and valley to go look at!”

“Do you imagine you’ll get out of training that way?” Maul asked. “There are even more warriors to learn from here.”

“I guess,” Feral said. He adjusted his footing slightly. “Kilindi, stay still, I want to try something.”

Kilindi obliged. Feral crouched slightly, opening himself slightly to the Force, then he jumped backwards off Kilindi’s shoulders, flipping so that he landed in a slightly awkward crouch. He stumbled but didn’t fall on his rear end. Feral jumped up to standing, throwing his arms into the air.

“Oya!”

“Definitely too much energy,” Savage muttered. He stood up and patted Feral on the head. “Get dressed properly. Time for breakfast.”

“We need to get Pre and Bo before we go eat,” Feral told him.

A trickle of discomfort wound through Maul’s stomach. For all these months on Concord Dawn it had just been the four of them, but now they had these two newcomers to deal with – and Bo could not even claim to be part of their family. Feral should not treat her as though she was, as though she would remain here as an ally. Maul couldn’t wait until she was shipped back off to Kalevala, as she surely must be so that a person with appropriate ideals could take control of the New Mandalorians.

For now, though, he had to put up with her for a little longer.

----

When they arrived in the mess hall, Maul was somewhat surprised to see Satine Kryze already present with the guard from last night, Barad, sitting next to her. Pre’s brows furrowed as well.

“We’re late,” he said. Maul sensed a slight flicker of anxiety.

He recalled that during his time with Kyr’tsad, they kept to a strict military timetable amongst themselves – though he and Savage were not expected to hold to this unless they wished to. When it came to their ramikad however, to do otherwise must suggest laziness or a lack of discipline and naturally would have been punished.

“We were not given any instructions otherwise,” he told Pre.

“Still,” Pre muttered. “Arriving later than her…”

“Morning ade,” Barad called out, raising an arm to invite them over. Neither Pre or Bo-Katan looked at all pleased to eat with the duch*ess, but Savage, Feral and Kilindi went over without a care. Maul had no strong feelings about the duch*ess himself. He might have been the one to kill her in the past that was now the future, but that had been to harm Kenobi. Satine was a tool of his revenge, nothing more. The sight of her roused only faint contempt.

“I apologise for our tardiness,” Pre said through gritted teeth.

“Hm? Oh, you’re not late,” Barad replied. “I just didn’t want this one claiming we’re trying to starve her or something if I left her in her room too long.”

Satine’s glare was made less effective by the faint redness of her eyes. Had she cried herself to sleep? Did she weep for the hopelessness of her situation or for her uncertain fate?

There wasn’t much conversation with a group of teenagers focused on filling their stomachs as quickly as possible. They weren’t alone in the mess hall, and whenever somebody came in or out they felt a need to approach and introduce themselves. Maul put names to faces and armour paint as well as he could, fixing them in his mind. In time he would learn the patterns of this place, the push and pull of social dynamics and the handles that could be used to manipulate. He’d honed those skills during his time with the Shadow Collective, and he hadn’t forgotten them.

“So,” Barad said, “what do you have planned for today?”

“Shouldn’t we be the ones asking that?” Maul replied.

“Well, none of you have assigned duties, and it’s a bit much to drop you straight into a training schedule,” Barad told him. “Jango might have something in mind, that’s true, but if so, he hasn’t told anyone else yet. You have the run of the place, but if you’re truly stuck for something to do then the goran wanted to speak to you.”

Maul’s attention sharpened immediately. “And we also wished to speak to them,” he said. “Where is the forge?”

“I’ll show you. Need to ask the elders what to do with this one all day as well.” They gestured to Satine.

“I am not a thing, to be spoken about rather than spoken to,” Satine snapped.

“Maybe I just don’t want to deal with your entitled attitude all day,” Barad said, with a falsely pleasant tone.

“Entitled! I’m your prisoner!”

“You finished eating?” Barad asked the rest of them, ignoring her.

“Yup!” Feral said, after gulping down the last of his glass of blue milk. He licked cream from his upper lip. They piled the plates, cutlery and such onto a tray and Savage dropped it off in the designated area alongside all the other used dishware as they left the room.

The forge hadn’t been part of the tour the night before – an interesting omission. It made more sense when the route took them back into the main hall and to an archway crowned by a beskar mythosaur skull. Stairs led downwards into the stone of the mountain. Maul caught the faint scent of burner fuel and hot metals. The air was warmer and drier as they descended, but still and quiet. No hammer-blows rung out. It was darker down here as well, though Maul’s vision adapted easily.

The spiralling staircase opened up into a space that mostly had the look of a natural cavern across the floor and two walls, but by the undercroft ribs that spanned the ceiling overhead and the pillars studded into the other walls Maul suspected that this had once been the raw rock making up the outcrop this citadel had been built upon and above. There was even a small stream of water emerging from a crack in the living stone, pooling underneath in a bowl made of concentric rings of limescale precipitate and draining again into the rock. The wide circle of the forge took up the centre of the room, an equally sized extractor positioned above it and venting through the constructed wall. Racks of tools were placed in convenient locations around the space.

The goran stood with the guts of a vibroblade spread out on the table in front of them, illuminated by a lamp calibrated to the wavelengths of Concord Dawn’s sun. Large but skilled fingers delicately manipulated tiny pincers as he picked woven wires apart.

When Maul and the others entered though, the goran stopped and looked up. He set the tools aside, pushed the lamp out of the way, and stepped around the table. His helmet tilted as he regarded them.

“duch*ess Kryze,” he said. “Have you never seen a forge before?”

Satine jerked with surprise, turning back to him. Indeed, she had been looking around the room, distracted and curious. “I… have not.”

“That is a great pity.”

“I don’t believe it is,” Satine said, more awkward than frostily contemptuous as was her usual.

Another tilt of his helm, one that carried a sense of disapproval. His arms crossed over his chest. Maul briefly brushed over the surface of his mind, reaching out with the Force, and discovered the same manner of shimmering shields as the other goran he’d met, further bolstered by the blocking effect of beskar. It was a characteristic of their Force techniques then, and not that woman specifically.

“You know nothing of our traditions, or the religion of your ancestors.”

Satine raised her chin again. Did she think it made her look determined and forthright? It did not. She just looked arrogant. “The Mandalorian people are capable of moving beyond such things. We can be better than our former legacy.”

Goran shook his head. “If you wish to learn, then I will teach. If you close your heart and mind, then you must leave.”

Satine narrowed her eyes. Her gaze darted around again at the paraphernalia of the armourer’s craft. She did want to know, but not enough to soften her pride and admit it. “Very well,” she said.

“Return if you change your mind,” the goran told her. He didn’t speak again until the footsteps of Satine and Barad could no longer be heard ascending the stairs.

“You wished to speak with us,” Maul said.

[ I did. ] The goran’s body language relaxed again, and he leaned back against the table. [ I would prefer to speak in our own language, but Adonai Kryze’s younger daughter remains here. For her sake, I will use the less accurate tongue. ]

“Your generosity is appreciated, goran,” Pre said, briefly bowing his head in thanks.

“Maul, of no clan,” the goran said. “You are star-touched, as are your brothers. The Mand’alor informed me you have some knowledge of this already. What tradition do you three hail from?”

“We… are Nightbrothers,” Maul told him, hesitating only momentarily. “Our planet, Dathomir, is strong in the Force. The majority of our people are Force sensitive to one degree or another.”

“Hm.” Although the goran’s presence did not reach out past his shields, Maul had the sense that he was examining them anyway. After a moment, he put his hand forth and beckoned for Maul to come closer. Although Maul was wary of this, he did so anyway. He had not forgotten Pre’s strange rejection of his own abilities, and he needed this goran to get through to the man and help him overcome whatever was holding him back so that Pre could be of use to Maul later.

“May I?” the goran asked.

“May you what?”

Moving slowly so that Maul had ample time to respond, the goran reached down to take Maul’s wrists, bringing up his arms and positioning his hands so that they rested facing upwards in the goran’s palms. “Show me how you touch the Force,” he said.

Maul’s hearts sped slightly. What did this Mandalorian know of the Dark Side, of the Sith? How much would he be able to tell from this? Yet if he refused, that was the same as admitting he was trying to hide something.

It took only a brief thought of Sidious, of Kenobi, of the past, to summon his hatred. Rage suffused his body, his blood, a circling heat. It drew the Dark Side to it in a swirling cloud, chilling the air yet warming Maul. He held it in his muscles as caged strength, not currently exerting his will on the world. His senses were sharper like this, his reactions quicker. He was power made manifest in flesh.

“I see,” the goran told him. He did not sound alarmed, though Maul watched him with suspicion. “And is this instinct, tradition, or teaching?”

“I was taught by another Force user, for a time,” Maul said. He was on edge, and the Dark did nothing to ease that wariness.

“A Nightbrother? Or someone else?”

“A person I prefer not to speak about,” Maul replied. Having called it up, the Dark Side wanted to be used. He ruthlessly squashed that urge. A Lord of the Sith commanded the Dark, he was not commanded by it.

The goran nodded. “Do you wish to learn another way? You have every right to it. You are Mandalorian now, in addition to whatever came before.”

“Learn to tend a forge?” Maul couldn’t quite prevent a hint of a sneer creeping into his words. “I think not. My place is on the battlefield.”

The goran let his hands fall down back to his sides. “Most star-touched become gorane, that is true, but it is not the only way. Our responsibility and duty is to the tribe, the clan, to the children who come after us and the memory of those who now march far away – a noble calling, but to give up the chance for glory and victory is a hard thing for some. This is understood. To waste talent because a person is ill-suited for a certain path is not acceptable. There are many ways to hone skill.”

Yes, Maul could hardly imagine Pre standing behind a forge, hammering beskar into shape rather than leading warriors to the greater glory of his people. He had wondered if that was why he was resistive to the idea of being Force-sensitive – if he believed it would condemn him to an ignominious future – yet Pre’s fear seemed more than that. If he need not be a goran though… what did that mean?

More importantly, would he be lured by that enough that he wouldn’t agree to learn of the Dark Side from Maul?

“What is this other path?” he asked.

“It is the path of the warriors’ intent,” Goran explained. “Ba’jur bal beskar’gam; beneath the gaze of the stars this tenet is one, not two. Your armour is your soul, manda exists in a state of imperfection, and as impurities are purged in the forge so the manda must be purged by striving always towards perfection – a state that can never be reached, but always should be your goal. The perfection of the battlefield is not the perfection of the forge, but the two are conjoined by beskar and the knowledge and use of it.”

“Mandokarla,” Pre said, his face lighting up. “I didn’t expect to hear words like this outside Kyr’tsad.”

The goran turned his attention away from Maul. For all Pre’s enthusiasm, Goran seemed less than impressed. “You are the ones who fell away from the Haat Mando’ade and caused the schism. Until your parent challenged Jaster Mereel’s authority we were united as one people, so why should our creed and way surprise you?”

Faint colour flushed on Pre’s cheeks, but it was anger rather than embarrassment. “You speak of the battlefield and seeking perfection – how can that be done as simple mercenaries and bounty hunters, like Mereel wanted? A warrior must prove themselves with conquest, matching themselves against other soldiers and coming out triumphant. Tor saw that.”

“Must they?” the goran replied. “Perfection is knowledge of the self and one’s own skills. Others need not necessarily come into it. Efficiency, beauty and the sublime can as easily be found in the fall of a hammer or the arc of a blaster towards the centre of a target as they can in the dance of a starfighter in battle or the rout of an enemy’s army.”

Bo-Katan looked between them. “This is all very well,” she said, “but I don’t see where the Force comes into it. The Jedi Order might train to fight, but they go wherever the weak and scheming Republic tells them while blabbering on about ‘peace’. They don’t know anything about real warrior spirit.”

“The Force is in all things – the Force is all things,” the goran said. “There is nothing the Force does not touch. The Jedi speak of Light, we speak of Stars, the old Sith Empire had the Dark – crude names for something too great for any sentient mind to truly comprehend. The Force is where the manda of those who march beyond reside – it has will and shape, but it is distant. It is not for us to divine the ‘will of the Force’ as the jettise do. The priorities of the living are not the priorities of the dead. We honour our ancestors with our actions – the ka’ra may bless us, but what we do with that power is up to us.”

This was all very different from the teachings of the Sith – what few of them Sidious had deigned to pass on. The nature of the Force was irrelevant. The strength that could be taken from it was all that mattered. Sith imposed their will upon the world. Perfection for the sake of perfection… No. Perfection, because to be perfect was to be the most powerful and therefore the only one whose will and desires mattered. Perfection meant being invincible, it meant that you could not be hurt, that nothing could be forced upon you.

On the other hand, Maul’s knowledge of the Dark Side was incomplete, nor was there any hope for learning anything more than what he already had. He could not hope to best his Master on this field, not as he was. Even passing on the entirety of his knowledge to Pre and to his brothers was… not enough. It hadn’t been enough, not the first time around when Sidious cut Savage down in front of him.

Naturally the Mandalorian’s ka’ra could not match the power of the Dark Side, but if he could advance further along that path, perhaps modify its techniques to utilise the Dark instead… It was at least something worth exploring.

“I am… interested in learning more,” he said. It would be unwise to reject a possible weapon out of hand before first getting its measure.

“It will be my pleasure to teach you how to harness the soul of beskar.”

“Cool!” Feral said, grinning. Darting a glance Maul’s way he added quickly, “What Maul’s been teaching us is really good too, obviously, but I kind of do want to learn how to make stuff.”

“Indeed,” Savage added. “We are honoured to have this opportunity.”

“Do you include Pre Fett in your offer?” Maul asked. He would speak to Feral about exactly how they would be utilising these lessons later, in private. His brother was meant for more – he was a Nightbrother and a warrior like the rest of them. His fate was not the forge either.

“That depends on him,” the goran said, looking back to Pre. “He has been blessed by the ka’ra, yet it doesn’t appear he has had any training before. I know that Kyr’tsad has their own gorane. I presume there is a good reason.”

Pre squared his shoulders. “I was Tor Viszla’s heir,” he said, his voice flat. “I could not become a goran. Anything else… I… it is complicated.”

The goran’s hands briefly folded into fists, squeezing tight. “This must be some new Kyr’tsad nonsense of Tor Viszla’s. Please, explain it.”

“It’s not just something that Tor made up,” Pre replied with some heat. “The clan elders told this to me before my verd’goten. Our ancestor Tarre was a great leader, but he was stolen by the Jedi and raised to believe their lies for years until he finally learned the truth of his heritage and returned to our people. Despite this, the sorcery of the Jedi left a curse upon his connection to the ka’ra and for all his efforts he was never able to find a way to remove it. It is a… corruption, one that would haunt anyone who carries the Viszla name if we allowed it. Viszla gorane are safe, protected by the power of the forge, but anything else…”

A Jedi curse? Maul had never heard of such a thing. The goran was also sceptical. “I have spoken to Viszla gorane in the past, during my own apprenticeship. They said nothing of a curse.”

“It is our own problem to deal with.”

“Gorane do not conceal such things from each other. A problem too great to be felled by one hunter will succumb to the work of the pack.”

Pre’s brow lowered and he swept a hand out in a gesture of frustration. “I’m not lying to you.”

“I did not say you were,” Goran replied. “I simply wonder if this story is as old as you think. It seems odd that nothing of it has made it into any version of Tarre’s myth I know. What are the effects of this curse?”

“Weakness in a warrior’s heart,” Pre replied. “Hesitation, uncertainty, indecisiveness. Using the ka’ra would invite in the ‘Light’ of the jetiise with all their pitiful poison.” He almost spat the last two words.

Maul wondered if it could be true. Were Force-sensitives of Tarre Viszla’s line somehow naturally more attuned to the Light compared to most Mandalorians? Yet even if this was the case, surely it wouldn’t prevent them using their own traditions – the Force didn’t work that way. In any case, the only thing he could remotely recall that might be described as a ‘curse’ came from Sith or Nightsister arts, not from the Jedi.

The goran was also unconvinced, judging from the sceptical tilt of his helmet. “So, you protect yourself from this curse by ignoring the star’s blessings? Reject any training at all?”

Pre looked down at his arms, turning his gauntleted palms this way and that. “I… was also told that my beskar’gam would protect me – some goran technique. It’s one of the clan Viszla sets, passed down for years. My fath… Tor Viszla wore it, when he was my age.” His lips curled, upset at his mistake – or worrying that he would be punished for it.

“May I examine it?” The goran held out a hand to Pre in the same way he had to Maul. Pre approached, slightly tentative. Maul stepped out of the way, though remained close enough that he hoped he wouldn’t miss anything in the Force, even if it was subtle.

The goran didn’t take Pre’s hands in the same way he had with Maul. Instead he took hold of each one in turn and brought it up close to the visor of his helmet. He rapped the piece of metal at the back of his gauntlet against various places on Pre’s armour, causing a pure tone to ring out, filling the air, bouncing off the walls and returning overlapped. “Not quite pure,” he muttered, “but close.” He rubbed Pre’s palm, which rasped oddly, not like normal cloth or leather. “Beskar weave in the gloves as well.”

Would that be enough to catch blaster bolts, or at least disperse them, Maul wondered? He couldn’t see any other point to it.

The goran let go of Pre and tugged off his own gloves, tucking them into his belt. Although there was nothing particularly odd about this, from Maul’s admittedly limited experience gorane held to a more rigid interpretation of the Resol’nare than most, so seeing even this much bare flesh felt somehow scandalous. Maul blinked the odd thought from his head. The local culture must be affecting him – he’d never cared before how much skin he or anyone else was showing. The goran placed two bare fingers against the ka’rta of Pre’s chestplate and worked the others under the edge of Pre’s gauntlet so that he was touching bare skin – almost as though he was feeling for a pulse. His helmet tilted downwards, suggesting he might have closed his eyes.

Pre held himself still, slightly stiff and uncomfortable, but otherwise unaffected by whatever this was. After a few minutes though the goran jerked violently, a full-bodied reaction. His head swung up and down, a raking, searching look. “This beskar is not attuned to your manda,” he growled.

“What does that mean?” Bo-Katan said, confused and worried by this dramatic response. “Is something wrong?”

“Something is definitely wrong,” Goran responded. “Ramikad. You know this is not how it is supposed to be.”

Pre couldn’t hide the guilt that flashed over his face. “It’s… I wasn’t asked to be there when it was reforged for my measurements. Tor presented it to me. I asked, but he said it had to be this way.”

“I don’t understand what is meant to be accomplished by this,” the goran said, his tone still frosty. “Does this not weaken you? When we reopen talks with House Viszla and Kyr’tsad I will demand answers for this, but in the meantime it must be remedied.”

Now the look in Pre’s eyes was sickeningly like hope. Maul had the sense there was more context to this that he was missing. “Yes, goran.”

This was obviously some kind of heresy – the other goran in Arakura told them that their final beskar’gam had to be forged with their input so that they could use the Force through it, rather than the metal acting as a block and insulator. However Pre was untrained, and wasn’t even attempting to use the Force – would it really affect him that much to be cut off from it?

He remembered the beskar prison that held him when he was captured on Mandalore and shivered. It had felt like drowning, like suffocating – but he was a Sith Lord! The magnitude of the loss was far greater than Pre’s faint connection, surely.

“How bad it is?” Bo-Katan asked, echoing his unspoken question. Hers was frantic – she took a few steps forward, hovering around Pre wanting to help but unable to do anything meaningful. “Do I need to do something too? I was just given this armour to wear...” Ah, her concern was at least partly self-interest. Maul looked away, rolling his eyes.

“Your bajur’gam does not contain enough beskar to be concerned,” the goran told her. “As for Pre… remove that beskar’gam now. I will give you something to wear shortly so you will not go naked, but I must start work reforging this ori’suumyc atrocity at once.”

Pre nodded, and began to strip his armour off piece by piece, leaving him dressed only in his kute. Maul reached out his senses once the beskar was gone, curious. Was there a difference?

Not immediately. As he focused however, he could see that Pre was holding himself back, had retreated inside of himself and was pushing the Force away rather than reaching out for it. It was possible that his potential was greater than Maul had previously believed. More than that, Maul couldn’t say – he lacked such specific skills. That was not the way of the Sith – or it was not the way he had been taught.

The goran nodded, satisfied. There were some chests standing against the walls – he went over to one now and opened it, pulling out folding racks that held armour pieces of various kinds, all painted in a matte primer grey. “Durasteel only,” he said. “No beskar for now.” He selected a few options and brought them over.

“As you say, goran,” Pre replied.

“Leave now,” the goran said, dismissing them with a flick of his hand as he gathered the shed beskar’gam up and dropped it onto a table with either distain or anger. “I have much to do.”

As a group, they retreated back upstairs.

“Are you okay?” Bo-Katan asked.

“My clan weren’t lying to me,” Pre said, which was not a reply to that question. “Why would they? There wouldn’t be any reason for it.”

“No reason that we can see,” Maul said. “We are lacking in information. Clearly you do not believe Goran was entirely wrong either.”

“There are some things Tor did that I…” Pre cut himself off and shook his head, unable or unwilling to continue. “Nevermind. If House Mereel’s goran can find a way to cure the curse that our gorane couldn’t, I would be a fool to refuse that. And if there is no cure, we can talk about that when the representatives from my former clan arrive.”

Without beskar, Maul could read him more clearly. His heart was conflicted, split between two loyalties. He felt something for his birth father, but it was not pure. Complex and sour emotions tangled around that image in his mind. Jango Fett was similarly wound around with hate and something akin to… hope. Interesting. The Pre Viszla he’d known was Kyr’tsad to the bone and certainly had not been above copying his father’s tactics. Did it really take only a few days of exposure to Jango Fett to make him waver?

More importantly, where did this leave Maul’s plans?

Much would depend on how well Jango could bring the other clans and houses of Mandalore under his banner in the next weeks and months. It was too early to tell anything for certain, yet if Pre became truly loyal to him then a united Mandalore seemed more and more likely.

It might not be the Mandalorian Empire of old that could have been reborn under Death Watch, but would it be enough to stand against Darth Sidious?

Hope was a dangerous emotion, but still a flickering ember of it woke in Maul’s hearts too. This… this was a path that could save him – and lead to his revenge.

Chapter 19

Chapter Text

Jango woke up slowly, comfortable and warm. Actually, slightly too warm. The heavy weight of an arm was draped around his waist, and long legs tangled with his own. It took only a few moments more to remember the conversation from the night before, the careful and steady way Silas had undressed him and joined him under the covers. It wasn’t even the first time they had slept in the same bed, it was just that this was the first time they’d slept… like this. With different expectations and a different understanding between them.

“Are you awake?” Jango asked quietly.

Silas didn’t respond. Carefully, trying not to rouse him, Jango lifted his arm away and twisted round so that they were lying face to face. Silas had his face mostly mashed into the pillow. His chest rose and fell, slow and steady. His hair was mussed, wild and untidy. A wave of warm affection started somewhere in Jango’s chest and expanded through his whole body. He hadn’t fully defined what Silas was to him other than ‘more than a friend’, and they needed to have that conversation properly soon, but he knew enough to know that he wanted more moments like this.

Was that love?

Jango knew what it was to love family, but everything outside of that had always felt uncertain. He still wasn’t completely sure, but for the first time he thought he might be close to figuring it out.

A frightening thought, but in the good way – like the fear before jumping from a dropship despite knowing there was a jetpack on your back.

He sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and rubbing his eyes. He felt more rested than he might have expected. The weight of his conversation with the elders last night was still there, but not as terrible. Even when Jango looked around his old room expecting a sharp stab of pain, loss and resentment, it arrived more slowly and less intensely, almost melancholy instead. This… it had been years, even before Galidraan. It was both familiar and unfamiliar, like something out of a dream.

Jango’s gaze moved over the bedside table and stopped. There were two lightsabers sitting there, neither of which he remembered putting there last night – the Darksaber, and the one they’d taken off the jetti’ad . Silas had been the one to undress him though – but why set these aside rather than putting them with the rest of the beskar’gam , which had been placed neatly on the ground on the other side of the bed? There was an armour rack in here too, but Jango didn’t blame Silas for not wanting to bother with that after the day they’d had.

What were they going to do with that extra lightsaber? The Dha'kad'au was his burden to carry now; he couldn’t get rid of it without Clan Vizsla using it as an excuse to challenge his position as Mand’alor – challenge him more than they were going to anyway. Jaster hadn’t believed it was necessary to have the Darksaber in order to rule, but views on that were split across all the clans that hadn’t fallen in with the New Mandalorians. Keeping it was just… easier. The jetti ’s saber wasn’t useful for anything.

It was still an effective weapon, so perhaps not totally useless. Fighting with a jetti’kad couldn’t be exactly the same as with a bes’kad the way Jango was used to, but it also couldn’t be that different if successive Vizslas managed it. He could hand the extra off to someone else so that they could spar properly. No Mandalorian wanted to hold a weapon they couldn’t use, and Jango was no different.

He reached over and picked up the Darksaber. It hummed against his bare palm, but it didn’t feel exactly the same as it had when he first retrieved it from Tor’s corpse. The faint thrum like a heartbeat was more pronounced. Jango’s skin prickled with a sense of being watched. The weapon felt almost alert , awake .

That ought to have been ridiculous. It was only metal and electronics and shaped plasma, but like the jettise and their magic of the Force, their weapons couldn’t be as simple either. A crystal of some kind was in the heart of these things. The jettise were so damn secretive about their traditions, about anything that went on inside their temples, that Jango really couldn’t make any assumptions. Everything that he did know was the result of Jaster’s slow and patient research, doing his best to understand the ancient enemies of their people.

The cool beskar hilt warmed in his hand, faster than it should have picked up body heat. Jango felt an odd stab of pride and approval – approval of what? The emotions didn’t have a source, he hadn’t been thinking about anything that should have caused him to feel that way, so where…? Suspicious, he eyed the Darksaber.

Nothing else happened.

Why would it have? Jango wasn’t Force-sensitive, hadn’t been blessed by the ka’ra or whatever the jettise had in place of that.

“Morning,” Silas said behind him, voice rough and low from sleep.

Jango twisted round to look at him. Silas propped himself up on one arm, a slight flicker of worry in his eyes when he saw the Darksaber in Jango’s hand. “Morning,” Jango replied. He put the Dha'kad'au back on the table. He wasn’t sure what else to say. The normal small-talk that would usually start their day seemed… not enough. Should they have that discussion now – about what they were going to be to each other? Was that going too fast, or would putting it off be avoidance and cowardice?

“I would invite you back to bed, but I think Jacek would send someone to turf us out if we tried to have a lazy morning,” Silas said, smiling. “You look well-rested though.”

Jango relaxed a little. Why was he overthinking this? It was Silas. Whatever he chose, Silas would understand it. “Probably overslept anyway,” he said. He got up and grabbed his vambrace from the neat pile on the floor, checking the inbuilt chrono. “ Osik . Yeah. We’ve got to go.”

“Fresher first or second?” Silas offered.

“Could save time and go in together,” Jango said, keeping the suggestion casual.

Silas’ eyes widened but he recovered quickly. “Not sure that’s the best idea unless you're keen to test my self-control.” A pause, hesitating before jumping at the question. “ Do you want to test my self-control?”

Jango let that hang in the air for a moment, cursing himself for making things awkward again. He knew without a doubt that Silas wasn’t the type to push for anything that Jango wasn’t interested in, but it would be cruel to get him needlessly worked up without any kind of pay-off, so to speak. He’d actually been thinking more about testing his own reactions. If he saw Silas naked, properly, would he start to desire him? Appreciating a person’s looks and body in general was one thing, actually wanting to kriff them was another.

“I mean…” Silas said – the silence had dragged on a bit too long. “I don’t mean that I’m some kind of… If you want to see me all worked up, or if it’s a voyeurism thing… you know I’m up for giving most things a try at least once.”

“Usually when you say that you’re talking about the spiciest thing you can find on the cantina’s menu,” Jango replied, which did work to break the tension. Silas laughed.

“I’ll clean up first,” Jango said. “After we get today’s politics out of the way, we’ll talk about all this more.”

----

Jacek Mereel was waiting for them in the grand hall. “You just missed the ade ,” she said. “They were in talking to Goran .” She frowned. “Something odd going on there. I suspect Goran will catch you to discuss it later.”

“Something with Maul?” Jango guessed. How much had the goran been able to tell about Maul’s former training, the things that even now Maul refused to talk to him about?

“No,” Jacek said, with an assessing look. “With Pre. Came out of the forge in bajur’gam rather than his beskar. I didn’t ask – he doesn’t know me well enough to talk about it, and you’re his buir . Hopefully he’ll talk to you.”

“Should I go now?” Jango asked. What was going on? How urgent was it? Also, he wouldn’t mind putting off the politics until later.

“Pre didn’t look upset exactly,” Jacek said. “He’s got the other ade with him. It’ll keep.” She pointed a finger at Jango’s chest. “You can’t get out of talking to people that easily, Mand’alor Jan’ika.”

“ That’s not going to be my title.”

“Working out what it will be isn’t our problem either. The House heads will have great fun fighting that out amongst themselves.”

Jango sighed. “You said last night you would reach out to a few more people. I only managed to contact the Kyr’tsad -sworn clans whose codes Pre gave me – it was enough that I was confident chasing the jettise away, but I’ll need more than that to force the Kalevalans to back down.”

Jacek nodded. “After what you said I did check back in with a few of them. The Vizslas want to bring a delegation here for ‘further negotiations’.”

“To challenge me as Mand’alor, you mean,” Jango said. “We knew that was going to happen. Did they say who?”

“Not exactly. Tor didn’t have siblings or other children. The generation above him are all getting on a bit, but that doesn’t mean one of them won’t give it a shot. He had cousins, and they have ade . My bet would be on one or more of them issuing challenge.”

Jango thought about it. “Taj Vizsla,” he said. “That’s where I’d put my money. The Haat’ade saw action against forces under her command a few times between Korda 6 and Galidraan, though I’ve never fought her one on one before. She’s meant to be good with a bes’kad .”

Silas nodded. “It won’t be just one challenger either. I reckon Pol or Vex will turn up too, maybe both.”

“Pol might not dare show his face,” Jacek said. “There’s a rumour going around that Tor threw him out of the family when he took a Pantoran as his riduur .”

Jango gave her a blank look. “An aruetti Pantoran?”

“No, someone from clan Saxon.” Jacek shrugged. “Might have just been an excuse if Pol was giving him trouble for other reasons.”

“If he’s ambitious, all the more reason for him to turn up here,” Jango pointed out. “Exile or not, he’s still a Vizsla.” If he managed to kill Jango but the other clans refused to accept him as Mand’alor, someone else would just take him on. This whole thing could easily turn into a bloodbath if he wasn’t on top of his form.

He should start training with the Darksaber as soon as possible. He would be expected to use it during these duels at least a little, if not as his primary weapon.

“Aside from Vizslas, some other Kyr’tsad clans gave word they want to come here to talk to you as well,” Jacek said. “Clan Saxon, clan Vau, clan Priest, clan Tarn and clan Gedeyc.” They were all clans Jango had spoken to already, in those brief comm calls. Whether they planned to issue challenges or just wanted to take his measure and watch him kill some Vizslas didn’t really matter. He had to lead these people. He couldn’t act like Tor Vizsla and slaughter every clan who had sworn to his enemies, Peace meant sharing tihaar with people you hated – the only other option was a war that went on forever.

“In terms of former Haat Mando’ade clans,” Jacek continued, “there should be a good showing, just in case Kyr’tsad decide to break their word and cause trouble – and I wouldn’t put it past those hut’uune . We’re expecting clans Davin, Tervho, Tay’haai, Rau and Bralor, and of particular note, House Wren.”

“ House Wren? Not just a few in their clan? I thought they refused to commit to any faction before?” Jango said, surprised.

“Guess killing Tor must have been enough to impress them,” Jacek replied, smiling. “There are other traditionalists further afield who are more keen for you to come to them – clan Skirata said they’d only bend the knee at your coronation in Keldabe and not before, for example.”

“Who says I’m going to Keldabe?” Jango said, grumbling more for the sake of his pride. At the moment all of Manda’yaim remained nominally under the control of the New Mandalorian government, but in practical reality anywhere outside of Sundari and the other dome-cities scattered about the scarred lands was individual clan territory and paid only lip-service to the capital. They didn’t wear armour openly and didn’t keep to their traditions where any government officials could see, but the idea that every warrior of their people had been exiled to Concordia had been laughable from the start. They wouldn’t have fit .

Keldabe itself had been treated more like an open-air museum for the last seven centuries than a living city. It only survived the Dral’han itself because the commander of the Republic Forces at the time felt it had too much cultural value – they balked at outright cultural genocide, even if they were quite happy to leave such things to the Kalevalans in the aftermath. Either way, the buildings of Keldabe were maintained as a snapshot of the past for tourists to wander around. It amused the Kalevalans to remind themselves of the ‘barbaric past’ they had allegedly left behind – or it had until Kyr’tsad started to make their presence known and popped the lid off the fact that half the kriffing population of the sector were just pretending to go along with New Mandalorian ideals.

They hadn’t even known about Jaster – their true Mand’alor – until Kyr’tsad first tried to kill him.

“What about the Kalevalans?” Silas asked, partially echoing Jango’s thoughts. “Have we even made them aware of what’s going on yet, given them a chance to decide what they’re going to do about it?”

“I would rather present them with a united front,” Jango said. “That way they’re more likely to roll over without a fight. They’ve had hundreds of years to get stubborn and convince themselves that they’re the ones in the right, and the ones with popular support.”

“We do have Satine Kryze as our hostage,” Silas pointed out.

“Clan Kryze aren’t the entirety of the New Mandalorians. They might be willing to back down, but the rest of them? The politicians in Sundari who’ve forgotten what the ties of clan and House even mean?” Jango shook his head. “I don’t want them forcing me into a position where I have to punish Satine and clan Kryze for what the rest of their faction are doing.”

Silas looked away, the idea sitting uncomfortably with him as well.

“For now, you have a few weeks to prepare for this meeting,” Jacek said. “That’s the soonest everyone can arrive – though those who have less distance to travel might get here early. The training halls are yours to use. Don’t worry about kicking anyone else out of their routine – this takes priority.”

“Yeah,” Jango agreed. “I managed to get Tor in the end, but I’d like to be sharper than I am. It’s been a while since I trained with a bes’kad .” He pulled the second lightsaber from his belt where he’d stashed it, hefting it in his hand. “Don’t suppose anyone here has any relevant experience?”

“You two are the only ones who have fought jettise ,” Jacek said, with a weight of sorrow in her voice.

Jango swallowed pain and memory, refusing to think about that too deeply. “I better not have to do it again, but we all know they aren’t going to leave well enough alone either.”

He hit the activation switch and held the bright blue blade up, considering it. It was rounded where the Darksaber had a more traditional kad shape, and it felt different in his hand as well. It dragged at the air, as though catching on nothing. Loneliness. Heartache. Homesickness. The ghosts of familiar emotions tugged at him briefly and vanished again. “The Vizslas coming to challenge me won’t have kad’au , but they will have beskar weapons. I need to be able to use the Dha’kad’au properly.” He shut the jetti’kad off and tossed it to Silas, who caught it easily. “Looks like you’re my sparring partner.”

“I’ll do my best.” Silas looked down at the weapon with faint disgust.

“Before we head off to the training hall, we should speak to the goran about whatever happened this morning,” Jango said. “Is there anything else we need to know just now Jacek?”

“I’ll comm you if I think of something.”

They headed downstairs to the forge. Warmth billowed up in clouds of air perfumed with the particular sharp-edged tang of an active furnace. Jango remembered the smell more than he remembered anything else about Goran’s domain – the last time he was here must have been when he reached his full growth and could finally have the pieces he’d taken from Jaster’s armour resized and refit for him.

The loss and loneliness punching into his gut at that thought was all his own, nothing added by strange crystals inside swords.

Light and dark painted strong contrasts down here. Two bright spots threw illumination and left long shadows – one comprised the tibanna-gas flames currently burning up to temperature, the other a lamp positioned low over a worktable. White and blue threw new colours in the bronzed mirror-sheen of Goran’s buy’ce like an oil-slick. He had a familiar set of armour spread out over the table, methodically tearing the wiring out from the inner surfaces.

“ Goran ,” Jango said, greeting him respectfully. Behind him Silas echoed him.

“Mand’alor,” Goran replied. He stopped his work, briefly placing his palms flat against the top of the table before pulling them back, as though smoothing something out – his thoughts, whatever had been troubling him.

“Jacek told me something happened with Pre? I expected Maul would be the one causing trouble, if I’m honest with you.”

[ I do have… questions, about Maul, but they are the smaller of the problems. ] Goran said in Mando’a – his language of preference.

Jango didn’t like the sound of this. [ Best talk about both of them then. Is the smaller bit easier to deal with first? ]

Goran drummed the fingers of one hand against the table. [ What do you know about the Sith? ]

“You mean the Sith, like the old Sith Empire?” Jango clarified in Basic. Goran had used a different word for them, dhaka’ra’verde , not dar’jettise . Dar’jetti just meant someone who wasn’t a Jedi – that included Force-users of all stripes and creeds across the galaxy.

[ Exactly. ]

Jango exchanged an uncertain glance with Silas. [ They’re extinct, ] he replied.

[ No-one has seen them in ten centuries, ] Goran confirmed. But… not seeing something didn’t mean that it didn’t exist, and he wouldn’t have brought up ancient history unless it was relevant.

[ You think they’re still around, ] Jango said, his heart beating faster. [ They have something to do with Maul? ]

[ In Keldabe, at the great forge where I trained, there is a deep bunker where dangerous things are kept. Some of those things are weapons, some are less obviously lethal. Knowledge. Secrets. They span millennia – even back to the wars of the Sith when we fought aside those who were warlords without mercy. Certain things were taken from our allies, others given into our keeping for safety. I know what the Dark Side of the Force feels like. ]

Cold sweat prickled on Jango’s spine despite the heat. [ The Dark Side… but does that have to be the Sith? Jedi ‘fall’, sometimes, and start using it – or so their own stories say. ]

[ There is a difference, ] Goran told him. [ The same way there is a difference between beskar’gam cut with durasteel, or bronzium, or quadanium. The same way I can tell even ten-parts beskar from nine-parts, or eleven. Maul was trained by a Sith. ]

Jango’s mind whirred. A lot of things were starting to make sense. No wonder Maul didn’t want to talk about the person who trained him. He must think he wouldn’t be believed, just for starters. Jango didn’t know a great deal about the Sith themselves, but Jaster had taught him a lot about that period in their history, focusing more on the Mandalorian Crusaders and their successors – the ancient figures that Kyr’tsad idolised. How had Goran described them – warlords without mercy? That was an accurate assessment, at least as far as the legends went. They had a lot in common with Kyr’tsad, and presumably that stretched to the way they trained their ade .

Jango had attributed a lot of how skittish Maul was to his time with Kyr’tsad – even though the boy claimed he hadn’t been mistreated there – as well as his time after that at the Orsis Academy, which had a reputation that would have any true Mandalorian itching for their blaster, or better yet, a Kom’rk with a loadout of heavy explosives. What was it Maul had said about his training – “Harsh methods are effective?” He had also suggested to Silas that he’d run away from his former Master, that Kyr’tsad sheltered him and kept him safe in the interim until his Master retrieved him and… what? Sent him on to Orsis where he had run again?

Discussing it amongst themselves, Jango and Silas had agreed Maul wasn’t actually talking about a normal slave-master, but his Master in the Force – the same way jetti’ade used the term.

All things considered, Maul’s past didn’t paint a pleasant picture of this mysterious Sith.

The Kyr’tsad group who took Maul in before, had they known that the Sith were still around? Had they just handed Maul over when one of their ancient allies showed up? Had they fought the Sith and died? Jango thought he would have heard about it if so, but it was also possible Kyr’tsad would have covered it up out of shame at the defeat. They might not even have been from the main Kyr’tsad force, but just an allied clan.

[ So that’s what Maul has been passing on to Feral and Savage? ] Silas asked. [ Sith magic? Should we be worried about that? ]

Jango hadn’t thought far enough ahead for that concern to occur to him yet.

Another tap-tap of the goran’s fingers against metal, disquieted. [ I do not know enough of the Sith to say, ] he replied. [ I would be equally cautious if Maul had been taught by the Jedi, since we do not fully understand their philosophies either. Maul and their siblings were happy to learn the ways of the ka’ra from me – they may not have proceeded very far through training as a Sith. ]

Jango deeply wished that he knew more about the Force. He assumed that the Force itself was a weapon like any other, a tool to be used like a blaster or a jetpack, and that the different groups that could use it were set apart from each other by their religious rites, their values, and their fighting techniques. Surely the Force itself was the same no matter what? Yet Goran’s words hinted that there was something more fundamental at play.

[ Is the Force a kind of weapon that can be dangerous to its wielder? ] he asked.

[ It is a powerful weapon, certainly, ] Goran replied. [ Power itself can be dangerous if sought after for the wrong reasons. I am more concerned that if the Sith and Death Watch share values, that Maul may have been raised with concerning beliefs. ]

Jango had seen a bit of that from Maul already. Ka’ra , the boy had tried to run off and join Kyr’tsad that one time, when Pre first turned up in Arakura! He was respectful towards Mando’ade, and he obviously cared about his family, but Jango realised he had no real idea how he felt about other cultures or peoples, whether he viewed them with the same scorn and disgust as Kyr’tsad. He doubted the ade at Orsis Academy were taught any respect for life either. While it wasn’t impossible for assassins and killers to have honour, people who raised children like hunting strills didn’t want pesky morals getting in the way.

Once he was fully grown, would Maul be tempted to go out conquering? No, that didn’t seem likely. Maul’s stated goal for his future was to get revenge, once he was old enough. Revenge against his Master, Jango had assumed, but… if Maul was still using the Force the way the Sith did and passing those teachings on, did he think of himself as Sith? Had he taken on that peoples’ grudges on top of his own?

Who did the Sith want to get revenge on? The jettise , of course.

If Maul wanted to kill Jedi, Jango wasn’t going to stop him. While it couldn’t be a priority right now, payback for Galidraan was still somewhere on his list.

Jango would have to think a bit more about this Sith Master, putting the scraps Maul had dropped into context and working out what it meant. He knew Maul was afraid of that person, and hadn’t thought Jango and Silas alone would be enough to withstand him or whoever he brought with him.

More Sith? How many of them were out there?

Jango could kill jettise . He could kill Sith too.

[ Whether or not Maul thinks like Kyr’tsad , Maul’s not the only one I have to work on, ] he pointed out. [ There’s Pre as well. ]

[ It may be easier to bring that one around than expected, ] Goran said. [ Pre’s heart is conflicted, and there has been some odd treatment by others in clan Vizsla. ]

Jango frowned. [ Is this the big problem you wanted to talk about? ]

Goran nodded. [ Pre is star-touched, and clan Vizsla were aware of this. Yet they weren’t sent for any kind of training at all. Pre claimed that there is some kind of curse on Tarre’s bloodline which either the clan elders, the gorane , or both, are using to justify… ] His hands trembled with anger, to the point he had to ball them into fists and press his knuckles down hard against the worktable. [ Trying to smother the starlight, a mutilation no different than cutting off a limb! ]

A sharp stab of surprise and shock turned Jango’s stomach. Mutilation was a strong word, but Goran believed it was justified and he was the one who knew what he was talking about here. Why would the Vizslas do that to one of their own verde ? Although they could be cruel simply for the sake of cruelty, they didn’t take it so far that it became actively self-defeating – as far as Jango knew.

Kyr’tsad abused their trainees in other ways though, in the name of what they thought was strength. Tor Vizsla wrote his own training manual in answer to Jaster’s codex, and Jango had read through it with growing disgust. It went far beyond a warrior’s discipline, and started far earlier. Jango realised that some part of him had believed that because Pre was Tor’s heir, he would have been spared all that, but this wasn’t something Tor was saying for fun. He truly believed this abuse turned out stronger warriors – if anything he would have been even harsher with his own son.

“Kriff,” Jango muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead. “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

[ What does this have to do with Pre’s armour? ] Silas asked, gesturing to the set on the table.

[ Beskar blocks the Force, ] Goran explained, with a ‘you should already know this’ tone. [ Not just the magic of the Sith and the Jedi, but the stars as well if not properly forged. For most warriors little more is needed than to be present for the forging rites so the goran can match the frequency of their manda . For stars-touched, the process is more involved… ]

Jango waved this off. [ We're not children, and I haven't forgotten my lessons, ] he said. [ You’re saying Pre’s beskar’gam wasn’t crafted that way? ]

[ This isn’t beskar’gam , ] Goran said, almost snarling. [ This is a cage . ]

Jango shifted uneasily. He tried to imagine what Goran was talking about, but couldn’t. He simply lacked the context for this, for what the Force felt like, or what it meant to have access to it cut off. Like wearing a blindfold all of the time?

[ What are the effects? ] Silas asked.

[ I’ve never seen this done before so I don’t know , ] Goran replied. [ Pre told me his parent wore the same armour as a child. If Tor Vizsla had any of the star's blessings and was raised like this , then perhaps it explains some of the viciousness. Not all of it, but some. ]

[ Thank you for telling me, ] Jango said. At least now they knew? Pre would have worn this armour for at least the last few years, and clan Vizsla were rich enough to have beskar -blend bajur’gam – it might have been longer. That plus harsh Kyr’tsad training added up to a lot of trauma – it was a wonder Pre wasn’t a ball of hissing, paranoid mistrust. Of course, he hadn’t had any chances to show off his cruel side.

I’m not qualified for this , Jango thought, panicking slightly.

[ When clan Vizsla turns up here, I will have some questions for them, ] Goran said, voice low and threatening. [ Don’t allow them to avoid me, Mand’alor. If they prove themselves demagolka , they need to suffer the consequences. ]

Jango put his hand on the hilt of the Dha’kad’au . [ Don’t worry, ] he promised. [ They will. ]

O

Chapter 20

Chapter Text

Armoured in durasteel rather than beskar, Pre should have felt weighed down – and at least in his body he did. The cuirass was heavy on his chest whenever he took a breath in, it took a bit more effort to raise his arms and move his legs, everything unfamiliar and different, but it wasn’t so significant that it would be a liability in a fight. His heart was lighter though. It was strange – he didn’t wear his beskar’gam every hour of the day. This wasn’t a new experience. It shouldn’t have felt like such a big change.

When Tor Vizsla was still alive, it hadn’t been a good idea to ask too many questions – ones that weren’t battle-relevant anyway. Verde followed the lead of their alor; they didn’t raise objections, they didn’t cast doubts, they didn’t need to know the chain of logic behind the actions. Tor had been more lenient with Pre only because he was his heir and would have to lead after him, so there was a genuine reason he needed to know what was going on. Pre still would never have dared to suggest that his buir might be wrong about something.

Take Korda 6 as an example. It was dishonourable, but Tor commanded it and he had to be obeyed.

Before now, Pre hadn’t known for certain that he was star-touched. The gorane told him about the jettise curse along with the rest of clan Vizsla’s history, suggesting that it applied to everyone – Pre wasn’t anything special. His father hadn’t explained either why he was meant to wear beskar’gam that he hadn’t been ritually bound to – and by then Pre had learned not to ask him.

But that was normal… wasn’t it? Discipline had to be maintained. He shouldn’t expect special treatment.

Anyway, clan Vizsla wouldn’t break with tradition without a good reason.

“Do you feel any different now?” the young zabrak, Feral, asked him.

“No,” Pre replied. It felt like half a lie leaving his mouth. Maul darted a sideways look at him, too knowing. Maul said he had been trained to use the Force, though not to be jettise. What abilities did he have? Could he read Pre's mind without the cover of beskar?

The thought was unpleasant. He didn't want anyone to know his doubts and conflict, didn't want them passing that on to Jango Fett. Fett had to know that Pre couldn't simply set his birth buir aside so easily. Even claiming war-children under kir'manir ad'akaan wasn't an instantaneous process. The ade were expected to have a period of adjustment, where buire and bajure taught them about their new people and encouraged them to forget the extinguished remains of the past. Pre was too old to act like a resistive adiika - he should put his head down and focus on learning the traditions of clan Fett and House Mereel - assuming clan Vizsla didn't succeed in winning the Dha'kad'au back.

If they did, would they actually take Pre back? Under the ancient traditions, there wasn't a precedent for this situation, not as far as he knew. The crusaders of old didn't take war-orphans who still had any family to claim them. As he'd told Bo-Katan, Pre's adoption could be challenged on those grounds, but… he had accepted. He'd named himself Pre Fett in front of witnesses. If that wasn't enough, if one of his relatives did become Mand'alor, they wouldn't want Pre back as the clan heir, bypassing their own children.

It would be cleaner just to call him a Fett and kill him too. He had already proven himself a failure when he lost the duel to Jango in the first place.

They arrived at the training halls with Pre's head still spinning, the same too-heavy yet too-light sensation making him feel strange and unmoored in his own body. There were other warriors here already, some sparring hand-to-hand in the circles marked out for it, others past a soundproofing ray-shield using a firing range. A familiar smell of beskar, durasteel, and sweat lingered in the air. Some of the tension left him. There was nothing like training to clear the mind.

“Not bad,” Kilindi remarked, assessing the space. “Orsis had more equipment.”

Maul clicked his tongue irritably, and Pre filed that name away. Orsis. It was vaguely familiar.

“There are other halls too,” Savage said. “Compared to the farm…”

“I wasn't being critical!” Kilindi replied quickly. “Just an observation. Anyway, where do you want to start?”

“We know our own measure amongst ourselves,” Maul said, gesturing to himself, Kilindi and his brothers. “I also fought Pre briefly before. Perhaps we should see how Lady Kryze fares?”

“Lady?” Bo replied, her shoulders rising defensively. “Satine is Lady Kryze. Don't call me that.”

“Satine Kryze is a hostage now,” Maul said. He had a smooth, persuasive tone despite his youth, though it still had a child's higher pitch. When did zabrak generally hit puberty? It was later than humans, Pre thought. “Between the two of you, don't you have more right to call yourself the heir of Kalevala under our new power structure?” That was another thing. Teens just past their verd'goten didn't generally use words like 'power structure' or talk so confidently about politics.

“I want nothing to do with Kalevala,” Bo-Katan said, entirely confident and self-assured. “I am Kyr'tsad. Maybe Kyr'tsad follows Mand'alor Fett for now, but that doesn't change where my loyalty lies.”

A few of the Mereel clan warriors looked over in response to this loud declaration, but although hostile, none of their attention alerted Pre to genuine danger. He appreciated Bo's loyalty and her steadfast heart, but he also didn't want her to get herself into trouble when they had no back-up of any kind.

“A warrior must know how to fight,” Maul continued. “Can you?”

If Bo had settled herself by reminding them all of her chosen faction, this sparked defensiveness all over again. “I can,” she said sharply. “Not that my father ever allowed us to learn anything but some simple self-defence techniques. When I first started speaking to Pre he sent me some proper modules to get me started, and since leaving Kalevala I trained with the ramikade.”

Truthfully Pre had been surprised Adonai Kryze allowed his daughters to learn anything at all, but although he was a fanatic and an ideologue, apparently he wasn't completely stupid. During their first few calls after meeting in the HoloNet forums, Bo demonstrated the kind of techniques she meant - they weren't Mandalorian specifically but one of those generic and rather basic styles practiced throughout the Core, designed for civilians to fight off and escape criminals. It was better than nothing at all, but it still made Pre's blood heat with anger and disgust to think that this was all the Kalevalans would permit their people to learn if they had their way.

“Shall we spar then?” Maul said, holding a hand out to one of the currently unused rings.

“I'd be glad to,” Bo-Katan replied, stomping into the centre of the ring, pulling on her buy'ce, and relaxing back into a ready stance.

Maul nodded in satisfaction and followed her in, putting on his buy'ce as well. They were around the same age, or at least not more than a year separated them, at Pre's guess. They should have been well-matched. Both wore bajur'gam, and neither had as much Mandalorian combat training as they ought to at their age - but before Maul joined up with Jango Fett he had been trained to fight by others. That was putting aside any Force abilities as well.

Even so, Pre knew that Bo would put on a good showing. She'd proven her determination and mandokar with the other ramikad'ika, not allowing her lack of experience to hold her back. She didn't shy away from tough treatment. Like any of them, she understood what it was for and why it was necessary. Bo-Katan wanted to be toughened up. She needed it to purge herself of the weakness her father had infected her with. A declawed nexu could be even more dangerous with only its fangs left to defend itself.

In the ring, Maul and Bo-Katan circled each other. Maul was the first to strike, but it was cautious and testing, not a sign of impatience or recklessness. Bo watched him carefully and although her reactions could have been faster, she still managed to block each attack in turn. Maul gradually ramped up his speed and aggression, pushing her back, metal striking metal as his fists collided with her vambraces, or occasionally slipped through to glance off pauldrons or cuirass.

A few times Bo tried to take control of the spar and switch onto the offensive, but Maul was light on his feet, dodging easily and redirecting her energy before flowing back into his own attacks. Each movement was precise yet fluid, honed like a warrior, like a weapon. Pre couldn't help but be impressed by it, just as he had been when Maul challenged him in that small town… only a few weeks ago. Had itreally been so short a time?

Finally Maul forced Bo-Katan off balance with a sequence of rapid strikes then twisted and swept her feet out from under her, bringing her down to the ground with a crash of bajur’gam and inevitable bruises. Normally that wouldn't be enough to end a spar - a ramikad could fight from the ground as well, and a match wouldn't be over until someone called to yield. It might take spilled blood to force that word from a proud warrior's mouth. Bo hadn't yet had time to learn how to grapple like this though, and somehow Maul knew that - he stepped back instead of pressing on.

“Very well,” he said, the set of his shoulders and spine speaking of arrogance and confidence both - though not undeserved. “Which of my brothers would you like to fight next?”

Bo-Katan groaned, pushing up on her elbows. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Fine. I'll fight anyone who wants to!” She rolled swiftly up and onto her feet, shaking herself so that the bajur'gam settled back into place on her body. Pre nodded, proud of her. A few aches and pains didn't bother a warrior.

Savage stepped forwards. “I'm not as good as Maul,” he told her. “Forgive me if I don't live up to your standards.”

He wasn't wrong - though he had a few years on Bo-Katan as well as a few inches of height, he didn't yet know how to properly take advantage of those things. Savage said before that he and Feral grew up separated from Maul. That must explain the gap in training between them. Savage had a brawler's base, with basic ramidake techniques starting to be layered on top of that. It was likely that he had come to Jango without much experience. Feral was the same - he knew the basics well, but little more than that. He was fast and lithe and dodged very well, but he lacked power and didn't follow his strikes through.

Kilindi sparred with Bo-Katan last. From the moment she stepped into the ring Bo's shoulders started to droop, her movements slowing. She was running out of stamina, but with proper mandokar she refused to back down from the fight, pushing herself onwards. Like Maul, Kilindi had more training than a recently adopted ad should have - her background had to be similar to Maul's. Saying that, her fighting style was not exactly the same. There was much Pre didn't yet know about them.

He was Kilindi's vod now, a Fett the same as Savage, Feral and her. He would learn more about them in time. At least this morning proved that none of them lacked mandokar. He wasn't a Vizsla anymore, but he was still in good company.

After fighting three other people before the nautolan, Bo-Katan wasn't able to do much more than put up a fair showing before Kilindi knocked her down. Bo groaned and didn't bother to get up. Kilindi crouched down next to her.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Bo-Katan replied. “Just give me a moment.”

Pre came over, getting to one knee so that he could pat her on the shoulder. “You fought well.”

Bo pulled off her helmet without getting up, strands of hair plastered to her face with sweat. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion. She scrubbed her face with one hand, pushing the errant hair back. Though she said nothing, Pre could tell she was pleased at the compliment.

Faint hunger growled in Pre's stomach, but he wasn't sure when mid-meal occurred here. He offered Bo-Katan a hand up, which she took. As she came to her feet, her eyes flicked to the space behind him and widened slightly.

“Fett is here,” she said quietly.

Pre turned. Both Jango and Silas had arrived in the hall. They looked around briefly before catching sight of their ade and heading towards them. Pre's back straightened automatically, feet sliding into parade rest. The other warriors training here greeted Jango with respectful nods and calls of “Mand'alor” or simply “Alor”. Jango did not seem to take pride or satisfaction in receiving his due - his shoulders tightened, and a small line creased in between his eyebrows. Still, he didn't ignore it either, acknowledging his verde.

“Morning ade,” Silas said, when they drew near. “Settling in well?”

“Yes!” Feral replied, his smile all teeth. “I like it here - though I liked the farm as well. We met the goran and he's going to teach us! We've just been sparring, but can we go outside and explore this afternoon?”

“Feral,” Maul said, his tone chiding rather than a sharp reprimand. “We have better things to do than run around over the countryside.”

“Learning the local terrain has its value,” Jango said. “Though until you're aware of the mountain's dangers you need to go out with someone else.”

Maul's head tilted, predatory and assessing. “You are unsettled,” he said, quietly enough that it wouldn't carry outside their immediate circle.

“We need to talk,” Jango replied. His eyes moved over them. “We should all talk. All except you, Bo-Katan. This is aliit business.”

Pre winced slightly – he knew she wouldn’t be pleased to be separated from him. “Where am I meant to go then?” she said, glaring.

“Go clean up back at your room,” Silas suggested. “A good hot soak after training always helps.”

“I don’t need coddling,” Bo snapped – no Kyr’tsad ramikad would expect more than a quick scrub down in the communal showers, where you were lucky if the water was even lukewarm. She glanced at him, and Pre gave her a quick nod. He could guess what they wanted to talk about, and it set a dull pit of discomfort gnawing inside his stomach. “Fine,” she sighed, and walked away.

Once she was out of earshot, Jango turned back to them – but he didn’t address Pre.

“Whether I'm your buir, or your bajur Maul, I need to know what's going on so that I can help you,” he said. “Everyone in this aliit has to be on the same page.”

Maul bristled, but in a quiet way, all coiled tension. “What do you think you know?” he whispered.

“You want to talk about it here?” Jango asked. Maul ducked his head. “Let's grab something to eat and take this somewhere private.”

----

Maul glared at the covered bowl on the table in front of him, lacking any appetite. While he need not be hungry to eat and wasting valuable calories was foolish, he wanted to get this conversation over with as soon as possible.

He was well aware the goran would not keep secrets from his Mand'alor, but Maul hadn't told him anything that Fett didn't already know. It would have been one thing if Jango had addressed Pre - obviously he would want to discuss that situation - but Maul was the one he approached and spoke to first when he came to find them that morning. Somehow, the goran had detected something in Maul's Force-signature, possibly even knew what Sith felt like. Why else would Fett accuse him of lying?

After a brief pass through the mess hall, their small group now sat in a meeting room off from the main receiving hall. Now that Maul knew what to look for, he could feel the forge underneath them. It was the ghost of heat in the Force, billowing steam, power waiting to be used. Nothing like the power the Dark Side contained. If Maul spared the attention to reach out for it, there were sensory impressions of the clang and motion of a falling hammer, the simmer of molten metal, and a solid point of stillness that somehow had within it the potential of explosive movement. He believed that the forge had been powered up since their visit this morning, and that the goran was actively doing something which involved their ka'ra – that was why he had not felt this earlier.

That was only a distraction from the here and now, the situation of Jango Fett and Silas sitting around a table with him intent on prying out all his secrets in front of his family.

“I ask again,” Maul said, pushing the bowl aside. “What do you think you know?”

Jango swallowed his mouthful of tiingilar and set his spoon down. The small noise sounded very loud in the tense silence of the room. “Goran told us you were trained by the Sith.”

Maul swallowed and briefly bared his teeth, unable to suppress that reaction. Fear, disgust, anticipation… “Yes,” he said. There was no point in lying.

Jango relaxed slightly. Perhaps he'd believed Maul would deny it.

“The Sith?” Pre raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Aren't they extinct?”

“The Jedi would very much have that be the case,” Maul replied. “They attempted to wipe the Sith out, but they failed. One line remained through these last millennia – the line of Bane.”

“The line of Bane,” Jango repeated. It was odd to hear the words coming out of his mouth, almost dangerous. Darth Sidious' powers may be great but he could not sense someone through the Dark merely because they spoke of the Sith – yet even so Maul felt flayed open, exposed. He wanted to hide.

“Thank you for being honest with us,” Jango said.

“As opposed to my dishonesty before?” Maul said, irritated. “I cannot conceal this from you any longer, therefore it is better that you know as much as I can tell you. When it became relevant, I would have informed you…”

“Would you?” Jango said - for some reason his doubt stung.

“I…” Maul stopped. If he were honest with himself, his plan up until this point had been to take command of the Mandalorian sector and the revived Mandalorian empire for himself once he was old enough and respected enough. He intended to consolidate his power base and then… and then what? He had visions of dragging Kenobi to kneel before his throne again as he had all those years ago, but not letting him escape this time. He dreamed of crushing Darth Sidious, of making him beg, as he had forced Maul to beg all those times. He wanted to prevent his Master's plans from coming to pass and then rub his nose in the failure of his Sith Empire - yet when he thought of exactly how he could achieve any such thing it all became vague.

Using Jango Fett as anything more than a pawn hadn't come into it. Indeed, when his plans reached past that initial point of gaining power, any concrete idea of the part his family would play disappeared. He had imagined them fighting alongside him, of winning this time, not allowing himself to even envision the possibility of Sidious cutting them down all over again…

There were years to come for him to work out the details. Maul was confident it would fall into place eventually.

Now Jango and Silas knew about the Sith and they would insist on doing something about it. He had to convince them otherwise. His Master wouldn't die easily, they would fail, and then Sidious would know that Maul was still alive and exactly where he was…

“Udesii,” Jango said. “Udesii, Maul. There is no danger here.”

“There is,” Maul told him, the words wrenched out of his chest. “You simply do not understand it.”

“So, explain it,” Jango said, still speaking with that maddening softness. “How many Sith are there? What kind of threat are we talking about?”

Maul glared down at the tabletop, the scuffed metal vaguely reflecting his face. “The rules of the line of Bane are that there can only be two – a Master, and an Apprentice. But the reality is more flexible. I am uncertain if my Master has even killed his own Master yet, or whether he took me to train secretly. Certainly, the moment I slipped beyond his power he will have looked to replace me.”

Previously Sidious had not had cause to search for a replacement for another ten years, until Maul was defeated and mutilated on Naboo. Then he had settled on Count Yan Dooku of Serenno, a former Jedi master. Maul knew a fair amount about Count Dooku the leader of the Separatist Alliance, but very little about Master Dooku of the Jedi Order. He could not have even identified the year he left them. Would Sidious have opened that line of communication yet? Or would he look elsewhere? Dathomir was not the only planet which maintained its own Force traditions instead of sending its children to the Jedi Order, but it was the only one likely to hand such a child over to a Sith Lord instead.

Sidious’ next Apprentice after that was Anakin Skywalker, the ‘Chosen One’ – and another former Jedi. His Master was still the Senator for Naboo and the Chommell Sector – using his influence to target a different Jedi youngling was not beyond the imagination.

“Just two – or only a few more than that?” Jango was frowning. “That doesn’t seem like such a challenge.”

“Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side!” Maul hissed, fear acrid in his mouth and twisting into fury. The Dark murmured, drawn to his uncontrolled emotion. Its strength and hate poured into his very bones and burned there. “This overconfidence is exactly why I didn’t tell you anything!”

“Maul, I believe you,” Jango said, sitting back in his chair with obvious alarm. His gaze dipped down – Maul followed it to see that without realising it he had jumped to his feet and was leaning forwards with his palms braced on the table. Frost patterned the metal surface in two circles around the points of contact. “I believe you.”

Maul took several deep breaths, mastering himself. He was a Sith Lord, loosing control like this was beneath him. He used the Dark, it did not use him. He knew his own hate, his anger, and his fear. He understood them. He forced the Dark Side down, leashing it once again.

“Darth Sidious has killed Mandalorians before,” he said. “He may appear a normal and unassuming human male, but he is a duellist to match any of those on the Jedi High Council, to say nothing of his other powers in the Dark Side.”

Jango and Silas exchanged glances. “When you say he killed Mandalorians… do you mean the Kyr’tsad group who sheltered you before?”

Maul looked away again, cursing himself. Although he now had no choice but to come clean about the Sith, he could not speak of travelling through time without seeming entirely mad. He didn’t even understand it himself. He might be able to pass it off as a particularly vivid series of visions, but mere potential futures and what had actually happened were different matters, to be treated with different levels of seriousness.

Pre jerked in surprise, turning in his seat to face Maul fully. “You spent time with Kyr’tsad?” he asked.

“It was… some time ago,” Maul said.

“If our people had run across the Sith, I would know about it,” Pre told the others. “I would certainly know if he killed our warriors. It’s possible that the verd’alor of that group might have believed this Sith to actually be a Jedi, but even so Tor wouldn’t have kept that secret. The jettise are enemies, but there’s no recent debt of blood we’re looking to pay back.”

“I am not lying in some crude attempt to manipulate you,” Maul said, speaking slowly and clearly.

“I don’t think you are,” Jango replied, watching him closely. “You’ve always avoided lying to me directly, Maul – you would much rather tell me only a part of the truth. Pre is also telling the truth, and what he says makes sense. Just… How do you know your Master is a match for such experienced jettise? Has he killed jettise too? Are the Jedi Order concealing the fact that the Sith aren’t as dead as everyone thinks?”

How could Maul possibly explain Darth Sidious in a way that they would understand? If only Fett were Force-sensitive then he could touch their minds together and show him exactly what he would be up against – but that was impossible. “The Jedi do not know that the Sith still exist,” he said. “I can offer you no firm proof of anything – but look to your own histories! During the Sith Wars, the power of the Lords of the Sith was undeniable!”

Savage cleared his throat, getting the attention of the others. “Maul told us about the Sith,” he admitted. “And why we couldn’t say anything to you. So, I must apologise for lying to you as well, buir.”

Jango was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “At least he had someone to confide in. Don’t apologise, Savage. Or you, Feral,” he added, seeing that Feral had opened his mouth to say something as well.

Kilindi didn’t apologise, nor did she feel guilty or ashamed in the Force. She knew already that not all secrets should be shared.

“Brother, you have explained well just how dangerous your Master is,” Savage said. “But did you not suggest that together, the people of Mandalore would be able to stand against the Sith? Buir is going to unite the clans, so isn’t it safe for him to know all this now?”

Silas leaned forwards. “What do you want us to do, Maul?” he said, genuinely asking. Maul could sense his sincerity. They were… listening. Even if they did not fully believe him, nor were they going to ignore him and run off foolhardy to get themselves killed.

“I want… to have my revenge,” he said.

“And what does that look like?”

Maul’s jaw clenched, anger flaring past the fear. “I said I was Darth Sidious’ apprentice, but that was in name only. It is the responsibility of the Master to pass on their knowledge of the Dark Side until their Apprentice becomes skilled enough to supplant them, kill them, and become the Master in turn – but Sidious stifled me! He taught me nothing more than the basics! He wanted me for a tool and a weapon, a pawn in his plans! He promised me everything, and it was all a lie. What I want is for him to fail in turn and for all his plots to come to ruin and ash!”

His heart pounded in his chest. It felt good to say it out loud like that, a clean vent of rage. The Dark hung thick in the air all around him, a growling vicious animal echoing the snarl that vibrated low through his lungs. It compelled silence with its weight.

Kilindi was the first to break it. “We are with you,” she said, her eyes intense. “I am with you.”

“Haar’chak,” Jango muttered. “Fine, yeah. Yes. This Darth Sidious sounds like a shabuir – I have no problem making his life miserable. You sure you don’t just want him dead though?”

“Killing a Sith is no easy task,” Maul told them, scowling.

“No, no, you’ve said,” Jango replied, putting a hand up. “But not easy isn’t the same as impossible.”

“Do you know what the Sith’s plans are?” Silas asked.

“The complete elimination of the Jedi, for one,” Maul replied. “Although none of us here have any particular objections to that. What is of more importance is my Master’s intention to re-establish the Sith Empire, with himself at the top of it. These are the goals the Line of Bane have worked towards for generations.”

“They aren’t succeeding very well with either goal then,” Pre said. Maul sensed that he was uncertain how to react to all these revelations. There was no hostility towards the Sith – just as he’d been more than eager to work with them during the Clone Wars – but he was wary given the dangers Maul described. This wasn’t Kyr’tsad’s fight and Maul was not a Fett – they had no sworn ties.

“I cannot speak to what previous Sith have attempted,” Maul said. “I was not told of our history in more than the broadest of strokes. My Master and his Master have focused on building political power, working in the shadows. They have credits, resources… they are closer to achieving what they want than you know.”

“Political power,” Jango repeated, frowning. “Power where? In the Republic? Hutt space? The underworld? They must be using other names – that Darth title marks a Sith, if I remember the history of the Sith Wars right. Did your Master ever use another identity around you… or this other Sith, the one that trained him?”

“I never met Darth Plagueis,” Maul said – he wasn’t bitter about that, since Plagueis would have killed him the moment he found out about him, and yet… The longer he spent with Mandalorians, the more he gained a sense of their culture, a legacy which spanned equally vast generations as the legacy of the Sith, and the more he understood why they would fight to resist it being taken away from them. He… what did he know of the Sith, really? What culture had his Master passed on to him? If he had been a true Apprentice…

Savage and Feral might have been little more than slaves on Dathomir, but they had grown up with other Nightbrothers. They had other people like them. They had history. Maul… Maul had nothing.

“Darth Sidious then?” Silas asked, as gentle yet probing as Jango.

“If I give you his name, will you swear to me that you will not attempt recklessly to assassinate him?” Maul demanded.

“I promise,” Jango replied.

“A promise isn’t enough. I want you to swear.” A thrill of fear ran through his body just at the thought of speaking his name out loud. His mind whirled. Jango had honour – he was not an oath-breaker. Maul could trust it if he gave his word, the logical part of him knew that, but the part that was afraid needed something more. “Swear it as Mand’alor – swear it on the Darksaber.”

Slowly, Jango nodded. “I can do that.” He reached down to his belt and brought out the Darksaber, setting it on the table in front of him with his hand still resting over it. Its presence was achingly familiar in the Force. Maul had used it sparingly, only as much as he had to so that Kyr’tsad would accept and obey him. He had a saber of his own back then, a crystal he’d broken and bled with his own hate and pain and effort. The Dha’kad’au was… strange. The kyber inside it was layered, one thin shell after another, an accretion of centuries. It was complex in a way that Maul had never experienced before or since from a lightsaber. Whenever he held it, he felt as though he was being watched. Judged.

No mere weapon was worthy of passing judgement on Darth Maul!

The Darksaber had never resisted him, and it had even bonded with him slightly, but it made him uncomfortable in a way that was difficult to put into words. He kept it locked away safe and secure, moving it offworld to Dathomir after Grievous led the Separatists to slaughter the Nightsisters’ stronghold there and emptied the place out for him. He had done his best to forget about it, but every time he returned there it buzzed at him, an insistent nag at the back of his mind that wished to draw him to Mandalore, to a world under the yoke of the Empire, and fight.

This was a different time and a different place. The Darksaber had a different master.

[ I swear on the Darksaber… ] Jango began in Mando’a.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Pre said, then winced once he realised he had objected out loud. His eyes drank in the sight of the Dha’kad’au greedily.

“There’s a way to do it?” Jango asked, his tone coloured with slight irony. “Some fancy Vizsla ceremony?”

Another slight flinch. “Not…” Pre sighed. “Traditionally, you should both touch the hilt, barehanded, then make the oath. That’s all – there’s no specific form of words that needs to be used.”

Jango shrugged, and pulled off his glove. He put his hand back on the Darksaber. For a moment his eyes fixed on the middle distance, a faint frown pulling his brows down – but only for a moment. Whatever oddness he was reacting to, it swiftly passed. “Maul?”

There was no reason to be wary. The Darksaber couldn’t recognise him. Maul took off his own glove and reached out.

The moment his fingers made contact the sense of being watched crashed down around him immediately, a physical weight pressing onto his shoulders. It felt like being underwater – he struggled to take a breath. Within the beskar hilt, within the kyber, the Force shuddered. Maul froze, abruptly convinced that the churning heart of a star was right under his palm – both as distant as a sun and somehow at the same time disconcertingly present.

It felt like the forge scant tens of feet below them, magnified and overlapped a hundred times over.

A third hand clamped down over his and Jango’s. Maul looked up into the t-shaped gap in a helmet of an ancient style, two eyes within circles of black on black on black outlined with the same brilliant white that lined the blade of the Dha’kad’au. A ghost smiled at him, not malicious, but not at all friendly either.

You, it said, speaking directly into his brain. I know you.

On the other side Jango made a stifled noise of surprise and fear. No-one else reacted. Maul tried to look away from the entity but couldn’t move his head. In the Force, everything outside a small circle encompassing the three of them was still and silent. The others could not see this – and there was an oddly intense yet distant quality to what was happening that reminded Maul of other Force-experiences. Test. Visions. Trials. Time itself would move differently for now.

The entity broke eye contact with Maul. Abruptly he could move again. It turned to Jango Fett, tilting its head in a way suggestive of communication – yet he could not hear a word. This ghost did not speak in words, but in the Force.

Jango had not been paralysed as Maul had been. He looked up and down, slowly, searching. “Tarre Vizsla?” he said, his disbelief ringing out like a bell. “That’s impossible.”

The ancient Mandalorian Jedi? The maker of the Darksaber? Yes, it was impossible – a Force-sensitive could leave an impression of themselves on the kyber inside their chosen and bonded blade, but never as concrete as this thing. Those eyes were aware, present. It was not a memory, not the mere patterns of a mind pressed into crystal through repetition. It was more akin… yes. More like a holocron. Maul had not the faintest idea how holocrons were constructed, no matter if they were Sith or Jedi, but that was the only instance he had ever seen that involved a version of a sentient capable of basic interaction.

Basic interaction or recordings were still a lot less than this.

Tarre Vizsla’s hand still clamped down over his own, so heavy and unyielding that it might have been frozen in a block of carbonite. Bare skin still pressed against bare beskar and the pulsing forge-heart of a star under that. No holocron felt like that.

“What do you want?” Jango Fett managed to choke out. He was afraid in a way that Maul had never seen from him before. It wasn’t helping his own nervousness.

Maul did not hear the ghost’s response, but Vizsla looked at him again after the space of a silent sentence.

Why do I know you, assassin?

Maul’s hearts hammered in his chest. “There is no reason for you to know me,” he replied.

Midnight black eyes cut into him, a void in the universe. This kyber knows you. It has felt you and judged you before.

That was just as impossible as everything else. Silently Maul cursed the Force itself. The Dark had dragged his soul back through time as a gift to him, a chance to fulfil his promise of revenge – or so he had thought. Yet he had died in Kenobi’s arms, in the cradle of the Jedi’s Light. The only thing he knew for sure was that only the Force could explain what had happened. The Force was everywhere, in everything. Distance, space, time… all of it meant nothing to the Force. Given that, why shouldn’t others be able to sense the trace of what it had done upon him?

You are not what you seem, Darth Maul Lord of the Sith, Tarre Vizsla said.

“Nor, it appears, are you.”

The voice in his head laughed. I am simply one who is marching far away. If you seek the council of the ka’ra, don’t complain when counsel is given.

“Tarre!” Jango’s voice was sharp. “Don’t… Maul’s just a kid. If you have some kind of vendetta against the Sith, because of the jettise, don’t take it out on him!”

Jango was trying to defend him. A trickle of warmth moved through Maul’s chest even though he did not think it was necessary. He did not sense hostility of that sort coming from the ghost. The star at the kyber’s heart was nothing to do with the Jedi.

Tarre spoke again, but this time his voice was as layered as the crystal, a host whispering as one. If you once claimed me, Mand’alor the Abandoned, then let me see you. I shall judge you anew.

A snarl rose in Maul’s throat, but it did not have time to emerge. Light flashed in front of his eyes, bright and blinding, and then he was… somewhere else.

Chapter 21

Chapter Text

Jango hadn’t intended for their conversation with Maul to be a confrontation, exactly, but he had still anticipated a level of resistance. Between him and Silas he thought they would need to work hard to convince Maul to open up to them and answer their questions about the Sith. In fact, the moment Maul realised that they knew the truth he folded almost instantly. He admitted that a Sith Lord had trained him before, but the longer that they talked, the more frantic he became. It was an unpleasant shock for Jango to realise that he was frightened. Genuinely frightened, for the first time since Jango met the akiida.

Maul was always so tough, so confident. It was easy to feel like he was older than his true age, or to forget that in his case his independence came from necessity, because he had never had anyone else looking out for his interests. He had to protect himself – Jango might not know much about raising kids, but he wasn’t or’dinii. He could put two and two together – and he knew a bit about that kind of independence himself.

When it came to his Master, Maul’s confident outer shell started to crack. The fear and vulnerability behind it began to peek through. Jango’s chest ached, a pang of sympathy he knew that Maul wouldn’t welcome.

If he ever ran into that kriffing shabuir Darth Sidious, he wasn’t sure he could be held accountable for what he did to the man.

Jango couldn’t know what the Sith might have been like as a culture all those centuries ago, but he could work out what this Sith was like. He wasn’t just Maul’s Master when it came to training him to use the Force, he was essentially his slave-master as well. Maul wouldn’t be this afraid of him otherwise.

At least some of that fear wasn’t even for himself. Maul wasn’t actually a good liar – or perhaps Jango just knew him too well by now. He was afraid that if he told the truth and gave Jango and Silas a name, the person who scared him most in the world would kill them, leaving him with nobody in the universe to protect him.

Haar’chak! It wasn’t like Jango couldn’t relate to that! After Korda 6 he still had the rest of the Haat’ade, he had Jacek and House Mereel, but it wasn’t the same as having buir. Jango was in charge. He could look to them for advice, but he couldn’t put the weight down, he couldn’t rest, he couldn’t stop in the quest to take Kyr’tsad down once and for all… Maul’s revenge was no different to Jango’s own. At… at least the fear confirmed to Jango that Maul genuinely cared about him, about Silas. Maul didn’t trust him to be more than a teacher to him, but he felt something for him. It wasn’t simple self-interest.

It might be a little selfish, it might be the part of Jango that wanted to kneel and knock their foreheads together in the gentle mirshmure’cya and say the gai bal manda, even though he knew that wasn’t what Maul wanted from him… but he couldn’t stop feeling affection for the ad. Given that, he could hold back the burning curl of anger and disgust towards Sidious in the pit of his stomach, and he could give his word to help Maul achieve the kind of revenge that would satisfy the pain in the ad’s heart.

Saying a few words with the Dha’kad’au as proof of his sincerity should not have been complicated! The Dha’kad’au might be disconcertingly alive, but what could anyone expect from an ancient jettise weapon? It just made it weird, not something he ought to worry about.

That showed what Jango knew.

The ghost pressing its durasteel grip down on his hand looked at him with glowing black eyes and Jango felt like his chest was being flayed open for this creature to look inside of him. Its gaze stripped him of everything, all pretence, every lie, everything he let others believe about him because it was easier than facing the truth – that he was a failure and a coward, an unworthy leader, a child fracturing under a weight he wasn’t good enough to bear…

None of that, said the ghost that looked like a statue come to life. Let me see what I need to see, not what you believe of yourself.

Jango took several deep and shuddering breaths in. He was trembling and couldn’t stop. Although the entity didn’t move, it felt like it was touching inside him, reaching into his chest, into his mind, knowing him. It was desperately unpleasant.

“Tarre Vizsla?” he said, forcing the words out and almost hoping he would deny it.

Yes, the ghost said in acknowledgement.

“That’s impossible.” All of this was impossible. What was even happening right now? Jango wasn’t Force-sensitive. This kind of osik happened to those touched by the stars, not people like him. Maul he could understand, but him?

It’s been centuries since I was in the hands of someone not my own kin, the ghost said, a whisper that passed straight into his head without involving his ears. It was kriffing creepy. Asked to oversee their words but never for my advice. If they could only just listen…

“What do you want?” Jango asked. What advice did this ghost have? Whatever it was, he was duty-bound to hear it out. If this really was the spirit of Tarre Vizsla, Mand’alor the Returned, then he was speaking to him from the ka’ra with all of the compounded authority of the ancestors. While Jango wasn’t required to obey, ignoring him or not at least listening would be unthinkable.

At least, that was how he thought this worked. It wasn’t like he’d ever expected to be put in this position! He thought someone would have mentioned it if every Mand’alor frequently communed with their predecessors – Jaster would have mentioned it.

What do I want? the ghost repeated, thoughtful. That is a good question, Mand’alor Fett. A better one is, what do you want? What counsel would you ask of the ka’ra?

Jango’s mind was empty and blank. I… I don’t know, was all he could think.

He couldn’t read Tarre’s response – it was either disappointment or a silent pause to give him time to think. The ghost of the ancient long-dead jetti turned Mand’alor pivoted back to Maul, fixing his gaze on him again.

“There is no reason for you to know me,” Maul said, answering some unspoken, unheard question.

Tarre Vizsla examined Maul closely. Jango didn’t like the way he was looking at him. How accurate could old tales be? What kind of person was Tarre anyway? He might have left the Jedi Order of his own free will to return to Manda’yaim, but had he given up all of the creed and sympathies of the jettise? None of the stories Jango knew could say why he came back to them – he didn’t trust the reasons that House Vizsla gave.

If Tarre felt he was both jetti and mando’ad, was it possible he’d chosen to show himself now just because Maul was a Sith? Was this the intervention of the ka’ra, or an ancient feud bubbling to the surface?

“Nor, it appears are you,” Maul said, defensive, wary and on edge. What had Tarre said to him to get that reply?

Jango couldn’t just sit here. “Tarre!” he called out. “Don’t… Maul’s just a kid. If you have some kind of vendetta against the Sith, because of the jettise, don’t take it out on him!”

The kad’au does not rise up and kill of its own accord, the ghost whispered back. Fear not. I see in dark places, I reveal truth, I understand and… I judge.

In the space of the next breath, bright light flashed in front of Jango’s eyes. When he blinked them clear, he wasn’t in the room with his aliit anymore, but somewhere else.

Somewhere hot. Somewhere stinking. It was a pungent smell, half rotted eggs, half smoked meat. Roiling black clouds covered the sky, glass-sharp black rock jutted up from the ground. A small figure crouched with its back to Jango, hunched and waiting, strange chitinous armour which was clearly too big for it draped over its shoulders and body, and grey cloth wrapped over and around its head.

Jango tried to look around, but couldn’t. He was stuck in place, a silent observer. When he raised his hands up in front of him, he couldn’t see them at all.

The person in front of him was tiny. Jango stared at them with a sinking heart, almost certain he knew who they were. Given what Tarre had said to him, this had to be Maul. Maul, even younger than he was right now. Maul, when his Sith Master had him.

Responding to some impulse Jango couldn’t make out, Maul started to move forwards. He picked his way carefully between the shards of obsidian and rougher igneous stone. Underneath a layer of soot his hands, arms, feet and legs were all bare. Jango caught a flash of a palm – abraded and cut, filthy with dried blood. The ground was hot through Jango’s boots – it had to be much worse against bare flesh. He winced, knowing that the only way Maul must be able to move in such a sure-footed way was that he’d grown accustomed to the pain to the point he could bear it without flinching.

Maul ducked beneath an outcropping and paused. He felt around at his waist and drew out a weapon – it looked like a dagger at first, but a second glance showed it to be a piece of obsidian, broken off into a razor’s edge and point. Maul grasped it firmly, ignoring how the base of it cut into his own skin. He waited with predatory stillness. Something approached.

As fast as a pouncing strill, Maul lunged forwards. His small body collided with a larger form riding some kind of insectile steed, a rough tackle with the obsidian knife leading the way. The other being screamed and cut off into a gurgle, landing hard on the rock on the far side. The insectile creature leapt dozens of feet into the air and bolted, rapidly disappearing into the swirling, sulphurous mists.

With a wet noise, Maul pulled the knife free. Quick hands patted over the downed being, diving into pockets and pulling out trinkets, tools, wrapped ration packs and other miscellaneous junk. Jango was drawn closer, not entirely of his own volition.

A rasping sound emerged from the wounded creature’s throat. Kkkkrrrrrrkkk, tchkk, karak. It had the cadence of words. Maul stopped what he was doing, co*cking his head to listen. He moved, crouched like an animal, to look the other being in the face. Cold, flat eyes met desperation. A long, spindly arm twitched on the ground. For a moment, Maul considered him.

Then he pulled the obsidian shard across the creature’s neck, cutting it to the bone. With a gasp it went slack, dead in moments.

Maul sat back and tore the paper from a block of dried meat, shoving it into his mouth and ripping with savage hunger, paying no further mind to the corpse now cooling on the ground. Looking at him again, Jango was certain he couldn’t be more than six or seven. Too young to know how to kill. Jango had been the same way once. Eight years old, when Kyr’tsad cut down his tal’buire on Concord Dawn. Eight when he’d killed the man responsible with a stolen blaster.

He didn’t think this was Maul’s first kill. It had been too confident. Too merciless.

The quick death was a mercy, Tarre’s voice whispered in his ear. Jango turned, startled, but instead of finding the ghost he spun from this hot, charred world into another place, another unfamiliar scene.

A vast room, chrome-coloured walls of metal, catwalks and tall pillars everywhere. The ceiling and floor far above and below disappeared into a rigid, repeating geometrical puzzle, tricking the eye. Columns of plasma encased in ray shields crackled up from the depths. How far did it go down? The whole place was dizzying.

Jango shook his head free of vertigo, attention snapping immediately to the other source of bright light in front of him. Three people were fighting – with lightsabers. One was blue, the next green, and the last was red but had two blades, one either side of a long hilt like a staff. It took him a moment to get a proper look at the fighters given how they were whirling about, but the moment he did he stiffened with shock and surprise. Those two were the jettise from Arakura, though older than when he’d seen them last, and their enemy was Maul. Maul as a Sith, Maul as an adult, taller, bulkier, his face free of all the roundness of youth, but Maul all the same.

“What is this?” he asked thin air, hoping Tarre would explain what was going on. “Are you trying to tell me you can see the future?”

Or at least a future, since Jango wouldn’t have let Maul off planet at this age without a proper set of beskar’gam. Was this a version of events where Maul didn’t escape his Master? If it wasn’t real, if it wasn’t something that had happened, then what right did Tarre have to pass any kind of judgement? He ought to judge actions, not possibilities. Ka’ra or not, this wasn’t fair.

Maul fought well, which slightly helped the ache of fear that caught Jango’s breath in his chest. He fended off several strikes with the double blades of his staff, then sent the younger jetti flying with a swift high kick. The jetti tumbled from the catwalk and out of the scene. He might be dead, but jettise were tricky opponents and harder to kill than that, unfortunately. The older jetti, Knight Jinn, lashed out with a clenched fist, catching Maul across the jaw. This time he was the one to fall from the precipice, slamming onto his back a level down. Jango flinched, not able to see how bad his landing had been, but then the world swirled around him and refocused on Maul again. He was on his feet in moments, leaping up no worse for wear.

Jango relaxed slightly. Somehow the Force must have cushioned his fall – jettise could do such things, and presumably Sith were no different.

Jinn jumped down and landed nearby. He went for Maul, and their fight quickly ranged back and forth across the catwalk. Maul gave ground, but it was controlled. He moved gradually backwards towards a door in the far wall, luring the knight away from his padawan. Past the doorway was a long hall lined with ray shield generators. A few moments later the generators pivoted inwards – the shields snapped active in layers along the hall, shutting Maul off from the jetti.

Jango looked around the small space Maul had retreated to, trying not to be too concerned by the tactical layout. Aside from a deep pit in the centre of the room he couldn’t see any other way to escape. Maul wasn’t concerned about that though. He paced in front of the closed ray shield like an impatient nexu, reaching out to strike sparks from it with the tip of his kad’au. Behind the barrier Jinn sank to his knees, adopting an attitude of unconcerned contemplation. Jango sneered. Jetti arrogance. Was that any kind of way for a warrior to behave mid-battle?

Jinn proved at least a little of that arrogance well-founded when the ray shields slid apart again and he burst into motion with surprising speed and aggression. He was on his feet and pushing forwards within a heartbeat. Within the small room he and Maul circled, kad’au clashing in blinding whirls. The opening in Jinn’s defence, when it came, was brief enough that Jango almost didn’t see it. Maul batted Jinn’s lightsaber just out of position with repeated strikes, brought the central hilt of his staff up into the bridge of Jinn’s nose dazing him, then drove the red blade of his saber straight through the jetti’s stomach.

“Oya!” Jango cried out softly, clenching his fists but stopping short of punching the air in triumph. Pride welled up inside him, warm and sweet. Whatever version of Maul this was didn’t matter – he had defeated a jetti twice his age, one who was no stranger to combat. Whether or not this was revenge – or whose revenge it was – mattered less to Jango in this moment than the pure joy of victory.

Silenced by red walls of light, separated and left behind, the padawan screamed. Jango spared him only a flicker of emotion, more contempt than anything else. If the Master fell, the Padawan would surely follow. He had no context for anything that was happening here, but one thing was clear – Maul had come to kill jettise, and he would not fail at his goal.

The ray shields parted once again. Obi-wan ran forwards – their kad’au came together with a sharp snap and hum, a blisteringly fast exchange of blows. It made Jinn appear almost clumsy by comparison. The boy fought snarling, teeth bared. In his face Jango saw an emotion he knew all too well – but why should he care? The Jedi were his enemies. Obi-wan Kenobi was a better warrior than he’d thought, but all that meant was that he would die with pride and with honour.

A lucky strike from Obi-wan severed the hilt of Maul’s sabre staff through the centre, and the follow through sent Maul stumbling backwards to sprawl on his back. Jango took a step forward in sudden fear, but he needn’t have worried. Maul somersaulted back to his feet before the jetti could take advantage, opening up the space between them. One half of his weapon still worked just fine. He and his opponent were well matched – but in an unguarded moment Maul thrust his hand forwards and the jetti went flying backwards. Jango had seen this use of the Force from the other side of it – he would have thought the jetti would know to be more wary. Obi-wan slid over the lip of the pit. Maul kicked his lightsaber in after him, his lip curling with contempt.

The fall itself should have been certain death, but Maul didn’t act as though his enemy had been defeated. He struck the edge a few times, sparks flying downwards. This view was too limited and Jango couldn’t move to see what was going on. Discomfort stirred, a creeping sense of unease. An honourable warrior didn’t toy with his target, didn’t take pleasure in making them suffer. That was Kyr’tsad’s way. The Maul he knew wasn’t like this…

Jango had to believe that was true. He couldn’t know it for sure. His Maul, all of fourteen, had never been tested in battle as mando’ade. In this moment, sadism gleamed in Maul’s bloodshot yellow eyes, and Jango couldn’t tell if that was his nature or the nurture of his Sith Master.

The Sith of the histories hadn’t been kind or merciful in war – if they had a code of honour, it wasn’t written down anywhere that Jaster could find. The Mandalorians of the Crusaders hadn’t been much better though. If their people could change and write a new and better code, why not the Sith?

Another shower of sparks, with Maul’s lightsaber swung wide. A blur of a body leapt up through it, another small narrow shape whirring through the air and blossoming with green light. The padawan landed lightly and swung true.

Jango couldn’t believe it at first. His eyes had to be tricking him. Maul choked, stumbled back. At the same time, Jango’s senses were overwhelmed with the stink of charred meat and a searing, indescribable pain which shot through the entirety of his abdomen, folding him double and gasping for breath. He sank to his knees and looked up only just in time to see Maul falling backwards, his eyes blank, the two halves of his body starting to separate.

“No,” Jango gasped. “No, this didn’t happen, it isn’t going to happen. Why are you showing me this Tarre, kriff you!?” He wasn’t crying, couldn’t cry, hadn’t shed a tear since the mud and snow of Galidraan before chains and spice and slavers, but his eyes burned, his throat burned, his heart pounded in his chest and rage choked the scream inside his throat.

Maul, Maul wasn’t his, wasn’t his to claim and know, he wasn’t his child, but… But it kriffing felt like he was. He was Jango’s aliit. To see him hurt, to see him die like this…

The Jedi again, always the Jedi! There could be no peace between them. Was this a warning? Because Jango let those two Jedi go, had he left an unsheathed knife at their backs? He could hunt them down, use the wealth of Mandalore to put out a bounty on their heads or send a team of his own people, properly prepared. Kyr’tsad wouldn’t balk at killing jettise for no more reason than the pleasure of it, and he wouldn’t mourn their deaths in the process either.

“I hadn’t forgotten,” he whispered. “You needn’t remind me of the need for revenge. They’ll pay for the blood shed on Galidraan, I swear it.”

Silence. He couldn’t see the ghost, and if Tarre had any comment about that he kept it to himself.

The physical agony, the shared injury from the jetti’kad, disappeared, sudden enough to leave him reeling. Jango looked up – he was in another place again. It was dark, but the darkness of a tight enclosed space rather than the darkness of night and a sky heavy with clouds. He was hungry – stomach-cramping, aching, nauseous hunger that seemed to plaster his innards to his ribs. His own breathing was loud in his ears. In the distance a dim source of light appeared, as though down a long tunnel, glowing a soft gold. It wasn’t enough to see anything by, a single steady point in the black.

The lack of sight seemed to make his other senses more acute. A chain jingled, high-pitched – slender, not thick and heavy. Footsteps echoed slightly from the walls that Jango couldn’t see. The light, and the person holding it, approached.

A face emerged from the darkness. Sharp cheekbones, ochre skin patterned with lines of black, horns rising up from the skull – he was older, broader, somehow more than Jango felt he ought to be… but he knew his own ad. Savage.

Why was he down here? Where was here?

Savage held up a locket like a lodestone, the source of the glow, his eyes roving from shadow to shadow.

“Brother?” he called, wary and desperate. “Brother?”

Something was very wrong here – but Jango wasn’t given an opportunity to work out what. He blinked and everything was dark again, Savage’s face wiped away, the light gone, the claustrophobic tightness of that space vanishing.

“Tarre?” he growled, twisting around in search of… of something. “What’s the point of this?”

He didn’t get a reply.

Tarre told him that he saw, knew and judged, but Jango didn’t understand what his criteria were. He didn’t understand how these scenes had anything to do with Maul’s ‘worthiness’ or otherwise, at least other than the first one. Maul was just an adiika. Perhaps he hadn’t done very much in his life so far that Tarre though relevant – but Jango found that hard to believe. What about his time with Kyr’tsad? His time at the Orsis Academy? What about his need to rescue his brothers from Dathomir, his care for his friend Kilindi? Why wasn’t Tarre looking at that? Didn’t those things hold far more weight than nebulous futures and what-ifs?

Jango kept his eyes wide open in the darkness for as long as he could, but he was only human. He had to blink some time.

When he did, three Kyr’tsad ramikade were right in front of him. Jango tensed and went for his blasters without a thought, but the first commando stepped forwards and went right through him, as insubstantial as a holo. Jango’s breath caught in his throat, adrenaline setting his heart pounding. It was difficult to relax again and come down from the sudden expectation of violence. Trying to breathe steadily, Jango turned round so that he could keep track of the Kyr’tsade. Although they all wore grey and blue, one of them had more ornate designs marking them out as Clan Viszla’s main bloodline. And…

And they had the Dha’kad’au. It was mag-locked to the shoulder of their jetpack where it could easily be reached just by raising a hand up and back – someone who didn’t know what it was might easily have mistaken it for another part of a targeting system, but Jango wasn’t so easily fooled. He immediately reached for his belt where the beskar hilt ought to be… but of course there was nothing there. The weapon was still sitting on a table outside of this… this vision, or whatever it was. Nothing here was real, no matter how it might seem.

No matter how it might hurt.

Taking stock of their surroundings, Jango recognised the interior of a Kom’rk transport. The first vision had been of the past – or a possible past, he couldn’t know for sure that it had happened. The next two were of the future – or, again, futures that could be or could have been. In them both Maul and Savage were fully grown – though if Savage was really going to get that big, the Goran would have his work cut out forging beskar’gam to fit. So, was this scene the future, the past, or the present?

The ramikade moved into the Kom’rk’s main cabin. Still on edge, Jango followed them, and sucked in a sharp breath. Maul and Savage were sitting in the pilot and co-pilot seats respectively. They both turned to face Kyr’tsad as they entered; neither of them appeared surprised or concerned - and neither of them were wearing beskar’gam. They hadn’t been in the two previous visions either. Savage’s strange armour wasn’t from any design or planetary tradition that Jango knew about, and Maul was only wearing loose black and brown robes which hung open at the chest. He was thin too – thinner than he should be, Jango was sure of it. He’d been better fed during that fight with the jettise. Was this even from the same future, the same trace of possibility?

He knew this wasn’t his own future. These weren’t his ade.

The Vizsla ramikad’alor took off his buy’ce. Jango almost bit his tongue at yet another familiar face. Pre might be at least twenty years older, might have shaved his head, might have a deep scar twisting along his left cheek, but he was still recognisable.

What did all of this mean?

Was this what could have happened if Maul’s Sith Master never retrieved him from the Kyr’tsad group who originally sheltered him? No, that didn’t make sense. If they’d kept Maul for longer, they would have taken him in properly as a foundling and he would be wearing their beskar’gam and their colours right now. What if… could it be what would have happened if Jango lost his fight against Tor? If Kyr’tsad won? That didn’t ring true either. Silas would have taken the kids away, made sure that they were safe. Even if Maul wanted to go and find Kyr’tsad later, wanted their protection from the Sith, wanted to return to those who’d once treated him kindly – as he saw it – he would still be mando’ad. He wouldn’t be watchful, tense, with an almost feral edge. Oh, Maul was trying to hide it, but Jango knew him pretty well by now. He wasn’t afraid, but he certainly wasn’t comfortable with Pre and his warriors.

“So,” Pre said. “How do you want to play this? A sneak attack? Cut off the head and take its place?”

“I imagine it will certainly come to that,” Maul replied. He sounded like himself, his voice soft yet confident, commanding attention. “However, subtlety will not be necessary. A show of strength is more appropriate for cowards such as these criminals.”

Pre nodded. His smile was approving. “Attack in strength and overwhelm them. Very honourable; I’d wondered how much that was true of the Sith in your… diminished times.”

Maul’s blink was predatory, a conscious motion that gave the sense he was holding back violence. “Diminished only in numbers. Not in any other way.”

“Hmm.” Jango didn’t like the cruel edge of Pre’s smirk. “If you say so.”

Maul hummed back. “I do.”

These men weren’t brothers, not even the sworn kind. Uneasy allies at best. This Pre might be very much Tor’s son, but even so Jango didn’t like the threat implied by the way they looked at each other. He was responsible for Pre now – he wanted to break him of this Kyr’tsad viciousness, the kind of arrogance that saw only Death Watch as worthy of honour and respect and thought nothing of treating every other being in whatever way they wanted. Whatever goal Pre and Maul were working towards, it wouldn’t hold them back from each other’s throats forever.

A dull pulse of pain throbbed behind Jango’s eyes and he reached up to rub them, briefly pressing his knuckles into the point between his eyebrows. It didn’t help much. It wasn’t just the confusion – the frequent moves from vision to vision were disorientating, to say nothing of the shared sensory experiences.

When he looked up again, they weren’t in the Kom’rk anymore – Jango swore loudly. Just how much of this did Tarre want him to see? Couldn’t he at least have a break? A moment to think?

Jango had never been in this room before but he had seen it in holos. This was the throne room of the New Mandalorians on Sundari – but there wasn’t a New Mandalorian on the throne. It was Pre Vizsla – Jango couldn’t call this version of him Pre Fett. A group of ramikade sat or stood in a loose circle around him. He was holding court. On the other side of the hall Maul faced off against him, Savage at his back. They looked just the same as they had moments ago on the Kom’rk – the same future?

“I challenge you,” Maul proclaimed. “One warrior to another – and only the strongest shall rule Mand’alor!”

His occasional sense for the dramatic hadn’t changed, Jango thought with a sinking heart. Was this why Tarre felt he had to judge Maul – because of an ambition lurking in his heart? Considering Maul’s fear of the Sith, his insistence on the need for strength and power to defend himself and those he loved, if he saw no other way to get what he wanted then Jango could easily believe that he would choose this path.

What kind of Mand’alor would Maul make? He supposed that was also the question Tarre wanted to answer.

“So be it,” Pre replied, descending the steps of the dais. He nodded to – was that Bo-Katan? Yes, it was. “Give him his weapon.”

Jango didn’t want to watch this. Tarre might need to see it, for his own purposes, but he couldn’t force Jango to do the same. He closed his eyes and turned his head away – but he couldn’t block out the noise of kad’au clashing, of beskar’gam clattering against the polished marble floor, or of a jetpack igniting. His mind could follow the fight too well by sound alone. Blasters, a flamethrower, even small explosives. Pre threw everything he had at Maul.

It wasn’t enough.

“As you said,” Pre panted, pained and defeated, “only the strongest shall rule.”

He died with honour, Tarre’s voice whispered in Jango’s ear. If that helps.

Jango whirled around, teeth bared in rage. “No, it doesn’t kriffing help! Now you say something?” he roared. “What was the point of this? To show me which one of my children would kill the other if it came down to it? Why would I want to know that!”

No answer. He hadn’t expected one, at this point. Was Tarre choosing to be infuriatingly reticent and mysterious, or could he only speak sparingly? If he refused to say what he meant, was that because he couldn’t? Or was he just a shabuir?

The Dha’kad’au crackled in the air behind him. Jango didn’t want to turn and look – but the view from the windows of the throne-room had changed. Before it had been a bright day, the illumination from the inside of Sundari’s protective dome set to the same natural frequency as Manda’yaim’s sun. Now it was close to twilight. Rays of light fell slanted across the floor.

Someone gasped, the sound of choking and coughing. The hum of a kad’au sliced the air – the choke became a cut-off scream, a low groan of pain. Once again Jango smelled burned flesh. This wasn’t the same scene – it wasn’t Pre dying behind his back this time.

He looked.

Satine Kryze, now a woman grown, slumped over the Dha’kad’au held in Maul’s hand, her eyes glazed over and her body growing slack. Two ramikade painted in red and black held a third down on his knees, making him watch. His buy’ce was nowhere to be seen – the ginger hair seemed familiar, but Jango couldn’t see all of his face from here. Why was Satine here? Whatever way this version of events had gone, if this was a continuation of the previous vision then Kyr’tsad must have won Mandalore from the New Mandalorians already. Maul wasn’t killing Satine to take power, and this wasn’t a formal execution. This wasn’t about war or justice, but something else.

Maul let Satine fall to the floor. The kneeling man scrambled towards her, calling out her name like a dear friend or even a lover. He held her and brushed a wisp of hair from her face, his touch tender. “Satine,” he murmured again. It sounded heartbroken.

Maul left them there, taking a seat on the throne. His eyes watched them greedily, a pleasure in them that Jango really didn’t like.

“Do we kill him now, brother?” Savage asked, standing by Maul’s side.

“No,” Maul replied, almost incredulous. “Imprison him below. Leave him to drown in his misery.”

He wanted to see him suffering. It was too much like Kyr’tsad, like Tor. Pain for the sake of pain, cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Perhaps there was another reason for it, some kind of justification, but Jango couldn’t see what it was from the information he had. Was the man one of Maul’s verde, had he betrayed him by consorting with the New Mandalorians, by having a relationship with Satine Kryze… but this wasn’t military discipline. This was vindictive.

This wasn’t his Maul. The real future wouldn’t be anything like this. Jango told himself this and he thought he believed it… but perhaps a sliver of doubt had crept in where it hadn’t before.

“I won’t let it happen,” he said out loud. “Is that what you want to hear, Tarre? Pre, Maul, they aren’t Kyr’tsad anymore. None of this will happen.”

The hall emptied out. Maul remained on the throne with Savage by his side, two ramikade in his colours stationed at either side of the door as guards. The false-sun set fast, time flickering past far more quickly than was natural. It was full night now.

“I sense… a presence,” Maul said, his head dipping in concentration. “A presence I haven’t felt since…” His eyes snapped up towards the door, widening in fear. “Master.”

Jango whirled, his heart sinking. What? The Sith? Wasn’t the whole aim of Maul’s plans to get revenge on his former Master – surely that hadn’t changed in this reality? Jango hadn’t seen any sign of himself in any of these visions, so he assumed that he was dead and the Haat’ade subsumed into either Kyr’tsad or the New Mandalorians, whichever the clans could better stomach. Maul had won the title of Mand’alor by all of Kyr’tsad’s rules, and clearly the Kalevalans weren’t able to challenge him either. Wasn’t that enough to go after Darth Sidious and see him dead?

Perhaps that final part of the plan wasn’t yet in effect. Perhaps the Sith had found out about it, and come here to strike first.

At the far end of the hall, the two guards clutched their throats, choking on nothing. An unseen force slammed the pair backwards into the wall and dragged them up it in a screech of beskar. The door slid open. The man who stepped through looked human, or close to it. His face was shadowed beneath a hood, but his skin was pale. He walked in without a word and without glancing at the struggling ramikade he was holding in the air.

Maul stood too, taking a few steps forward to face his Master. Jango expected him to draw a weapon, either the Dha’kad’au or his own red blade, but instead he sank down on one knee, his gaze lowered.

The two guards hit the ground by the door, slack and unmoving. Possibly unconscious, but far more likely dead.

“Master,” Maul said.

Jango approached, trying to peer at the Sith’s face. He couldn’t get a good look at it.

“I am most impressed to see you have survived your injuries,” the Sith said. He had an old man’s voice, slightly wavering, but something about it seemed false. An affectation?

“I used your training Master,” Maul responded. “And I have built all this in hopes of returning to your side.”

Jango couldn’t tell if it was a lie. He knew his own Maul had never lied about his intentions or his goals. Was this one so different? Or was he better at spinning a falsehood when he was more afraid?

The Sith wasn’t taken in. “How unfortunate… that you are attempting to deceive me,” he said. He turned his back on Maul, a show of arrogance.

“Master?”

“You have become a rival,” the Sith said. He twisted back in a fluid motion and threw out what Jango knew must be an attack in the Force alongside the motion. Both Maul and Savage flew back and hit the transparisteel windows of the throne room with grunts of pain. A wave of sensation that Jango could only describe as ‘darkness’ washed over him – he’d never felt anything like it before and lacked the words to understand it. It was… a heavy blanket, a solid weight, something choking like bad air that made it hard to breathe. He staggered backwards a few steps, his head spinning. Fear clutched at his throat, but it didn’t feel like his own fear. It wasn’t coming from anything. It was as though it was being forced on him from outside – from the Sith?

Darth Sidious held Maul and Savage up in the air, his hands raised and pressing forward. The transparisteel cracked, fracture patterns spreading out under the immense strain. Jango couldn’t imagine surviving such crushing pressure without beskar’gam to protect him.

Laughing, the Sith dropped his hands and let the brothers fall to the ground where they both caught themselves. Both pulled out their kad’au, red blades buzzing to life. Jango felt a bit better to see them armed. The Sith had caught them off-guard, but once they had a chance to fight back properly Jango had confidence in their abilities. Besides, they were in the middle of Sundari – there must be Mandalorians everywhere who could come to their aid. The Sith was overconfident.

He also had kad’aue of his own. Flicking his wrists, two hilts dropped into his palms and ignited, held low. Then he was in motion, meeting Maul and Savage mid-attack. Sidious was constantly turning, his style all overlapping, repeating, circular patterns. Maul and Savage tried to pin him between them, but the dual-wielding was well matched against them. The Sith even laughed, either arrogantly amused, or genuinely enjoying himself. He pushed back against the two kad’au locked with his own, much stronger than he ought to be given his skinny frame.

A vast weight pressed down on Jango from above alongside the darkness, an utterly oppressive atmosphere. He braced himself, his legs trembling with the effort of not buckling and collapsing underneath it. The impression of yellow eyes burned into his mind. Something about it was slightly similar to when Tarre had examined him earlier – that invasive sense of being watched and deeply known. Jango’s heart beat faster. The alien fear was back, bringing with it the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, an animal panic.

The duel didn’t stay within the confines of the throne room. Maul tried to box his Master in, switching back and forth with Savage to keep up the pressure without getting in each other’s way. They drove him out onto a balcony, and Maul leapt up onto the low wall. Sidious went after him, distracted, and Savage tackled him from the side, driving his lowered head and sharp horns into the Sith’s flank.

Sidious wasn’t impaled, but he was sent flying. Despite this he regained control in mid-air, and made a pulling gesture with his hands. Maul and Savage were yanked forwards as though he’d fired grappling lines around both their waists. All three went tumbling towards the deserted plaza far below.

In the distance, Jango could hear a different fight going on. It seemed to be coming from the edge of the dome. Had the Sith brought allies with him? Or had he taken advantage of some other distraction to catch Maul and Savage on their own. Jango had never wished for Death Watch to turn up before in his life, but if it meant pinning down and killing this Sith…

As it was, it… wasn’t going well. Sidious was fast and no matter what Maul and Savage tried, one of his blades always seemed to be there to stop them. Jango didn’t even get the sense that he was feeling the pressure, that he wasn’t the one in control of this fight. Bitterly cold air bit at Jango even through his armour and kute, foreign malice and contempt assaulted him like physical blows, the crushing weight all over his body refused to let up, and even if it would have helped there wasn’t anything he could do here.

He started to shiver. He couldn’t help it. Some of the fear was his own now, not just pushed onto him from the Sith. He… he wasn’t sure if Maul and Savage could beat Darth Sidious on their own.

Sidious sent Maul flying, colliding hard with the stone wall of the plaza. He collapsed and didn’t immediately get up, though he only seemed dazed rather than more badly injured. Savage had to keep fighting – there was no gap for him to break off and check on his brother. Some of his blows were clumsy, wild. Jango didn’t know if that was an unseen injury, not thinking clearly due to emotion, or some other way the Sith was affecting him. He managed another good kick to Sidious’ belly, but the Sith flipped to absorb the blow and came back swinging. He drove Savage further down the steps, away from Maul.

Jango saw the gap where Savage had left himself open. Sidious saw it too.

Twin blades lunged backwards. Savage grunted, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Jango gave in to the weight and sank to his knees. “Stop,” he whispered. “Stop showing me this. Stop making me watch my family die. Haven’t you seen enough yet Tarre? Just make your haar’chak judgement already!”

“Brother,” Maul cried – a gasp rather than scream. Sidious tossed Savage’s body away like so much trash and Maul went after him, uncaring if his Master used the opportunity to cut him down as well.

Darth Sidious wasn’t interested in winning quickly and efficiently. He never had been. This was a punishment.

Is this who you learned it from? Jango thought. This, or Kyr’tsad? This wasn’t revenge – if it had been then Jango might have understood it. If it hadn’t been a fight to the death with Tor, if he had defeated the man and there had been time to… to what? To make it hurt? To kill him slowly? To torture him? Would Jango have done it?

A dark part of him didn’t mind the idea. The same when it came to those jettise – but you couldn’t capture Jedi and you couldn’t play around when fighting them. They were too powerful – you had to aim to kill them and that was that. Outside of revenge, that kind of pain didn’t hold much pleasure for him.

Darth Sidious just wanted to torment Maul though. He saw a plaything, a toy or a tool that had escaped from him. An object arrogantly pretending to be a person. Jango knew what Masters felt about their slaves. Maul ran, so he had to be punished and he had to be broken.

“Remember the first and only reality of the Sith,” Darth Sidious said. “There can only be two. And you are no longer my apprentice. You have been replaced.”

Maul drew the Dha’kad’au alongside his own lightsaber. Cold fury was written into every line of his body. The Sith leapt down to join him once again. Twin blades against twin blades, the pair collided. Jango had never seen a fight quite like this before. Mando’ade fighting jettise was totally different, and even the duel he’d seen in that second vision couldn’t compare. Maul and Sidious moved so rapidly that he almost couldn’t follow them, their kad’au leaving streaks and trails of light in the air. Maul… Maul fought well. For a time they appeared evenly matched – but only for a time. Eventually they met with locked blades and Sidious somehow twisted his kad’au downwards and across. Jango wasn’t sure what happened, but Maul’s lightsaber and the Dha’kad’au dropped to the ground, clattering out of reach.

He thought it might have been a case of either letting go of the hilts or losing his hands.

Sidious’ hand curled. Invisible bands tightened around Maul, jerking him into the air and slamming him back down to the ground. The Sith did this a few times, playing with Maul as a child might with a rag doll. Jango pressed his hands against the ground, fists so tight he could almost hear his bones creaking. He didn’t need to see this in order to understand why Maul was afraid of his Master, if Tarre was trying to make a point about that. Age didn’t matter to a monster like this. That Maul had only been a child wouldn’t have kept him safe.

This isn’t real he reminded himself. Maul is with me now. With Silas. With House Mereel and the Haat’ade. None of this can ever happen from now on.

Maul curled on the ground, sobbing. “Have mercy,” he begged. “Please.”

Sometimes a slave-master would be satisfied with a show of submission and sometimes it would only make them more disgusted. With the Pykes, Jango had never been able to bring himself to bow his head or act as though they’d broken him. Maybe they would have, with enough time. He knew Maul hadn’t broken either – not his Maul. This Maul… he didn’t know.

“There is no mercy,” Darth Sidious said, with a sickly grin. He stretched out his hands, and crackling blue lightning burst from his fingertips. The sharp stink of ozone hit Jango’s nostrils. The lightning hit Maul and he convulsed with a scream.

Jango couldn’t take it – he fumbled for his blaster and started shooting as soon as it was in his hand, barely aiming. The bolts flew through the air and hit nothing, passing through the Sith as though he was made of mist.

“Don’t worry,” Sidious said. “I won’t kill you.” It wasn’t a promise. It was a threat.

Jango closed his eyes but his gaze washed with blue anyway. Maul screamed, but it came from a long way away and grew more and more distant. Eventually everything was still and silent. Jango didn’t dare to open his eyes again until he was sure nothing else was about to happen.

He was nowhere at all – or rather, he was in darkness, but not absolute. As his sight began to adjust, he saw stars, the vast spread of the night sky all around him. There wasn’t a floor even though it felt like he was kneeling on something solid, so he could look straight down and see the band of the galaxy’s spiral arm stretching underneath him.

He wasn’t alone in this place. Once he’d recovered enough to look around, he saw a small form sitting a short distance away. Maul. Maul the right age, wearing familiar bajur’gam; the Maul he knew. He was clutching his knees to his chest and he hadn’t yet noticed that Jango was here, but a wave of relief almost knocked Jango over even so.

He managed to stand and made his way over.

Maul heard him coming – his head jerked up, lips pulling back from his teeth, but all that defensiveness ebbed away again when he saw who it was.

“Jango?” He sounded so young after hearing the older Maul. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s a good question,” Jango said, speaking softly. Maul’s eyes were reddened around the edges, although he couldn’t tell if he had actually been crying or had just gotten close to it. “Tarre dragged us both into… this, whatever it is.” He gestured at the space around them. “I don’t know how, given that I’m not Force-sensitive.”

“I do not fully understand it either,” Maul said. “Yet the Force is in everything, even those who are not aware of it and cannot use it. It can affect you.”

Jango sat down next to him. “What have you seen?”

Maul’s gaze became distant. “Visions,” he replied, his voice not much more than a whisper. “I do not know if this ghost really is the same Tarre who lived a millennia ago, or something within the kyber of the Darksaber that merely believes it is, but it has no right to see any of that.”

Uneasy, Jango glanced away. Those things he’d seen, the things he’d been shown… had Maul seen them too? Worse, had he experienced them? Maul was a child; he didn’t deserve to be forced to watch those awful futures.

“And you?” Maul asked him.

“Tarre said something about judgement,” Jango said, avoiding answering immediately.

I did. The voice came from behind them – both Jango and Maul whirled round at once. Jango pulled his blaster again and Maul leapt to his feet, though he was unarmed. Jango wasn’t feeling particularly well-disposed to Tarre right now, ancient Mand’alor or no ancient Mand’alor.

The ghost looked the same as he had in the meeting room – it hadn’t been long, but it felt like it had been hours. His beskar’gam was painted a flat white matte, with a gold Vizsla shriek-hawk on one pauldron and a black mythosaur on his cuirass, long tusks curling down. Jango hadn’t noticed the colours before – Tarre’s glowing black and white eyes were almost hypnotising.

It was not my intention to cause you pain, Tarre continued, but both you and I had to see.

“Do you think I am ignorant of my own life?” Maul growled. Jango winced – Maul’s visions must have been more focused on his past. In some ways that was good, if it spared him the pain of seeing the same things Jango had. He shot Tarre a suspicious look. If the ghost had chosen for them to see different things there must be a reason for it. Had he guessed right? Warnings?

Once, in another life, Darth Maul won the Dha’kad’au fairly, in single combat, Tarre said. You were Mand’alor. Mand’alor the Abandoned. Last of your line, last of my line, last of that future.

“Last?” Maul said, his eyes darting between Tarre and Jango. “I thought that Bo-Katan…” He shook his head. “What did you show him?” he demanded of Tarre.

“He showed me possible futures,” Jango said, wanting to be honest. He didn’t want Maul to think that he didn’t trust him with the truth. “Some true-Sith version of you – or a Kyr’tsad version. But that’s never going to happen.” He glared at Tarre. “Is it?”

Tarre gestured with his hands, spreading them apart, palms up. The Dha’kad’au appeared in his right hand – and then a mirror version appeared in his left. It wasn’t a true mirror though. It was damaged or… glitched, somehow. It wasn’t quite there, like a corrupted holo projection. I understand now, Tarre said to himself. That was a dead path, a path of nothing but sorrow. The council of the ka’ra – I, it, sacrificed itself to avert fate. It returned you to fix what went wrong and offer hope for something more.

He sighed, bringing his hands together. With a flash of light, the Dha’kad’aue disappeared. I’ll take what I’ve got to work with, I suppose, he muttered.

“What the kriff are you talking about?” Jango demanded, very tired of all this ka’ra-blessed nonsense. Could he just get a straight answer here?

Darth Maul was worthy, if barely, Tarre said, looking up at them both. No worse than some of my own line, I must be honest. He was not a good Mand’alor though. He was selfish, and his intentions were to help himself, not to help or truly lead our people. You, Jango Fett, have already been judged. You were judged when you took up this blade after Tor Vizsla’s death. I need not see your soul again. As long as you do not believe that you are worthy, you will hold yourself back from greatness. Yet you are willing. You made me several promises, here amongst the stars. Will you hold to them?

“Of course I will,” Jango replied. Cold sweat prickled all over his body. He didn’t deserve Tarre’s faith in him. What was he going to do as Mand’alor? He didn’t have any ambitions about leading. If that other Maul was selfish, wasn’t the same true of him?

He’d given his word though. The threat of those futures… he wouldn’t allow anything even remotely like them come about.

Tarre nodded. Nothing noticeably changed, but Jango felt… bound. These oaths weren’t something he’d just be able to go back on. Be warned, Mand’alor, Tarre said. The Sith still seeks his own path forwards to power. If he succeeds, Manda’yaim will fall. This is not merely about revenge. This is protection and it is justice.

“Yeah I… I think I understand the threat a little better now.”

Tarre waved a hand. You may return.

Jango blinked, and opened his eyes to in the meeting room in Fort Mereel. No time seemed to have passed – or at least nobody else was acting as thought anything odd had just happened.

After a moment though, Kilindi co*cked her head. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to make that promise to Maul?”

The promise to help him get revenge on the Sith, by foiling his plan to bring back the Sith Empire. Jango looked over and met Maul’s eyes. [ I swear to bring that shabuir Darth Sidious down, ] he said. He’d already given his word to Tarre Vizsla, after all.

Chapter 22

Chapter Text

Maul blinked out of the vision-world and back into the meeting room in Fort Mereel. It didn’t yet feel real – his mind remained distant and unmoored. His sense of the Force was scraped raw, but as seconds ticked past, away from the oily despair and ice-cold fear of his Master’s presence, the calm and steady atmosphere of the fortress and the goran’s forge below it started to seep back in. The Dark Side was here, as it was everywhere, but this was not a place of the Dark.

That had been no simple set of memories. Memories were not so immediate, so real. They weren’t drenched in the Force – though memories could imprint themselves strongly into the fabric of the Force itself, it was the opposite of this process. Whilst Tarre trapped him reliving his own past Maul hadn’t been fully aware of what was happening – it was only in the aftermath, in that dark and star-drenched expanse, that he understood.

It wasn’t that Maul ever stopped thinking about those events. His childhood on Mustafar, his almost death at Kenobi’s hands, his time feral and mad in the depths of Lotho Minor, the events on Mandalore and his brother’s death at the hands of his Master… he could never forget any of it. Yet for him, decades had passed since then. Time sanded down the harshest edges of his pain, for all that he held on tight and did his best to keep it fresh, the better to fuel his strength in the Dark.

This… Tarre dragged it up and presented it to him anew, sharp and agonising, a hook dragging out his innards. For what? To judge him?

Such cruelty was not much like a Jedi.

Jango Fett was speaking, words in Mando’a that washed over him. He did not know how much the man had seen. Tarre showed him visions too, though Jango had made mention of “futures” in the multiple. In that case, it was possible their visions were not the same, that Tarre had entirely different goals for each of them. At the same time, Tarre clearly said that Maul had once won the Darksaber and the title of Mand’alor along with it, and Jango had not reacted with surprise. He also claimed he better understood the threat of Darth Sidious after what he’d witnessed.

He had to assume that Jango knew. That not only had Tarre forced Maul to experience some of the worst moments of his life all over again, but that Jango saw all of it. What must the man think? Did he judge him as well? Did he dare? Would he treat him differently…

“So, now what?” Feral’s young voice broke Maul out of his thoughts, bringing him back to the present once more.

“Maul? Is it enough?” Silas said, speaking gently. Maul wanted to snarl at him – he was not weak and did not need to be coddled, certainly not where his Master was involved. “Are you able to give us that name now?”

Ah, yes. For everyone else no time at all had passed, however long it had been for Maul and Jango. Before they touched the Darksaber and woke that ghost, he promised to give them Darth Sidious’ true name if only they swore not to chase blindly after him and get themselves killed. Fett held up his part of the bargain, so Maul should do the same.

“Sheev Palpatine,” Maul said after a heartbeat, forcing the words out through teeth that wanted to clench down around them. At this time, the name was not recognisable – at their blank looks he added, “The Senator for the Chommell Sector, from the planet Naboo.”

“Chommell Sector,” Silas repeated, frowning. “That’s half-way across the galaxy from here – or he’ll be on Coruscant.”

Maul bristled. “Did you not just say you would not attempt to kill him?”

Silas held up his hands, a pacifying gesture. “I didn’t mean that, but if he’s plotting something and you want to stop it, we’re going to need details. After everything is sorted out here, we can send someone to keep an eye on Senator Palpatine.”

“It may cause him to become suspicious,” Maul said. “Why would the Mand’alor be concerned about one Republic Senator who, as of yet, is of no importance?”

“A merc will do just as well,” Jango said, nodding along with Silas’ idea. “If they’re caught then they might reveal a Mandalorian hired them, but they won’t be able to prove Palpatine’s the only one we’ve put a tail on.”

Pre cut in, leaning forwards over the table. “Once those jettise give their report back to the Senate, the Republic will realise we aren’t beholden to their New Mandalorian pawns anymore. We will be a threat to them once again, and they’ll come after us. We have to be strong enough… We should be watching other Senators. We need to know what they’re planning.”

Jango nodded acknowledgement. “Not the worst idea,” he said. “Though we’ve got enough to manage here at home before we think about galactic politics.”

Maul relaxed. Sidious would no doubt realise that he was being followed and watched, but if he was not being singled out then there was no way for him to put this together with Maul’s disappearance.

“If one Sith Lord is a Senator,” Silas said, “what about the other one? There’s over a thousand Senators – and there’s no guarantee they’re taking the same approach. He could be a criminal, a member of one of the conglomerates or trade federations…”

Maul shrugged, irritated at his own lack of knowledge. “I was never told anything about Darth Plagueis.”

Savage cleared his throat. “Now that you know the truth, that Maul was trained by a Sith… does this change anything?” His brow was furrowed, his shoulders held squared and tense. He was defensive. Fool, Maul thought fondly. I do not need defending.

“Only that it clarifies who our enemies are,” Jango replied. “If you’re talking about Maul passing on his training to you two… I don’t know anything about using the Force, whether that’s jettise tricks, your Dark Side or our own ka’ra to be honest. That’s gorane business. Should I have a problem with it?”

“The Dark Side is accessed through emotions,” Maul told him. “It requires clarity of purpose, willpower, and determination. Through passion I gain strength, through strength I gain power, through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. Such is the code of the Sith.”

Jango listened closely to his words. He folded his arms over his chest, considering this. “Do any of you three,” he said, “believe that the Sith way conflicts with being mando’ade? With the Resol’nare? My father, Jaster… I haven’t had you read his codex yet. That’s my mistake. I should have gotten my hands on a copy after… after we came to Concord Dawn. What’s in it is important for our people, for the Haat’ade. That’s what I am, and that’s what you should be – it’s what I want you to be. Is it… still what you want too?”

“I do,” Savage said, all seriousness.

“Me too,” Feral was quick to add. Kilindi nodded firmly. This was not the first time any of them had been asked this question. It was too late for Fett to probe them for doubts – they were already committed to this path. Even Maul had committed to it when he went through his verd’goten, for all that he’d rejected Fett’s desire to adopt him as his son.

“I see no reason why a Mandalorian cannot learn the ways of the Sith,” Maul said. Mandalorians were a disciplined people – while a Sith must delve deep into their emotions, tend them and understand them, to lose control was to lose oneself to the siren tug of the Dark. The Dark Side was not the gentle, placid, meek Light. It held no respect for those who used it – it had to be broken and tamed to one’s will. It would devour the unwary, the foolish, and weak. Mandalorians allowed emotion, but they were soldiers and warriors, not barbarians – they looked down on those who lost themselves to berserker rage.

Mandalorians also did not shy away from violence, hatred or revenge. Even if Jango’s Haat’ade did not appreciate the virtue of power for the sake of power, saw no need to exert their dominance over others, they would at least defend themselves against any threat. The best enemy was a dead enemy, but enemies who feared you too much to provoke you were an acceptable second place. Fett was no pacifist, and Pre was right – the Republic would test them when they discovered what had happened here. Jango would not bow to them, nor would he allow them to think that Mandalore was weak.

“Any Mandalorian?” Jango asked, meeting Maul’s eyes and holding them, his expression serious. “Or just a Kyr’tsad Mandalorian?”

Maul opened his mouth to reassure him, but stopped himself from answering too hastily. If Jango had seen those visions of his past then he knew Maul had killed to become the leader of Death Watch, and although Tarre Vizsla stopped short of condemning him entirely, he’d seen that Maul’s motivation had not been for the greater good of Mandalore. He had reason to doubt his sincerity.

That thought sent a pang of pain through Maul’s chest. Odd. Why did he want so dearly for Jango Fett to trust him? To believe him?

He gave the question due consideration. Was there anything else in Mandalorian culture that clashed with the values of the Sith as Maul understood them?

There was… one thing. The bonds of clan and family, chosen and sworn or blood-kin. Sith had no family. Sith had no past. When one ascended to the Sith, everything of their former life was burned away in cleansing fire, to rise more powerful and reborn anew from the ash. Sidious told him this when Maul dared to ask where he came from, when he was old enough to understand that beings did not simply pop into existence from the raw ether. Maul had very little past to forsake – or so he’d believed at the time. It was only later when Savage pulled him out of the tunnels of Lotho Minor and brought him back to his mother on Dathomir that he found out he had any living kin.

It hadn’t mattered much to him at the time. Ties of blood meant that Talsin believed he could be a useful tool for her own ends, revenge against the Sith who betrayed her, they meant that Savage felt in some way beholden to him, looked up to him as something more than his Sith Master. For Maul, they were pawns – or so he’d told himself.

Savage kept on reaching out. No matter if Maul treated him cooly, tried to remind him of his place as his apprentice, it never seemed to matter. To the last, to the death, Savage insisted on a connection that a Sith could not have and could not care for.

Sith stood alone. Two Sith Lords of the Line of Bane, one to embody power, the other to crave it – neither could permit the weakness of affection towards the other, and anyone outside that binary was only a liability, a pressure point that could be used against you. This was the lesson Sidious intended to impress on him, when he cut Savage down before his eyes.

Maul hadn’t fully understood what he was losing until it was taken from him. For a long time, he had taken his Master’s final lesson to heart, but… but not forever. Before his death, he’d thought of taking an apprentice again with affection, not merely as a tool. He’d… wanted. Wanted something of what he lost. In this reborn reality, hadn’t he gone to find Savage as his first priority? He might have told himself that it was only because they made a good team, that Savage had potential as a Sith apprentice, that he needed help against his Master… but it wasn’t just that, was it?

Somehow, at some point, the insidious worm called caring had wriggled inside Maul’s hearts and made a home there again. Savage and Feral were his brothers, Kilindi was his friend, close enough that he might as well call her his sister. If he were treating them as a Sith should then he ought to have been far harsher with them long before now and insisted that they train in ways much closer to the way that Maul had been trained.

He hadn’t. He hadn’t had the stomach or the will for it. He put it off with an excuse every time the thought occurred to him.

This was not the code of the Sith, but it was the code of Mandalore. The importance of tribe, of family, was one of the central six tenets of the Resol’nare.

“One can use the Dark Side of the Force without being Sith,” he said, struggling to pick his words through the mess of his own thoughts. “There are… aspects of the Sith code I do not agree with. My Master never truly intended to teach me fully of the ways and powers of the Sith – as much as I needed to be his weapon, but never so much that I became a threat. Since he rejected me, I reject him in turn. I will take what he did deign to teach me and pass that on, but I will not reject other knowledge either. I promised your goran as much. We all did.” He gestured to all the ade around the table.

Jango nodded slowly. He seemed to be satisfied with this. “Alright. That makes sense to me, as much of any of this Force osik does.” He sighed, shaking some tension or fatigue from his shoulders. “We’ve got something of a plan for this Sith hut’uun now at least, even if we can’t get started on it right away. Sounds like he’ll keep – it’s a long jump between a Mid-Rim Senator and an Emperor. This has been… interesting.” He paused – Maul thought he might speak about the ghost of Tarre Vizsla, or their shared visions, but if so then he must have thought better of it.

“It isn’t the only thing we needed to talk about though,” Jango continued. He turned to Pre. “The goran told us about that… about what your own clan did to you.” It was clear he was deeply uncomfortable.

Pre didn’t meet his eyes. “’Lek, alor,” he muttered – it had the feel of rote repetition, an automatic response to a certain kind of situation. Without the shield of beskar Maul could sense his discomfort as well, a twist of shame combined with defensiveness and… guilt? Interesting. Was this the same guilt of divided loyalties Maul felt from him earlier, or at least related to it?

“How do you feel just now?” Jango asked.

“I’m fine,” Pre said.

“And were you fine before?”

“It was… different,” Pre admitted.

“Goran made it sound as though you were in pain,” Silas added.

Pre’s eyes darted up, a flicker of annoyance cutting through this uncharacteristically passive façade. “I was not in pain,” he said, with an edge of disdain. “I don’t need the ka’ra to fight. I’m good at what I do. I earned my place as ramikade. I’m certain that my clan had good reasons for what they did – when they get here they’ll explain it to you.”

Disbelief and some odd kind of soft, sympathetic pain radiated from Jango in the Force, despite his own beskar’gam. “They’d better, if they’re mando’ade at all.”

“It was to protect me,” Pre said firmly – yet still that doubt was clawing at him. Was he trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Jango?

“Goran couldn’t tell us if it had caused any long-term effects,” Jango said. “As your buir, I’m asking you to let me know straight away if you notice anything odd, whether or not you think it’s important. I get the feeling that if I let it alone, you wouldn’t mention it unless it was literally killing you.”

Pre almost smiled, though the expression was brief and easy to miss. Maul sensed the warm flicker of pride – whether or not Jango had meant it this way, Pre had taken it as a compliment towards his endurance as a warrior. The warmth was quickly doused by worry. “If the curse is real…” he said, hesitantly. “If it begins to affect me…”

“Speak to the goran at once,” Jango told him. He glanced over to Maul. “Maul, do you… do the Sith know anything about curses?”

“I know the jettise do not use anything that most would call by that name,” Maul replied. Now that his attention had been drawn back to this particular problem and in light of his recent experiences, a certain possibility came to his mind. “However, some might confuse a ghost and a curse.” He threw a meaningful look towards the Darksaber, still sitting on the table in front of Fett.

Clan Vizsla apparently had a larger number of ka’ra blessed children than most Mandalorian clans. Force abilities tended to breed true, though it also introduced enough emotional complications that both Jedi and Sith swore off siring spawn – for rather different reasons. The Darksaber was passed down the primary bloodline – surely some of them were Force-sensitive enough for the ghost of their famous progenitor to appear and speak to them. Perhaps some Vizsla of late had not liked what Tarre had to say? Why else weave beskar into Pre’s very gloves, other than to protect him from things that he might touch?

“Hm.” Jango must have reached a similar conclusion as Maul. He scooped the Darksaber up and returned it to his belt. “Something to think about, I guess. As long as I can trust you to be honest with me, Pre, then I think we’re all done here for now.”

“Does this mean we can go out exploring?” Feral asked, perking up. “There’s still hours before it gets dark.”

Jango looked at him blankly for a long moment. Eventually the light of realisation dawned – he must have forgotten Feral’s inane request from earlier. Admittedly, a good point had been made about learning the local terrain, and it would make Feral happy. A happy Feral was a Feral somewhat less likely to get himself into trouble, which was certainly worth something.

“Well…” Jango started to say. He cut himself off suddenly, as another thought occurred to him. “Actually, there might be something you can help Silas and I with. Maul, did that Sith shabuir ever teach you how to fight with a lightsaber?”

Hunger, bright and eager, woke up in Maul’s soul. “He did,” he replied, trying not to show his excitement. If Jango wanted to learn to use the Darksaber properly he would need a sparring partner – and Silas did not know how to use the Force. He had hoped to find a way to get his hands on Kenobi’s abandoned lightsaber, and he wouldn’t get another chance as good as this one. “I would be happy to assist.”

“You were good with blades, but I always thought you were best at fighting with a staff,” Kilindi said, raising an eyebrow at him with a slightly teasing expression. “I think I saw a holo once of a Jedi with some kind of long lightsaber like that. Is that a thing?”

“A saberstaff,” Maul confirmed. He met Jango’s eyes and saw the look of recognition there – so he’d seen the memory of the fight against Jinn and Kenobi on Naboo, at the very least. “I trained in multiple styles of lightsaber combat, although Juyo, the Form of the Vornskyr, was… the one Sidious focused me on.” He’d been about to say the one he favoured, but he’d left his Master’s care for Orsis when he was eight years old, far too young to be making such decisions for himself.

Truthfully, could he say he favoured it when it was simply the traditional form used by the Sith?

“Maybe you can show us that too,” Kilindi suggested.

“Us?” Maul said.

“Did you think you’d get out of sharing this with all of us?” she teased. “At least this bit I get to learn, since I can’t do any of your cool Force tricks.”

“It’s not so easy to use a lightsaber without the Force,” Maul replied.

“Is that going to be an issue?” Jango asked him. “It’s a weapon, isn’t it? One other Force-null Mand’alore have used before me.”

“It isn’t impossible,” Maul admitted, grudgingly. “Without the Force you will not be able to master all of the forms, nor will you be able to fight with the same speed and surety. You will not be expected to fight against one who can wield the Force, however.”

“Unless the jettise really decide to start causing problems,” Jango said. “I don’t need a fancy sword to kill them though. Alright, I guess we’re going back to the training halls. Sorry Feral – the mountainside will have to wait for another day.”

“I guess that’s okay, if we’re going to learn to fight with lightsabers,” Feral replied.

“You will be fighting with a training kad,” Jango said, pointing a finger at him. “I’ve seen what these kriffing things can do. Frankly I only half trust that I’m not going to cut my own arm off with it if I’m not careful.”

Maul resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Most lightsabers have a training setting,” he said. “If not, modifications can be made to the powerpack to reduce the output.”

“Hm. And what’s the training setting do to you? Just light burns?”

Maul shrugged. That was also variable – some Jedi sabers could be dialled down to barely a tingle of heat over skin, all the way up to most of those used by his Master’s dogs in the Imperial Inquisition, which might be more appropriately termed the ‘torture’ setting.

“Yeah,” Jango said, tone dry. “Feral isn’t getting a lightsaber.”

Feral’s complaints about this lasted the entire walk back through the fortress.

----

Jango was glad they had the second kad’au. After what happened with Tarre’s ghost, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of letting anyone else touch the Dha’kad’au in case something like that happened again – particularly Pre. Maul had made a good guess about one possible reason for cutting the kid off from the ka’ra, one that Jango suspected was almost certainly correct. He didn’t want to have to referee some kind of star-touched shouting match over Kyr’tsad’s philosophies between an ancient Mand’alor and his descendent.

As it was, the jetti’kad dialled down to a nice low setting that didn’t even cut through the material of a kute, and for someone that only had a few years training, Maul knew his stuff. Unfortunately, that just meant his shabuir Master must have beaten it into him, or something equally cruel, so Jango couldn’t even be proud of the ad without feeling conflicted about it. Everyone else took training kade, and they managed to get through a good grounding of basic strikes and techniques over the course of a couple of hours.

Jango had a lot to think about with everything that had happened, but he was glad of the excuse to focus on something that felt easy and achievable. It was better than chewing the rest of it over inside his brain too much. He should probably talk to Maul more about the visions, but he could give it a couple of days to settle and for Maul to recover before bringing up bad memories. As for Pre… Pre was stubborn and he had his pride. It wouldn’t be easy for him to accept that his aliit hurt him intentionally, for no good reason. Not that there were ever good reasons to hurt an ad, but Kyr’tsad didn’t think that way and neither did Pre.

Jango hoped he’d learn better, in time.

By the end of the day, at least his body had been tired out to somewhere near the level of his brain. He’d promised Silas a conversation about their relationship, about their expectations, about what exactly they were and wanted to be to each other above and beyond just friends… but he didn’t feel up to doing it justice right now.

Silas must have read it on his face when they returned to their room. “It’s fine,” he said. “We can talk about our relationship later. If it takes a while to figure out… I sort of expected that, to be honest.”

“Am I really that bad at this?” Jango asked, tempted to bury his face in a pillow.

“You’re not bad at it, it’s just that you’re not familiar with it, right?”

Jango shrugged. He thought he understood what Silas meant. Romance, sex, relationships… No, he didn’t have a lot of practice there. He didn’t think about those things in the same context as himself mostly.

“I hope I didn’t spring it on you,” Silas said.

“I wouldn’t have guessed, if you hadn’t said anything,” Jango replied. “That just means I’m jare’la about stuff like this.”

Silas scratched his cheek, the pad of his finger rasping against stubble. “Maybe it’s better if you take a couple of days to think about it,” he suggested. “What you want out of… this. From me.”

Jango grunted, a bit dissatisfied but unable to work out exactly why. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”

“I want to be by your side,” Silas said. He spoke softly, meeting his eyes directly, nothing but sincere. “Whatever that means – whatever you want that to mean. Whether that’s sex or companionship, intimacy, affection, whatever.”

Jango’s head was spinning. Whether they intended it or not, this had kind of turned into that conversation anyway. “But don’t you think that’s a bit… pathetic?”

Hurt flashed across Silas’ face. “That’s really what you think?”

“No, no, that’s not the way I meant it!” The heat of embarrassment flushed over Jango’s cheeks and he scrubbed his hand over his short-cropped hair. He could slap himself – pathetic? The pathetic one here certainly wasn’t Silas. “Ka’ra, I’m sorry, I really am kriffing bad at this.”

“So, what did you mean?”

“That… you shouldn’t hang around hoping for something when I can’t give you what you deserve.” Jango looked away. He didn’t want to see pity or anything like it on Silas’ face, or even something worse. Disgust maybe. People wanted equality out of their relationships, right? They wanted to be desired just as much as they wanted to desire. Reciprocity. Jango could have sex, it was just that it didn’t mean the same thing to him that it did to other people. It might feel good, but it was just physical, like the excitement of sparring, like basking in the sun, like a Ryl massage, like the endorphins after exercise. He couldn’t get into someone else’s mind like a jetti to know for sure, but it was different for most other people.

“Jango,” Silas said. “It’s not about… Shavit. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything for me, that’s the thing. I don’t need you to! I… I love you, alright. That’s just about wanting to be near someone, to spend time with them, to be important to them – or at least that’s what I think love is. If you feel the same way back then everything else is in the details, and if we put our heads together, I think we’re smart enough to figure out what works for us and what doesn’t.”

“I…” Love. Was this love? The warmth that lit him up this morning watching Silas sleep, that felt like it was love, but Jango didn’t have a lot of experience here. What if he got this wrong? What if he committed to something he wasn’t able to see through, and hurt Silas even worse? “I don’t have it figured out yet,” he admitted. Saying that was painful but he couldn’t lie. A lie wouldn’t even hold up to the smallest bit of pressure anyway.

“So, take your time, like I said.” Silas looked around the room, at the one bed. “Would it be easier if I slept somewhere else tonight?”

“No,” Jango said before he could think about it. He wanted Silas close, he realised. At least that much he had worked out, then. “It’s not the first time we’ve slept in the same bed anyway.”

“Mmn, and somehow despite that, I’ve managed not to explode from pent-up sexual frustration just yet,” Silas said, with a lazy grin. “Like I said, if f*cking isn’t part of this it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll survive.”

“Dunno, the way some people talk about sex it seems they think the lack of it is fatal,” Jango told him.

Silas chuckled. “It really isn’t.” He co*cked his head – when he spoke again it was to change the subject, which at this point Jango welcomed. “You want anything to drink before bed?” he asked. “We could put on a holo to wind down.”

“So long as it’s not one of those cheesy old historical dramas.”

“You say that like I don’t know you secretly loved Revenge of the Mythosaur.”

“That’s not even in the same genre,” Jango replied.

“The holo classification system would beg to differ,” Silas said.

“Put on whatever you want,” Jango told him. “Just don’t blame me if I fall asleep on your shoulder.”

“Never.”

Chapter 23

Chapter Text

Master Qui-Gon Jinn’s news that he would be returning early from his mission to Mandalorian space and his preliminary report to the council had already been matters of grave concern, but the full report was even more troubling. The leftover ghosts of shatterpoints drifted like stars around the man’s head, and even more around that of his padawan. Some were already moving into the past and some had yet to fully come into being, but Mace couldn’t follow any of them to a clear conclusion and it was giving him a headache.

“Worrying news, told us you have,” Master Yoda said, his ears drooping. “A report to the Chancellor, you must also give.”

“The Chancellor will be disappointed,” Qui-gon noted. “He had high hopes for this mission.”

“Sending you to the Mandalore Sector in the first place was a foolish gamble,” Yarael Poof said. “The Chancellor should not have approved it – since he did, he must also accept the consequences.”

“I am familiar with Chancellor Valorum’s character,” Qui-gon said. “I believe he acted with the Republic’s best interests at heart – as the Jedi Order acted with the best interests of the Mandalorian people, as far as they were understood at the time. That understanding was wrong, but I cannot see that anyone in particular is at fault for that. I have faith that the Chancellor will not respond hastily to the altered situation.”

“Let us hope he does not,” Master Yaddle responded. Her deep worry drifted into the Force to be released – though the Force itself was clouded, giving neither an indication of doom nor a sign of opportunity. “If the Mandalorians return to the ways of the Neo-crusaders, they could bring war to this galaxy – something that hasn’t been seen in a thousand years.”

“Remember Mandalore before the Excision, I do,” Master Yoda added. “Young I was – take part in the conflict I did not. Troubled, we all were by it. Fall to fear we must not – copy the folly of politicians we should not.”

Master Droon cleared his throat. “I’m troubled by the reappearance of the leader of these ‘True Mandalorians’, Jango Fett,” he said. “Master Dooku reported his death to this Council.”

“Re-examine the Galidraan incident, we must,” Yoda said. “Qui-gon Jinn, your former Master contact, this Council requests. To the Temple, invite him. Further questions we will ask him. Further light he may be able to shed upon this matter.”

Qui-gon nodded. Mace sensed that he had complicated emotions about the prospect of speaking to Master Dooku again – emotions which Mace could understand. Yan Dooku was a complicated man – an idealist, yet someone who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Mace had worked with him before. It still troubled him that their interactions might have had some weight upon Master Dooku’s decision to leave the Jedi Order, although he was not arrogant enough to think that it was the only reason Master Dooku had.

“We should send at least one Shadow to the Mandalore sector,” Master Sifo-Dyas said. The suggestion sent a ripple of disquiet around the Council Chamber.

“Masters, I must counsel caution,” Qui-gon responded. “Mand’alor Fett has a deep grudge against the Jedi Order. If a further intrusion into his borders came to light he would take action, whether or not that action was otherwise politically wise.”

“It is not the business of Shadows to come to light,” Sifo-Dyas replied, raising an eyebrow. “Anyway, their instructions would be to keep their distance and monitor the situation. The Mand’alor will still have to consolidate his power. The New Mandalorian faction has held against Death Watch terrorists for this long – they won’t give up so easily now either.”

Obi-wan wanted to say something to that, his body twitching with the need to step forward, but he kept silent. Mace wouldn’t have minded hearing from him – Qui-gon shouldn’t have brought him into the chamber if there was no intention of letting him add to the discussion – but padawans were not meant to address the council without being addressed first. Mace himself was the youngest Council Member, only just appointed the year before. He didn’t have standing to invite Obi-wan to speak either.

Qui-gon had his own objection. “From my own research, I believe that Mand’alor Fett has more standing with the warrior clans of Mandalore than Death Watch did. Many may withdraw their support from House Kryze and turn to him.”

Jocasta Nu tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair. “Our problem is a lack of knowledge,” she said, “about Jango Fett, his faction, his intentions, his allies and his enemies. Whether or not Master Dooku is willing or able to return to the Temple in person to share his thoughts with us, I’m at least sure he will tell us everything he can from his own experience. We should open an investigation of our own into Galidraan in the meantime. Given the situation, I expect Chancellor Valorum is likely to ask for more details about that himself.”

People murmured general agreement – it was certainly true. This was not solely the Jedi’s problem to solve.

“I will request the researchers in the Archives to prepare a briefing for us all about Mandalorian history,” Jocasta continued. “Unfortunately, there is little material available about the religious practices of Mandalore other than that they worship their ancestors and believe they can commune with these ancient spirits for wisdom. The ways of their ka’ra are secretive and are not spoken of to outsiders.”

“In some ways I believe it isn’t dissimilar to a concept of continued existence within the Force after death preached by the Guardians of the Whills sect,” Qui-gon remarked.

Jocasta Nu ignored this – Mace sensed something almost like a sigh from her. It had the feeling of an old and familiar response. Was this a topic of some special interest to Master Jinn? “I will ask the Archives to focus particularly on the links that Mandalore may have with other force traditions,” she said. “I hope that might shed some light on this strange young zabrak boy you spoke of.”

Another ripple of worry drifted into the Force like smoke, passing around the Council Chamber before dissipating into placid calm again. Personally, Mace was more curious than he was concerned. Obi-wan reported that the boy claimed to be from Dathomir, and that he was heavily marked or tattooed with red and black. That was indeed characteristic of Dathomiri zabrak – Master Eeth Koth, who sat opposite him in the chamber, was a much more understated ochre colour. Mace believed Obi-wan when he said this ‘Maul’ was something more than just versed in Dathomir’s magics. Obi-wan was one of the few padawans who had encountered a Dark Jedi. He knew what he was talking about.

“I assume we will be leaving him out of our report to the Senate,” Master Sinube said, his beak clacking over the last word. Mace wondered what latest piece of Senate corruption had provoked his irritation this time. Master Sinube was constantly clashing with one Senator after another – it was a sad fact of how things worked on Coruscant that the criminal trails Tera Sinube followed so frequently led to the office block at 1001 Republica. If Mace was the one in Master Sinube’s position he would have resigned as liaison to Coruscant Security a long time ago – that the cosian hadn’t was a testament to his diligence and patience.

“Wise, this would be,” Master Yoda said. “Matters of the Dark Side, not for politicians are.” He looked to Qui-gon. “If a Jedi Shadow to Mandalore or Concord Dawn we send, afraid are you that sense them, that youngling might?”

“The child detected Obi-wan easily, and chose to respond aggressively,” Qui-gon replied. “Whoever did train him appears to have instilled a hatred of the Jedi within him.”

Yoda nodded. “To a vote, the question of the Shadow we will put.”

Mace put his hand up to vote in favour of the suggestion. He had little experience of the Jedi Shadows himself, but he trusted in their training. He was confident that they would be able to pass undetected – and he could see no other way of reliably finding out what was going on in Mandalorian space in time to do anything about it.

“Meet again on this matter shortly we shall,” Master Yoda said, and dismissed Qui-gon and Obi-wan for their other meeting with the Chancellor.

There was other business to discuss before the Council could break for the rest of the day, but Mace didn’t have much ability to concentrate on it. Master Yaddle had exaggerated slightly when she said the Republic hadn’t known war for a thousand years – it hadn’t known large-scale war. There had been plenty of smaller conflicts – the Stark Hyperspace war had only been a couple of years ago, and there was always trouble somewhere across the galaxy as much as the Jedi did their best to de-escalate problems and find diplomatic solutions before it came to violence.

Could they find a diplomatic solution here?

Mace hadn’t been on the council at the time of Galidraan – he’d been trying to help resolve the Stark conflict lightyears further away down the Perlimian Trade Route, though not so far-distant on the galactic scale, all things considered. Master Dooku hadn’t spoken of it during their mission together last year, and Mace hadn’t known him well enough to judge how much it might have been affecting him. He knew the outline of it only because of how many had died. No Jedi was invulnerable, but Mandalorians were one of the few beings who could take Jedi on in head-to-head combat and come out on top. The Council sent enough Jedi to Galidraan that they had still prevailed, but all the Mandalorians and half the Jedi on that mission perished.

Revenge was a natural desire, one experienced by most sentient beings. For those who touched the Force it led towards the Dark Side, and for those who couldn’t, it frequently led to even more pain. Maul could understand it, would likely be tempted by it himself if the circ*mstances were right, but he believed if so, he would be able to set it aside and acknowledge that it wouldn’t truly help him find peace. That was the Jedi way. It wasn’t the way of all cultures, and particularly not warrior peoples such as the Mandalorians.

It was possible that Jango Fett’s honour would not be satisfied until he had his revenge on the Jedi Order. What form would honour demand his revenge should take? Would he try to claim the lives of the other Jedi who’d taken part in the slaughter that day, or would he desire far worse? That wasn’t even considering whether he wanted revenge against the Republic as a whole for the sins of the Mandalorian Excision.

“Master Windu?”

Mace looked up. Master Sifo-Dyas stood in front of his chair. Everyone else had already made their way out of the chamber, leaving the two of them behind. Mace hadn’t realised he was so deep in thought.

“Master Sifo-Dyas,” he acknowledged.

The older man said nothing for a moment. His body did not show any outward sign of his emotions; he stood relaxed with his hands folded behind his back. In the Force he was more conflicted. “Have you sensed anything of the coming future?” he finally asked.

“There are many shatterpoints,” Mace replied. “None of them are clear. Have you received any visions of your own, Master?”

Sifo-Dyas shook his head. “The Unifying Force has been clouded and strange now for at least a year. Before that I sensed the vague outlines of a coming conflict, years distant, but now even that has disappeared. The future… my impression is that the future is in flux.”

Mace leaned forward, his heart rate picking up slightly. “You believe that approaching conflict was another war with Mandalore?”

A very faint shiver echoed into the Force. “I dearly hope not,” Sifo-Dyas said quietly. “The warning I felt was of something… vast. Something spanning across the galaxy. If it was caused by the Mandalorians, then all of our worst fears would be realised.”

“Although they are fearsome warriors, they control only one sector,” Mace said. He felt confident in his own words, he wasn’t just saying this to calm the other man’s concerns. “It’s not possible for them to become that kind of galactic power in only a few years.”

“If they begin to expand and threaten to become an empire again, the Republic has no force capable of standing against them,” Sifo-Dyas replied. “We haven’t been an army since the Rusaan Reformation. The few planetary forces and sector fleets… that won’t do the job either.”

“That is Chancellor Valorum’s problem to solve, not ours, thank the Force.”

Master Sifo-Dyas wasn’t satisfied with that answer, but he didn’t argue the point any further. Instead, he inclined his head to Mace. “May the Force guide and protect us,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Watching him leave, Mace wondered what his true intention had been with that conversation. Was Sifo-Dyas planning to suggest a new plan to the Council? Did he want to secure Mace’s vote for it ahead of time? Although Mace thought he was on the right track there, he couldn’t imagine what the man’s idea might be.

The Mandalorian situation wasn’t one which would be fixed any time soon, that much was clear. They had time to cut off and prevent the nebulous future which bothered Sifo-Dyas so much. As Master Yoda would say, ‘always in motion the future is’. Nothing was set in stone.

It was not wise to worry about what one could not currently change. Mace rose and wandered towards the turbolift. Running through his katas down in the training salle would quiet his mind and reconnect him to the Living Force – if the Unifying Force had anything to say to him, it could make itself known just as well then too. All would be as the Force willed it.

----

“I should be going with you,” Quinlan Vos said, watching his master move between the closet and his travel bag, wishing his glare could somehow combust Master Tholme’s robes in his hands. At least then he would have to stick around long enough for the commissary to have them replaced or repaired rather than abandoning Quinlan here. “We’re a team, Master and Padawan. It’s not as though it would be the first Shadow mission we’ve done together.”

“This is not a typical mission,” Tholme replied. “The danger if either of us were detected is far too great to risk a padawan.”

“Are you worried I’m going to mess up?” Quinlan asked, his chest aching.

“No,” Tholme said, shooting him a serious look. “This is not a judgement on your capabilities, Quinlan. You are a good student, and I have never had any doubts about you. I hope you don’t doubt my faith in you either?”

Quinlan shook his head, the hurt quieting down to something more tender. This wasn’t just about being left behind. He could be self-aware, okay? He was worried about Master Tholme. “If it really is as dangerous as all that, promise me you’ll come back safely,” he said.

Tholme’s gaze softened, and he moved close enough to drop a comforting hand on Quinlan’s shoulder. There were a few layers of fabric between that and skin – and a few layers of mental shielding – but even so Quinlan could feel his Master’s emotions that way. Warm affection, pride, trust. His eyes slid half-closed of their own accord and he leaned into the touch.

“Quinlan. The risk is small, it is just that the consequences are dire. Not just the consequences for me personally – I am not about to die in Mandalorian space,” Tholme assured him. “If I have to fight my way out, I will, but that will firmly put a missile right into any chances for peace between the Jedi Order and the Mand’alor.”

“If that’s the case, why are you even going?” Quinlan asked. “Shouldn’t we just stay out of Mandalorian space and try and open diplomatic channels in the normal way?”

“The Chancellor will be handling that,” Tholme replied. “The Jedi Council has decided that knowing what’s going on out there is too important to act with more caution. Whether you and I agree with that or not doesn’t matter. It’s my job to go.”

Quinlan’s eyes narrowed now out of suspicion rather than relaxation. “You don’t approve, master.”

Tholme hesitated, but said, “I think it’s unwise to anger any Mandalorian, but even more so one who already has reason to hate us.”

“You shouldn’t have to go.”

“We take an oath as Jedi,” Master Tholme said. “We have power, so we have responsibilities. If I didn’t want to follow orders I could leave the Order – that’s a choice we all get to make – but I don’t feel that strongly about it. I can use this mission to do good and if I’m careful and wise, to help to stop a war. That’s worth it to me.”

Quinlan nodded. “I understand.” He felt a bit small and silly, childish for putting up such a fuss. “What should I do while you’re gone?” He doubted he would be allowed to slack off or mess around. Obi-wan was around the Temple right now, which was rare enough that he’d really welcome the opportunity to spend some time with his friend. Bant was training in the Halls of Healing, but Garen was off with his Master in the Outer Rim. The three of then could still sneak out of the Temple and head down into the lower levels for a bit of fun…

“Master Tera Sinube has offered to take you on until I return,” Master Tholme said.

“Master Sinube? Isn’t he attached to the Coruscant Security Force?” Quinlan asked. “That’s… different.”

“That’s right,” Tholme nodded. “I think it’ll be good for you. He is particularly skilled at reading emotions, which should be a good match for your psychometry. He has a wealth of knowledge to share about the criminal underworld.”

“Is he a Shadow as well?”

Master Tholme gave him a half-smile and tapped the side of his nose. “Now that would be telling. At any rate, he should be able to keep you out of trouble.”

“Trouble?” Quinlan replied, with a slightly forced grin. “Master, I don’t go looking for trouble. It just finds me.”

----

Galidraan. Yan Dooku sat back in his chair, drained by the conversation with his former padawan. He hadn’t known that Qui-gon was on a mission within Mandalorian space, and it would not have made any difference if he had, but… he worried about Qui-gon. He worried about every Jedi still at the mercy of the Galactic Senate.

Galidraan was not solely at the root of his problems with the Republic and the Order, nor had it been the final straw that pushed him to renounce his vows and leave, but it was a dragging heavy weight on his soul all the same, a lynchpin around which his other decisions turned. It marked a disaster of acting without thought, or leaping without looking… It had been a slaughter.

Yet Jango Fett was still alive.

Yan hadn’t checked the bodies, afterwards. The foul charnel stink on the air, the overlapping echoes of pain and death poisoning the Force, they’d driven him away from the battlefield. He took the time only to help his own people, to carry their wounded to their waiting ships and get them to medical care as fast as possible. Lightsabers killed in brutal ways. He had no desire to pick over pieces of bodies. The only people still moving were Jedi, and since a Mandalorian soldier would not stop fighting until they were dead, he had assumed…

That had been a mistake.

Jango Fett. Mand’alor Fett. There was no world in which he would not seek revenge, nor could Yan blame him for this. Galidraan should not have happened. It shouldn’t have turned to violence like that, but from the moment the Mandalorians opened fire Yan knew that a mistake had been made somewhere, too far back to undo. With battle joined he could not second-guess himself, couldn’t do anything other than try to survive. It was far from the first time he’d killed other sentients, but it still sickened him. Yes, these Mandalorians were murderers, blood-thirsty conquerors without mercy as the governor of Galidraan would have it, but the Force still sang with sorrow at their passing.

In the days after they returned to the Temple, Yan spent a great deal of time trying to find the time and place where it went wrong. Why were the Mandalorians on the planet in the first place? Why had they killed locals? What did they have to gain there? There were too many unanswered questions, and the dossier the Senate provided them before the mission was concerningly thin. Yan Dooku knew when he was being played for a fool and this… this stank of an underhand deal somewhere.

The facts presented to the Jedi Council were these. A request for aid sent to the Senate from the planetary ruler. A report of wanton slaughter of innocents by Mandalorian terrorists and a desperate plea to save his people. Accurate information about their numbers, their last known location, the name of their faction – the “True Mandalorians” – and their leader Jango Fett. Documented and convincing evidence of the aftermath of their crimes. The stamped seal of the Senate approving the mission and urging them to act “with all haste”.

That was all. No mention of motivation. No mention of the political dimensions of the situation.

After his injuries were fully treated – no more than a few light burns where blaster bolts skimmed past him, the air too full of them for even his perfected Makashi to deflect – Yan asked to return to Galidraan. The Mandalorians were dead, yes, but their camp hadn’t been touched. He was certain there would be evidence there explaining what their intentions had been. Frankly, whether or not he suspected foul play it would still have been wise to find this out. They could not assume that simply because this group of Mandalorians were dead, that others wouldn’t come, trying to achieve the same mysterious ends. He also had some pointed questions for the governor. The information in his report had been too detailed in some parts, and utterly lacking detail to a suspicious degree in others.

Master Che insisted his desire for a further investigation was “survivor’s guilt”, of all things! He wasn’t casting about for someone to blame because he couldn’t accept his own mistakes! If it had just been bad luck, if violence had been inevitable and their sacrifice had saved lives, that much he would understand. None of those things were true. They’d been rushed into this from the start, moving on without time to think, to assess the situation, to plan, to spot whatever it was that was deeply wrong with what they had been told.

The Jedi Council told him that the Senate pronounced the matter dealt with and had closed the case. They had no authorisation to look into it any further.

Despite their reluctance at the time to defy the wishes of the Senate, now they intended to investigate Galidraan again. Now, three years too late!

The trail, if there’d been one, would be long cold by now. The only person who might know the truth was Jango Fett himself, and he would surely rather shoot a Jedi than answer their questions.

Count Dooku would remind the Jedi Council of his warnings at the time, he would tell them what little he knew – he hadn’t left anything out of his report so he could hardly imagine what additional information they believed they could get from him now – then he would do what he chose as an independent ruler of a sovereign planet.

Independent of the Jedi. Not independent of the Galactic Republic. Just as the yoke of the Senate weighed heavily over his neck as a Jedi Master, so too did it weigh heavily on him now. It couldn’t be so easily escaped. He was the Count of Serenno, yet he still answered to Senator D’Asta who had the ultimate authority over the affairs of this sector.

That was a problem which also lacked any easy solution. Yan would find one in time. Leaving the Order was no toothless protest, and although he was growing older he had a few good decades in him yet.

For now, Galidraan and the Mandalorians. Count Yan Dooku had to be the last person that Jango Fett wanted to hear from, yet Yan owed him… something. Some cultures accepted reparations other than blood for wrongs done to them, and Serenno did not lack for resources.

All he could do was reach out, an offering of peace. Yan hoped it didn’t end with assassins knocking at his door.

----

Quinlan was bored. He kicked his feet underneath the bench they were waiting on, staring at the Senate guard stationed half-way down the corridor. She was settled into an absent-minded haze of her own, which made her feel rather fuzzy in the Force. At least he wasn’t the only one. At least he’d get to leave again after this meeting. She was stuck here all day, every day. Probably the worst thing she’d had to deal with was people puking on the nice carpets after an illicit after-hours office party.

“Calm, young padawan,” Master Sinube told him, reaching over to tap Quinlan’s knee with his cane.

“When Master Tholme told me I would be working for you, I imagined more high-speed chases and back-alley showdowns, not dull meetings with Senators,” Quinlan replied.

“Most crime is very far from exciting,” the cosian said, tone dry.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Master. Just… what crime are we even investigating here?”

Before Master Sinube had a chance to reply, the door to the Senator’s office opened, and an aide poked his head out. “Apologies for the delay,” he said. “Another meeting ran over, and the Senator had to make sure he was ready to receive such distinguished guests as the Jedi.”

Everything in the Senator’s office suite was very red, from the carpet to the walls to the furniture, but the corridor outside had been decorated in a similar way too. It might be a general style for this entire floor of the building. The suite was separated into several areas by transparent doors – it could be transparisteel, clear plasteel, or even a cheaper and less durable material, Quinlan wasn’t sure. The Senator himself stood up from his desk to greet them, ushering them over to some couches upholstered in burgundy synthleather.

“Senator Sheev Palpatine, of the Chommell Sector, at your disposal, Master Jedi,” he said, with a wide and kindly smile. “Is it Jedi or Jedis, where there are two of you? Please pardon me for not being properly aware of the forms of address.”

“It is also Jedi for the pleural,” Master Sinube said, unruffled by the eagerness to please that poured from the Senator in waves. “I am Jedi Master Tera Sinube, and this is Jedi Padawan Quinlan Vos. Is this your first time working with our Order then, Senator?”

“I haven’t previously had the pleasure,” Senator Palpatine replied. “I hadn’t actually realised when I volunteered for the Senate Investigation Committee that it would mean Jedi involvement. It’s quite exciting!”

Quinlan had met and worked with Senators before alongside Master Tholme, but not many. Usually, they were dropped into the thick of a planetary culture, making their way amongst the locals and regular people. Outside of that, planetary governors and rulers were more likely to ask for Jedi help than Senators. Not many people knew how to act around Jedi, when they knew they were Jedi. Quinlan had sensed all kinds of reactions from them, ranging from contempt, disbelief and disgust, to fear and hero-worship and jealousy and admiration. Everything he sensed from Senator Palpatine was at least pleasant.

He tried to guess how old the other man was. There were a few streaks of grey in his auburn hair, but not many. His face had a few laugh lines. Not quite old enough to be called middle-aged, but not very young – somewhere in that nebulous prime of life where it was hard to tell.

“My role is usually with the security force as an investigator,” Master Sinube explained. “Sadly for us all, crime is not confined by class or creed or species. Corruption remains a problem within the Senate body, and at times that corruption breaks not only the rules of the Senate itself, but it goes so far as to break the law.”

Senator Palpatine nodded, his face becoming grave. “I understand the dangers of corruption all too well, Master Jedi,” he said. “My home planet of Naboo is hardly immune to underhand dealings – rather the opposite, in fact. Over the last few years I have started to draft some plans to institute regulation to better restrain the spending of commercial interests in politics, but it’s difficult to find anyone to sign on to that. There is certainly a place for businesses to have their say, but…” He cut himself off, waving his hand. “Look at me going on about pet matters. Do excuse me. How can I actually be of assistance to you today?”

“Are you familiar with the Senator for your neighbours, the Auli Sector?” Master Sinube began.

“Senator Lilleti, yes,” Palpatine said. “Oh dear, has she done something to come to the attention of CorSec?”

Master Sinube began to explain the slightly complicated chain of evidence they’d assembled so far linking Lilleti to an operation smuggling large shipments of poorly constructed electrical goods onto Coruscant in violation of both safety standards and import taxes, to be sold to the citizens of the underlayers at market-saturating low prices. Although nobody who lived in the top levels of Coruscant would like to admit it, there was a lot of poverty on the planet. People who could barely afford food and utilities would snap up a bargain to get that small taste of luxury, and have no recourse when some percentage of the items literally blew up in their faces.

Quinlan admitted he might have zoned out a bit while Master Sinube and Senator Palpatine were hashing out the details of how they would co-operate to further investigate the case. He knew that he was supposed to be learning, and that included learning how to talk to politicians, but so far as he could tell all that really seemed to mean was talking politely around a problem. Mostly in the end people did what Tera Sinube wanted, but they’d get there a lot faster if everyone could just come out and say what they meant.

This wasn’t the kind of spy-and-Shadow-work that Quinlan was interested in. He’d much rather be sneaking into someplace, watching targets and following them around, talking to plain-spoken ordinary folk… Just what he’d been doing up until now.

Master Sinube started to stand up – Quinlan snapped back to reality. Were they done already? He started to rise too, but Senator Palpatine quickly raised his hand.

“There’s one other thing that just occurred to me, if you have another five minutes?”

Master Sinube settled back down. “Of course.”

Palpatine folded his hands together in his lap. “I have been a senator for ten years,” he said, “yet this is my first time speaking to a Jedi. It feels like rather a shame. The Jedi Order is vital to keeping peace throughout the Republic and beyond, just as we politicians do our best to make life as quiet, pleasant, and orderly as possible for the citizens we represent. Why is it that we don’t work more closely with each other?”

Master Sinube’s smile was pleasant, but it didn’t go any more than skin-deep. “We do our best for the people of the galaxy, but at heart our Order is a religious one. It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to be too entangled with politics. We must always remain a neutral party. Interests within the Senate are too divided…”

Senator Palpatine waved these objections away. “I do understand all of that, but even the most impartial person can’t avoid politics entirely. I have an idea – perhaps you would do me the honour of taking it back to the Temple for consideration by your Jedi Masters?”

Master Sinube tapped his staff against the floor – it made no noise, cushioned by the plush carpet. It was born more from impatience than anything, Quinlan could tell. “What is your idea?”

“The Senate already has a… a kind of patronage programme, or apprenticeship, for promising young people who are interested in a career in politics,” the Senator explained. “While I’m sure your young… padawans, you said they’re called? They obviously have their own classes, but a little practical experience might not go amiss. While it would need the support and resources of the administrative branch, I think it would be an excellent idea to invite some of the Jedi to join in the Junior Legislature.”

Master Sinube frowned, but there was a thoughtfulness to him now which hadn’t been present before. “We will consider it.”

Senator Palpatine spread his hands. “That is all that I ask.”

It wasn’t the worst idea Quinlan had ever heard. Perhaps if he could get down to the meat of what the Senate did, could see the levers and gears and momentum of it all, it would make more sense. It might just be more sitting in rooms, but at least if it was a bunch of kids of around the same age as him then they might be able to have real conversations.

“I hope we’ll see each other again,” Senator Palpatine said, as they left his office.

Quinlan nodded, mostly to be polite. Sheev Palpatine was nice enough, but he wasn’t very interesting.

Chapter 24

Chapter Text

“That was well done, brother,” Savage said. “I know speaking of the Sith wasn't something you wanted, but… I think buir and Silas needed to know.” The adults had left them to their own devices again after their afternoon of lightsaber training. Maul had been able to forget the raw feeling in his chest, the vividness of the vision-memories wearing down as even these brief hours trickled past, but it flared up brightly again at the reminder. Savage had not intended to cause him pain, but Maul still growled softly, a low rumble in his chest.

“I need no congratulations ,” he said. “They came to their own conclusions - being coy was pointless after that.”

“You said you're not a Sith anymore,” Feral added. “Does that mean we're going to train with you differently? Because before, you said we were all going to be Sith…”

“I was fooling myself, not fooling you,” Maul told him, his words emerging more clipped and abrupt than he liked or had intended. He had stopped calling himself a Sith years ago, some time during his years with Crimson Dawn, even before his failed gambit on Malachor. He was merely Maul, standing alone - his Master had rejected him, so he rejected his Master in turn. Why had travelling back in time made him forget that? Why had he started to think of himself as Sith again?

The only reason he could think of was because of Savage. Because he had returned to the mindset of an old self, an ambitious self, who set himself up as another Sith Master with a Sith Apprentice intending to challenge Darth Sidious… Yes, even though he knew better than to think the two of them could kill Sidious by themselves, some part of him believed a lie of his own making, a poisonous hope, a dream long-forgotten but not yet dead…

That was his mistake - one he now had to face.

“It's… hard,” Pre said, “to leave the past behind.”

Maul’s instinct was to throw the words back at him and suggest he could not understand, but that would not have been fair. Pre Fett had left his former family and accepted a new one, even if it had been forced on him. No, Clan Vizsla had not rejected him, nor had it lied to him and mistreated him when he was a part of it, but surely that made the loss all the keener.

“The Sith do not have family,” Maul said, deciding he had to be honest. “I did not forget that, but I pretended that part of Sith philosophy did not exist. The Sith code might not mention it, but the Code is not the whole law of the Sith just as the Resol'nare is only a starting point for Mando'ade. I… I believed at the start we would just be Sith together, that being brothers would not be relevant, but that too was another lie.”

Silence hung heavy.

“Maul,” Savage said - the simplicity of his own name tore at the inside of Maul's chest.

“No,” he answered, “No, keep on calling me brother, please . I was wrong. You, Feral, you are my family. Kilindi,” he added, turning to her with the same desperation clawing him, “you are my family too. I don’t need to call Jango buir for that to be true. Even you…” He looked at Pre. Somewhat grudgingly, he said, “You are the brother of my siblings, so that does make us family of a kind.”

“I'm honoured to be part of your aliit , Maul,” Pre said - more sentiment than Maul was comfortable with. It was worse that Maul could sense that it was heartfelt through the Force. Without beskar to block it, Pre’s emotions shone out true. “You’re an excellent warrior, particularly for your age. Your skills with a lightsaber were… impressive. You are loyal, bold, fierce - you have all the proper qualities of a Mandalorian.”

Maul refused to be embarrassed by this, but he did not know how to respond. Jango had praised him in the time since coming to Concord Dawn, but Maul didn’t need to trust it - he already knew that Jango wanted him as a child. Praise was but a lure on a line and he could see the purpose of it. If his siblings complimented him that was… that was the way of family, or so he had to suppose. Sidious had never offered the slightest sign that he was pleased - to do well was simply to not be punished for failure. With Crimson Dawn, compliments were bribes, requests, attempts to soothe a predator’s ire. Meaningless.

Pre did not fit into any such category.

Maul said instead, “This curse of yours - if it even does exist, it is something of the Jedi. If Clan Vizsla fears the Light, the Dark is open for you instead.”

Pre’s attention sharpened, a hunter scenting a trail. “You’d teach me the secrets of the Sith too?”

“I said you were family,” Maul replied. It came out a little sharp, though he’d tried to sound nonchalant.

“I…” He wanted it. Outside of his beskar’gam shell there was something raw to Pre Fett’s soul, a yearning and desire for something he didn’t know enough to identify. “It isn’t the Mandalorian way.”

“It isn’t the Mandalorian way to reject a weapon, even one they are not familiar with,” Maul said.

Kilindi tapped him on the forearm, a warning gesture. “Maul, it might be better to wait until the goran says it’s okay.”

Maul didn’t really believe Pre would come to any harm, but there also was no particular reason for haste. He shrugged, giving in easily. He did add, “ Goran has said nothing against continuing our training,” gesturing to Feral and Savage.

“You could sit in with us?” Feral suggested, his face lighting up. “You don’t have to do anything, just watch… or sense , I guess.”

“I… suppose I will,” Pre replied.

It was enough to satisfy Maul for now. They would not be Sith, but something new. Eventually he would even come up with an appropriate name for what that was.

----

Over the course of about a week the representatives from Houses and Clans started to arrive at Fort Mereel. The first to turn up were obviously the ones that had the shortest distance to come – Clan Rau were based here on Concord Dawn, for example, and Dell Rau was the Captain of the Protectors. It was a bit odd to see her standing on their doorstep as some kind of supplicant, more so since Silas hadn’t turned in his notice at the Protectors office at any point and technically still worked for her.

“It’s fine,” she said when she saw him. “Some things are more important than your day job.”

As Jacek had promised, most of the people turning up were firmly on Jango’s side, former Haat’ade or associated clans who had either gone back to being neutral or turned to Kyr’tsad only because they didn’t see any better option for their peoples’ future when the alternative was the New Mandalorians. The real Death Watch contingent arrived all together on the seventh day, signalling their approach from the far end of the glacier-carved valley and coming in to land in a pair of Kom’rk transports painted in subdued House Vizsla colours.

Jango didn’t have much choice but to go out and meet them in person with Jacek, Silas and Pre. He wasn't about to risk the ade around Kyr'tsad , even if they claimed they were here under a banner of truce. To be honest he would have preferred to keep Pre back and well away from his viper-nest of a family as well, but then it might have looked… like Pre was an actual hostage, rather than his newly adopted son. Or like he was afraid of Kyr’tsad . It was more important to present a confident and united front.

Jango didn’t know any of the individual clan members by sight, just their general clan markings. Alongside the two actual Vizslas, there were a pair in Saxon’s red and white, a Vau in matte black, three from Clan Tarn in deep blue with lighter aqua accents, one in Gedyc tan, and one in the flat blood-crimson favoured by Clan Priest. Naturally they were all armed, but they kept their hands where they belonged, well away from any weapons.

“Jango Fett,” one of the Vizslas called out in greeting.

“That’s me.” Jango forced down the urge to reach for his blasters, hooking his thumbs into his belt instead - the better to resist temptation. Just the sight of the black shriek-hawk on their shoulders was putting his back up, a cold rush of adrenaline. It was different with Pre and Bo-Katan – they were familiar enough to him now that he could relax around them, and their lanky teenage builds didn’t register as quite the same threat as full-grown warriors did.

The Vizsla alor made a show of looking around. “Never thought we’d be visiting Fort Mereel this way.”

Pre had made a similar comment. Conquest was all that Death Watch thought about. Jango didn’t want them visiting his home for any reason, but he didn’t have any choice but to play nice. He wasn’t like Kyr’tsad – merciless and refusing even the idea of surrender. He wouldn’t condemn all of House Vizsla for Tor’s crimes. If he was Mand’alor then they were his people too, as much as he hated that. Since he wasn’t blood-mad enough to kill them all, there was no other option but to try and bring them into the fold.

Pre tapped his helmet comms and said, “That’s Taj Vizsla, my cousin once removed.”

“ Vor’e ,” Jango replied. That made sense – she had a kad strapped to one thigh, and a long knife on the other; a needle-like kalik .

Taj approached with a feline’s slow prowl. She was lanky but strong, still muscular beneath kute and beskar'gam. She wasn’t certain of her welcome here, and Jango had no doubt she was ready for this to turn violent at any moment. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of striking first. If she wanted to challenge him she could do it formally, the same as anyone else. The dark slit of her buyce turned from him to Pre, standing by his side.

“Pre,” she said. “I hear it’s Pre Fett now.”

Pre took off his helmet, attempting to smile. It was mostly just bared teeth, tightness wrinkling around his eyes. “That’s right.”

She co*cked her head. The rest of her Kyr’tsad entourage held back a few paces. Hair prickled up and down Jango’s spine. His instincts screamed at him, but they would have been doing that no matter what – he couldn’t trust them to know real threats from imagined ones. In Mando'a, Taj said, [ Were you nothing but a defenceless war-child then, too afraid to face their enemies? How quickly did you kneel? ]

Pre’s spine straightened, his shoulders squaring up to her. [ I attempted to avenge Tor and I failed. Jango defeated me in a duel – he had the right to demand… ]

[ Tor? ] She interrupted him. [ You call your sire by name? You no longer recognise them as your parent? ]

[ I no longer have that right, ] Pre said, with a faint note of confusion. [ Tor is dead and Jango claimed all the rights they used to have. ]

Taj moved as fast as a lunging viper, too fast for Jango to have gotten in her way. By the time his hands left his belt she’d already completed her blow. The noise of the backhand slap echoed through the air. Pre’s head snapped to the side, and he staggered sideways a step.

With a rough noise of pain, he raised his hand to his cheek – it was already starting to swell, and the beskar gauntlet had split his skin. His fingers came back bloody.

[ Traitor, ] Taj Vizsla hissed. [ If you were too weak and pathetic to take revenge, you should have let this murderer kill you rather than subjugate yourself to them. ]

Jango’s shock morphed rapidly into rage, a hot buzz that filled his skull. He wasn’t thinking, just reacting – the Dha’kad’au was in his hand, the black blade humming to life pointed at this hut’unn’s neck. [ Don’t you dare lay a hand on my child! ] he snarled.

Taj slid back a pace, her hands dropping to her own weapons. He couldn’t see her expression, but she sounded smug . [ Defending a faithless worm like this? Don’t you know they’ll turn on you as easily as they did their birth parent? ]

Jango wanted to kill her. He wanted it very badly.

[ There’s no honour in provoking me, ] he said, managing to gather up the threads of his self-control. He dipped the tip of the Darksaber, down and up again. [ This is what you want, right? So keep this between you and me. Challenge me, and I’ll fight you. Let’s get it over with. ]

[ It’s not just about you , Mand’alor. ] Taj spat his title with contempt – but she still used it. She couldn’t deny the weapon he held, she couldn’t deny Tor’s death by his hands. She couldn’t call him false without rejecting the very rules she lived by. [ The traitor has insulted the honour of our clan. Right now you can protect them, but make no mistake. If you lose to me, then after I kill you Pre Fett will be the next to die. ]

[ Guess I’d better not lose. ] Jango replied.

Taj drew her bes’kad , the beskar singing faintly with the vibrations of being pulled from its sheath. The slender kalik in her other hand was held low, needle-sharp at the tip for stabbing into the gaps between plates of beskar’gam and penetrating through the kute . [ Ready to die? ]

[ You want to do this out here? ]

[ Why not? We have witnesses. Are you trying to back out already? ]

Jango motioned to Silas, Pre and Jacek, who moved back to give them more space. He levelled the Dha’kad’au in the opening guard of the form which Maul said was called Makashi. Taj’s two blades were a set of pincers, ready to catch him between them. Both had to be forged of pure beskar – she wouldn’t have risked anything less against the Dha’kad’au . The bes’kad even had a looping guard to protect her hand and stop the searing plasma blade taking off a finger or two.

The other Kyr’tsad representatives retreated to the edges of the landing platform as well, watching him with predatory intensity. When he killed Taj – he couldn’t allow himself to consider any other outcome – would they give him any time to recover before the next challenge? How many of them would come at him?

Thinking of any fight other than the one in front of you was a bad idea, the kind that got you killed. Jango lowered his head and focused. He was a good marksman, good at unarmed hand-to-hand, but middling with kade . This week’s training with Maul had knocked the rust off him, but not much more. If he’d been smarter about this he would have started off with blasters, tried to get her with his flamethrower maybe. The moment he drew the Dha’kad’au though, he was committed.

Taj planned this. Striking Pre might have been what she wanted to do, but this was the real motivation behind it - to begin this duel on her terms and give herself the greatest possible advantage.

Jango didn't have much time to think about how he might have just kriffed up. Taj came at him, a looping overhand strike with her bes'kad . Jango dodged it, but she wasn't just testing him - she pressed forwards with the edge of her blade flashing through the air, graceful and deadly. Jango had to parry - the Dha'kad'au spat plasma as it encountered true beskar . The moment the blades met, Taj slid towards him bringing their bodies near, catching the Dha'kad’au against her handguard and stabbing her kalik towards his flank. Jango slammed his open left hand against the inside of her wrist and the tip of the kalik caught his kute just below his right tricep.

In the brief moment of entanglement Jango rolled the Dha'kad'au forward over the guard, hoping to lever it into her neck, but Taj wouldn't be caught out that way. She ducked backwards, breaking their lock, and thrust forwards again with her bes'kad . Swearing, Jango brought the Dha'kad'au up to dash it aside, stepping in to stab at that vulnerable place below her buy'ce once again. Taj ducked - the Dha'kad'au skimmed the side of her buy'ce but only seared the paint off. A sharp pain lit up the side of Jango's thigh; he flinched back instinctively, staggering slightly. He risked a glance down - blood stained the tip of her kalik , and his kute just at the edge of his cuisse was torn and wet.

The tilt of Taj's head was as clear as a smirk.

Osik . She was good. Better at this kind of fighting than he was - but Mandalorians weren't beholden to any one weapon. Just because he'd drawn the Dha'kad'au on her didn't mean he couldn't use anything else. Jango circled cautiously, testing his weight on his right leg. His thigh burned, but held. He didn't think the kalik had sunk in very deep - or if it had, adrenaline would see him through the fight. It didn't feel like he was losing very much blood.

Inside his helmet, he tongued the activation to power on his grappling line. He didn't fire it yet - he might only get one chance at it, since if he missed her sword arm the cutting edge of that bes'kad would make short work of the razor-wire. He waited for her to come at him again.

Jango didn't have to wait long - Taj didn't seem to be naturally patient. That might help him, so long as he could survive her aggression. He let muscle memory take over to block each circling strike aimed towards his head, his neck, his arms, not letting her lock him again or get close enough to reach him with the kalik . All he needed was one moment when she was out of position, just off-balance enough…

There.

Jango triggered his gauntlet - the wire lashed out and wrapped around Taj's right wrist just where he'd hoped. Jango stepped backwards at once, yanking hard. He took Taj off guard - she stumbled, arm pulled down. She lashed at the taut line with her kalik but that weapon had a minimal cutting profile, designed only to pierce, and pierce deep, and the line wouldn't break. Jango brought down the Dha'kad'au, aiming for her unprotected elbow.

He nearly had her. Taj managed to get the kalik in the way, but only just, and it was a poor angle. The comparatively simple crossguard of the kalik offered much less protection, and the black plasma sizzled agonisingly close to her hand. Jango kept the tension on the line and struck again, violent, swift blows. Taj couldn't risk doing anything with her kalik other than blocking him, not unless she wanted to risk losing her arm. She struggled against his grappling line, tugging back with strength that, while formidable, wasn't quite the match for his own. Just because she wasn't as strong didn't mean he could hold her entirely in place though, and she was trying to pull back far enough that one of his own attacks would miss her entirely and slice through the razor-wire instead. With each tug the wire tightened, cutting further into the protective barrier of her kute and restricting blood flow to her hand.

Taj pulled wildly again, then kicked out. Her boot slammed into his thigh right where Jango was injured, forcing a grunt of pain out of his throat. His leg nearly buckled, but he just managed to gather himself and not fall. Taj used the moment of distraction well, the slack in the line enough for her to move her arm to get her bes'kad against it so that when it went taut again it parted over the edge.

Freed, Taj was the one to back up, sheathing her kalik so she could grab the trailing end of the wire properly and unwrap it from her wrist, hissing the whole time.

[ Not bad ] she snarled, though with a genuinely admiring edge.

Jango retracted the remnants of the razor-wire back into his gauntlet. What he really needed was to get rid of at least one of her weapons properly. He dropped the Dha'kad'au into a side guard position, and rested his other hand on his pistol. It was worth a shot.

Taj could tell what he was thinking. She finally freed herself of the last of the wire and threw it aside, lunging at him again. Jango had his blaster out quick as thought, squeezing off as many shots as he could as she closed in. Taj caught a few of them with the flat of her bes'kad , her technique not dissimilar to that of the jettise even though she wasn't able to control how the bolts bounced the way the jettise could, and took the rest on her beskar'gam . Jango met her with the Dha'kad'au in a flurry of strike-parry-strike-parry-strike, sparks flying, beskar and plasma singing. The kalik stabbed at his side again, a viper in her off-hand, one he couldn't risk forgetting was there. He could tell there wasn't as much power in her dominant hand now though - the wire had done some damage, robbed her of some stability through the joint. After one clash where Jango felt he'd almost managed to twist the kad out of her grasp entirely, she sheathed the kalik again and turned to a two-handed grip on the hilt of the beskad .

Better , Jango thought to himself.

He still had his blaster out - he'd used the barrel to block the kalik a few times, since the durasteel would only take real damage from the tip of it. He fended off a few more of her strikes, let her get him in another clinch, and shoved the pistol up against her belly under her cuirass.

She felt it there even before he pulled the trigger, but she couldn't get out of the way in time. The bolt sizzled into her kute , which did help absorb some of the energy, but nowhere near enough at such close range. She doubled over - Jango didn't wait for her to recover. A gut shot could kill slowly, but as long as she was alive she was still dangerous. She wouldn't accept his mercy - her words to Pre proved that. He let her back away a step, holding the bes'kad wavering in front of her, a weak defence, then shot her again. Despite the pain she was in, she still juked the bes'kad sideways to block - he kept on firing until she was overwhelmed, until she'd been hit in half-a-dozen other places.

Taj Vizsla fell to her knees, propping herself up on one hand and one elbow, a death-grip on the hilt of her bes'kad . Jango moved to flank her, refusing to limp despite the ever more insistent pain in his right leg. He could ask if she had any final words, but he wasn't interested in hearing them. He hadn't given Tor that honour; he wouldn't give it to this Vizsla either.

He brought the Dha'kad'au down and cut off her head.

The body collapsed, limp dead weight. Jango didn't extinguish the Dha'kad'au , not trusting that he was out of danger just yet.

The other Vizsla stepped forwards. [ Pol Vizsla, ] he introduced himself, tapping his bes'karta . [ That was well done. I knew you had to be something worthwhile, given you took Tor out like they say. You know they never found all of him? Just beskar'gam and bones. ] That had been the Corellian dire-cats, but Jango wasn't about to point that out.

[ You planning on being the next to die? ] he said.

Pol shook his head. [ Someone has to stay alive to talk sensibly about the future. To be honest, if Taj became the next Mand'alor my head might have been on the chopping block right next to Pre's - my family aren't that fond of me either. Taj agreed that I could tag along mostly on sufferance. I'm not going to issue a challenge - but I can't speak for anyone else. ]

Jango looked round at the rest of them. The clan Priest verd rolled his shoulders and nodded at him. “I don't see why Vizslas should have all the fun,” he said. “Besides, it's not like fighting well makes you the best candidate to lead our people. Way I see it, you're still weak, you and the rest of your Haat'ade aliit. Glory or death, that's the way it should be.”

One of Tor's true believers. Jango returned his nod. “You gonna tell me your name before I kill you?”

“Dred Priest,” the verd replied, and charged him.

Jango didn't see any beskar weapons on him, so he wasn't sure where Priest was going with this. He snapped off a few blaster shots anyway, because it would have been stupid not to. If he got lucky and stopped the man in his tracks before he could get in close, all the better. Dred popped out a small deflector shield from his vambrace and blocked. Then he was an arm's-length away. Jango aimed the Dha'kad'au in an upward swipe at the join of thigh and hip - Priest triggered his jetpack and jumped, twisting as he did. His boot whipped right at Jango's head - an awkward kriffing angle to dodge. Jango had to take the blow as best he could, the momentum of his own strike making it impossible to duck, spinning with the force of it rather than taking it straight on. His buy'ce still clanged and stars went off behind his eyes.

Dred landed somewhere on the other side of him - Jango whirled to face him, unsteady on his feet, holding the Dha’kad’au in a diagonal protecting his chest and shoulders. His HUD fritzed briefly before focusing. Priest yelled and came at him again. Jango angled the tip of the Dha'kad'au, half-hoping he'd impale himself on it, but he didn't get that lucky. Dred used his shield to knock the Dha'kad'au aside and tackled Jango full-on, bringing them both down to the ground and knocking the breath out of Jango's lungs. He couldn't even manage to curse.

Dred reared back to punch him - Jango writhed underneath him and managed to move just enough that he punched the pourcrete of the landing platform instead, though his beskar gauntlets stopped the man from breaking his hand. The arm holding the Dha'kad'au was pinned, but Dred didn't control the grapple entirely. Jango twisted, shifting his weight up through his hips, hooking his free hand onto Dred's pauldron and rolling them. In a tangle of beskar'gam they switched places - the searing heat of the Dha'kad'au was between them, far too close for either of them to be safe from it. Jango wrenched his arm aside before they both cooked, carving a deep gash into the ground in the process. His left hand was still free, though his blaster had gone flying off somewhere - he punched Priest in the throat. The other man didn't get his chin down in time - Jango felt his larynx crumple.

Dred coughed - or tried to. It came out garbled, wet and deeply unpleasant. Jango had experienced the panic of being unable to breathe once or twice before, so it didn't surprise him when Priest scrabbled at his neck rather than continuing to fight him. Jango grabbed the lower rim of his buy'ce and bounced his head off the ground a few times spitefully, thinking it would pay him back properly for kicking him in the head.

Jango's hair was damp, making the padding of his buy'ce stick to the back of his scalp unpleasantly, but he didn't know if that was blood or sweat.

If Dred hadn't been wearing beskar , the repeated impacts might have killed him, but as it was it would only be deeply unpleasant. He was still breathing, wheezing in just enough air that Jango couldn't assume he'd die from that either. Besides, this had been a formal challenge, and the Dha'kad'au was sizzling half-buried in the pourcrete right next to him. Jango pulled it free and stabbed it down between the plates of beskar’gam through Dred Priest's heart.

Then he sank back on his knees, pain and nausea sweeping over him. [ Anyone else ? ] he demanded.

Nobody else moved forward. The Vau verd in black clashed their vambraces together twice, a brief expression of approval. [ Not bad, not bad, ] they said. [ I'm satisfied, anyway. ]

Others nodded agreement.

Jango let himself relax, though as adrenaline drained and left him feeling all the aches and pains from the fight he immediately wished he hadn't. He blinked and all of a sudden Silas was there next to him, crouching to get an arm under his shoulders and helping him up.

[ How bad is it? ] he asked, over internal comms.

[ Still alive, ] Jango replied, suppressing a grunt of pain when he tried to put weight on his right leg. Being stabbed there had been bad enough before the extra strain of the grapple. He wasn't sure he'd be able to walk without Silas’ help.

Pol Vizsla approached, though he stopped a careful distance away. [ Do you need a break before we talk business? ]

Jango would dearly have liked to be able to say no to that, but pride on its own wasn't enough to keep him clear-headed enough for politics through the pain, or to keep the blood inside his body for that matter. Kyr'tsad might decide it was weakness and it might erode a bit of the respect he'd just won from them, but collapsing in front of them would be even worse.

[ Jacek will get you settled, ] he told them. [ When I'm ready to talk, someone will come and find you. ]

Pol nodded, thankfully not objecting.

Back over by one of the Kom'rks, Vau was ducking back inside. Jango spotted him by the movement in the corner of his eye and turned his head to look properly. Pol followed the tilt of his helmet. [ Do you mind pets? ] he asked, rather incongruously.

[ Pets? ] Jango asked.

His question was answered a moment later when Vau emerged again with a fully grown strill on his heels. If not for the fact that the wind was blowing away from them, down the mountain towards the valley, Jango might have already been able to smell it - strill musk was strong .

[ Why did he bring that? ] Silas asked, his voice flat and unimpressed.

Hearing the question, Vau answered, “I never go anywhere without him. Thought it best he stay inside until the fighting was over - Mird can be a bit excitable.”

[ Can you imagine if a strill became the Mand'alor? ] Pol said, with an effort at making a joke. Vau didn’t laugh.

Jango might have been able to find this a hit more amusing if he wasn't nursing what he was starting to suspect was a concussion. [ So long as you keep that thing under control, we won't have a problem. ]

“Lord Mirdalan will be on his best behaviour.”

Lord Mirdalan? What a kriffing name. Well, over-indulged strills were a problem for later.

Jango tapped Silas on the shoulder. He didn't need to say anything; Silas understood. He helped him off the landing platform, back through Fort Mereel, and in the direction of the nearest baar’ur . Pre trailed close behind them, but one person to lean on was enough for Jango. He just wanted Pre well away from his damn relatives.

Chapter 25

Chapter Text

Jango did feel a great deal better after his injuries were sprayed down with bacta and sealed over with a dermal regenerator. He would have a fair few bruises tomorrow, but nothing bad enough that he needed a full soak in a bacta tube, just some more topical gel applications over the next few days. He accepted some pain tabs just to get the dull ache in his head to stop long enough to see him through this meeting - he didn't want to leave those Kyr'tsad verde hanging around long enough to get into trouble.

Once Thae, House Mereel’s baar’ur, was finished with him, Jango gestured towards Pre. [ Let them look at you, ] he said.

Pre's shoulders jumped - surprise and something a bit defensive. [ It's just my cheek, ] he said. [ It doesn't need anything. ]

[ We're not hard up for bacta, ] Jango told him. [ Should I make it an order? I can if you'll feel better about it. ]

[ A few scars aren't anything to be bothered about, ] Pre answered, but he sat down and let Thae examine him. [ It's my own fault anyway - I shouldn't have taken my helmet off around an enemy. ]

[ Taj shouldn't have been your enemy, ] Jango growled.

Pre's face was blank, although Jango could tell it was a mask forced over whatever he really felt. [ I knew they might react this way, ] he said. [ It doesn't matter. They stopped being my family the moment you said the oath to me and I allowed it. I can't expect… ]

[ It doesn't mean you have to like it. It doesn't mean you have to sit there and accept that from them, ] Silas answered with a frown.

Pre shrugged, looking away. Baar’ur Thae took the opportunity to stick a bacta patch over the split skin of his cheek.

[ Don't take it off for at least a full day, ] she instructed. [If it’s not closed up by then, come back for a refill. ]

Pre wasn’t stubborn enough to talk back to a baar’ur - not to their face. He nodded obediently.

Injuries seen-to as best as they could be for now, the three of them left the medbay together. [ You sure you want to do this right away? ] Silas asked Jango. [ Even those Death Watch bastards can't blame you for making them wait until tomorrow. Brutes couldn't even come inside before offering their challenges… ]

[ I'd rather get it over with, ] Jango replied. The ache in his head was just a dull throb now, as much stress as a leftover from the concussion, but it left him bad-tempered. His temper wouldn’t get any better if he put things off.

Silas hailed Jacek on comms - by the time they reached the great hall, the Kyr'tsad representatives were waiting for them there. This was just preliminaries - the real meeting with all the gathered clans would come later.

[ All right, ] Jango said, taking a seat up on the dais, glad under the circ*mstances to lean on a bit of a Mand'alor's grandeur. [ How about some proper introductions this time around? ]

“Walon Vau, he/him in Basic,” the verd with the strill said. Said creature was well-behaved at least, seated by its master’s side with watchful golden eyes moving around the room for signs of a threat. It wasn’t showing signs of aggression and it wasn’t getting underfoot, though its odour seeped in even past his helmet filters. Vau gestured to the rest of the group. “Throwing in with Kyr’tsad was a… recent development for me. Frankly, I believed it was the only option remaining for our people. Your survival, though unexpected, is… preferable.” He chose his words carefully, his voice notably even and almost without expression. Jango didn’t know much about Clan Vau or this man, but he had an immediate sense of him as polished and contained, a rather cold character. Not that he would only trust first impressions. Perhaps Vau wasn’t under the right kind of pressure to see the truth of him. In any case it sounded like he’d been a neutral up until recently, which did make it odd that he’d arrived under House Vizsla’s banner, specifically as one of their representatives. There might be something else going on there.

“Pol Vizsla, he or they,” Pol said. “While I might not be in favour with Tor’s side of the family, I do have the authority to speak for House Vizsla here - our clan agreed as much in the event of Taj’s death at your hands, Mand’alor. There’s a point at which we have to accept the reality we’re all living in - I would say you’ve more than proven yourself worthy of your title.” He spread his hands in a wide gesture. “I suppose now I’m curious to get a better sense of your philosophies - the path you’d lay our people upon. Haat’ade and Kyr’tsad have more in common with each other than with the New Mandalorians, but I wonder given your recent choices… if you hew a little closer to our values than Jaster Mereel did?”

A cold shiver ran through Jango. He had to mean Pre’s adoption. Yes, it sent the wrong signal, he’d known that at the time, but there hadn’t been another choice…

He didn’t say anything. After a moment, Pol shrugged. “A conversation for another time, perhaps. Are you going to write a book? Or perhaps just a commentary? A pamphlet?”

Jango had the distinct impression he was being made fun of - or perhaps his father was, through him. He didn’t allow it to get a rise out of him, ignoring it and moving on. “What about you two?” he asked, jerking his head to the verde in Saxon colours.

The taller and broader of the pair removed their helmet, revealing sharp cheekbones, white-blonde hair, a wide jaw, and stern steel-grey eyes. “Aurelia Saxon, she/her. This is my son, Gar.” She put a hand on the other verd’s shoulder. Taking another look at him, that gangly build was only due to his youth - it was hard to judge through beskar’gam . Jango couldn’t tell his age exactly, other than that he was past his verdgoten . “Clan Saxon sees no reason to challenge you, Mand’alor. We will swear to you and to your House - and is that now Fett, or still Mereel?”

Jango’s breath caught in his throat. A sharp stab went through him. That question… how dare she ask him that? What kind of person did she think he was, to repudiate the man who raised him…

The kind of person who adopted a war-orphan. The kind who had the ambition to stand and name himself Mand’alor rather than leave the mess that was Mandalore, their sector, and their politics for others to sort out. The kind they were secretly hoping had been twisted enough by Tor’s treatment of him and the long hunt for revenge to have hardened into something close enough to Kyr’tsad to make them happy.

Next to his chair Silas shifted his weight, an almost imperceptible movement but enough to catch in the corner of his eye, to ground his attention and remind him that no matter what these spinesharks thought of him, there were others who knew the truth. His family knew who he really was.

Jango forced the breath out. “House Mereel,” he growled.

Aurelia inclined her head, not without a faint spark of disappointment in her eyes.

Killing two of their number hadn’t made the rest of them safe to be around. He couldn’t trust any of them. For now he’d done enough, but a Mand’alor who became unpopular didn’t stay Mand’alor for long. Jango had to walk a narrow line between keeping Kyr’tsad happy and staying within the limits of what he knew to be right. They’d take being led against the New Mandalorians well enough, against those Pyke slavers who he still owed some revenge, but after that? When they grew hungry for battle again, who could he turn them against? The jettise ? The Republic?

He still wasn’t a conqueror, and he didn’t want to start fights they couldn’t win either. The jettise would deserve it, but while they were still under the protection of their masters he could only hope they’d come to him and give him another reason to kill them…

One fight at a time, Jango thought to himself. You couldn’t plan the next battle if you didn’t win the one you were in right now.

“What about you?” he asked, addressing the Clan Tarn trio.

“Birsh Tarn, she/her,” one replied, removing her buy’ce to reveal a grey-haired woman with dark and heavily-wrinkled skin. “These are my partners, Venn, he/him, and Olaya, she/her. Yes, we’ll kneel and swear, on behalf of our Clan, but words are just the beginning. The battlefield and the players may have changed, but there’s still a war to fight.”

Yes. They were as eager for it as he’d thought. “The New Mandalorians are well dug in,” he said. “If they weren’t… You’ve had two years without the Haat’ade distracting you to crush them, but they’re still standing.”

The curl of her lips was too small to be called a smile. “They call themselves pacifists, but they come from Mandalorian stock, even if they’ve forgotten that. Call it self-defence, call us terrorists, it’s still using violence to enact their will on the world. Still, they don’t have proper fighting spirit. No mandokar .”

Her partner Olaya nodded. “Now you’ve united Kyr’tsad and Haat’ade under one banner, Mand’alor, they won’t last long.”

Slight nausea turned Jango’s stomach, but she was right. Even with his buir dead and Jango himself assumed to be so, the clans who’d formerly supported House Mereel hadn’t all decided Kyr’tsad was the lesser of two evils - even if some of them had. Now here he was, bringing Kyr’tsad into the fold. When the New Mandalorians realised how badly the tide had turned against them, what would they do?

“We’ve all led attacks against the New Mandalorians,” Birsh continued, gesturing to Venn, Olaya and herself. “You’ll have war-leaders of your own, but all I ask is that you give us a chance to prove that we can do that just as well for you as we did for Tor Vizsla.”

Jango nodded, saying and committing to nothing. Whether he wanted to or not, he doubted he had much of a choice. Would the various clans of Kyr’tsad even listen to anyone else he appointed to lead them? That was never how their warrior clans had worked, not even in the old days. The clans chose their own leaders, their leaders chose who to follow and which House to swear to, and they all followed the Mand’alor in war - to a point.

It felt like handling a live grenade, where he wasn’t sure how long it had been since the pin was pulled, or whether he’d be able to throw it far enough to get out of the blast radius when it went off.

Three Clans down. That still left one House Vizsla representative - the one in Gedyc tan. He pointedly turned his attention to them.

“Lorca Gedyc, he/him,” the man said, tapping his closed fist against his bes’karta. “You’ve won your place with blood, Mand’alor, and that’s enough for me to give you the chance. Doesn’t mean this is a sure thing.”

Jango’s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his buy’ce in answer to that threat. “Keeping your eye on me, is that it? Guess I’ll expect the challenge if I don’t meet your expectations , whatever the hell those are.”

“If you’re a real Mandalorian, you’ve nothing to fear from me,” Lorca replied. Kyr’tsad , Jango thought with disgust. No need to ask what he thought a real Mandalorian ought to be. Just another Tor Vizsla. Jango would be happy to disappoint him. In fact if he didn’t get a challenge within the first few months, he’d know he was doing something wrong.

Jango didn’t give Lorca any more of his time. Turning back to Pol, he said, “You didn’t bring any gorane with you.”

Pol blinked, obviously not expecting that turn of conversation. “We… didn’t. Why would we?”

Jango bit down his anger. “Because I asked for it, when I spoke to your House. I take it Taj didn’t mention that.”

Pol sighed. “No. I suppose she thought either she’d kill you or it wouldn’t be her problem if you were pissed off. House Mereel has its own goran though… doesn’t it?”

He didn’t seem to be faking the apologetic note in his tone, so far as Jango could tell. “I have some questions for them,” he said. “Some practical, some… religious in nature.”

“Oh?” Now Pol was even more curious than he had been - and not the only one. Not that Jango planned to tell them the real reason.

“My kriffing coronation,” he said, waving an irritated hand. He didn’t have to fake that emotion. “Are you going to tell me Clan Vizsla doesn’t have some Dha’kad’au- specific rituals?”

Pol briefly closed his eyes in a wince. “Good point,” he muttered, then louder, “I’ll let them know you want to see them.”

Fine. When they arrived, they could answer some pointed questions about just what they were doing to the star-touched of the Vizsla bloodline.

Jango dismissed them, and waited until they were out of even buy’ce -enhanced earshot before turning to Pre. If the concussion hadn’t gotten the best of him he would have thought to ask on the way back from medbay, but now would do. “What do you think? You must know them - should we be worried?”

Pre startled, although surely he must have expected to be asked. After a moment, his shoulders squared. “Lorca is dangerous,” he said. “He followed my.. Tor. He followed Tor fervently. He talked a lot about our glories of old - as we all did, but for him it was an obsession. It’s good that he’ll wait to challenge you. Maybe…” Jango couldn’t see his expression under his buy’ce . “Maybe he won’t find it necessary.”

Jango had a bad feeling about that. What was Pre hoping for? That Jango would suddenly see the light and decide that Kyr’tsad had the right of it all along?

That seemed horribly likely. Adoption or not, just swearing an oath of family didn’t magically erase everything Pre had been taught up until now, or turn him into a different person. Wearing away at those Kyr’tsad ideals was the work of more than a few weeks.

Pre took his silence well - or at least it didn’t put him off. “I’ve never fought alongside them myself, but Birsh, Venn and Olaya all have good reputations for tactical effectiveness. That more so than strategy, although as Tarn’s clan leader Birsh would be the best of the three at that. Clan Saxon is solid and very loyal. I… don’t see them becoming a problem.”

Jango nodded. “And Vau?”

“I don’t really know him,” Pre said. “He was telling the truth, he only joined House Vizsla recently - just after we killed Adonai Kryze, I think. Tor had him working on something , but I’m not sure what.”

Jango tapped his finger against the hilt of the pistol at his right hip, thinking. After the assassination… Had Vau thought it meant the war would soon be over? Had he chosen to throw his lot in with what he assumed would be the winning side? Did he have some kind of special skills that made Tor set him to a specific task rather than just fitting in with the rank and file of Death Watch?

“Silas,” he asked, “do you know much about Walon Vau?”

“No,” Silas replied. “If he’d been part of the Haat’ade , one of us would recognise the name. Clan Vau aren’t big, but they’re pretty independent, and certainly not New Mandalorian supporters. Pretty sure some of them have taken mercenary jobs - I think maybe Jaster reached out to them way back, but they had their own thing going on and didn’t feel strongly enough to get involved. Not sure who their Clan Head is.”

Maybe it just had been desperation that sent Vau into Vizsla’s arms. He hadn’t seemed that enthusiastic about Kyr’tsad - but if he was just an amoral opportunist who thought that now the wind was blowing Jango’s way…

There was nothing to suggest Vau was going to be a problem right now - at least not a big enough problem for him to worry too hard about it.

“Alright,” he said. The headache was starting to come back - or the painkillers were wearing off. “That’s enough politics for one day.” His leg could use the rest as well.

----

Jango Fett had categorically forbidden Maul from attending the meeting with Kry’tsad’s representatives. Maul would not normally have given heed to even a direct command from his teacher if it concerned a matter he truly cared about, but mere curiosity was not enough to bear the consequences of disobedience. Those consequences would not be pain or punishment, but the sad, disappointed expressions his siblings would turn on him for ignoring their buir’s instructions.

It didn’t matter to him. Death Watch was no threat to him - nor to Jango Fett, considering Maul’s own judgement of Jango’s abilities. Fett could kill Jedi - other Mandalorians were hardly an issue. Killing a Sith would be another matter, but there were only a handful of beings in the galaxy who might claim that. He had nothing to fear from Kyr’tsad . Equally if Maul had been there today, he was not afraid of being thought of as a softer target, one whose death would cause Jango pain. He could protect himself.

Jango would defend his title competently. There was nothing to worry about, and worry was unworthy of the Sith… No. Not just the Sith. Any who used the Dark Side. He really must think of a more appropriate name for this new path he was walking. He was not a Sith, not a Nightbrother, not a Dark Jedi, not a Goran…

Irrelevant. He was distracted, that was all. The energies of the forge here beneath Fort Mereel were still unsettling. That was why he was tense, his stomach tight, an edge of irritability rasping along his nerves…

He curled that irritation inside him, letting it sharpen his senses, calling the chill of the Dark into his bones. The burning heart-of-a-star that was the forge did not even flicker, utterly unaffected by the shadows that gathered around Maul in the Force. In front of him, Goran reached delicately past layers and layers of shielding, brushing against Maul’s energies with an electrical buzz.

[ I can feel that it is tied to your emotions, ] he said. [ It is cold like ice, but within that… anger. What is it that angers you? ]

“The specifics do not matter,” Maul replied - truthfully, even if it was dodging the question. “The Dark Side is passion - it responds to this, is called by it, and must then be subdued and commanded by the strength of one’s own will.”

[ Very unlike what little I know of the Jedi. ]

Maul sneered. “Naturally - their ways are completely opposed. They purge their emotions. They surrender to the so-called ‘will of the Force’ - the Light may be soft and weak enough to trust in that way, but the Dark is a predator. To surrender to its will would be to lose oneself entirely - and less and less would return at the other side. With greater risk, comes greater power.”

[ Is it only anger? Or all strong emotions? ]

Maul began to answer, then paused. “The Sith focused on the use of hate, anger, rage - sometimes grief, or physical pain. On Dathomir, the Nightsisters use a part of the Force that is closer to the Dark than the Light, but they would never share their secrets with males. The way they accessed the Force… is strange to me.” He caught himself from saying too much, from implying a greater knowledge of them than he ought to have. As far as Savage and Feral knew, his only contact with the Nightsisters was from stories, his only time on Dathomir the moment of his birth, and when he rescued them and took them away. “Others who use the Dark may have different traditions.”

[ Touching the power of the stars is not a matter of emotion, ] Goran said, [ although willpower and determination certainly are needed. Emotions are only a boon or a hindrance in the way they might be to any warrior in battle - yet you imply the Jedi are emotionless? ]

“They certainly attempt to be…” Maul began, before the noise of footsteps clattering down the stairs interrupted him. Their owner intended for them to be overheard, making them intentionally loud. Before long Kilindi appeared in the doorway of the forge with both Bo-Katan and Satine Kryze visible behind her.

So, the duch*ess had been released from her usual minders. Given the presence of Kyr’tsad , was that a wise idea? Perhaps at least she would gain a greater appreciation for her current captors when reminded who else might have laid hands on her.

“Making progress?” Kilindi asked.

“Tolerably,” Maul replied, “but that’s not why you’re here.”

“It’s all over,” she said, confirming what he had already guessed. “Jacek told me that Jango killed two of them, and the rest are playing along. They’ve been left to settle in before the main meeting in a couple days.”

“Where our hostages will no doubt be paraded in front of our new allies,” Maul said, with a meaningful look towards the Kryze sisters.

“I’m no hostage,” Bo-Katan retorted instantly, almost spitting the words out.

“Does your own clan know that yet?” Maul asked. “If they think you are held here unwillingly, that we have both the Kryze heirs, they may be more compliant.”

“I’m not going back,” Bo-Katan said. “There’s nothing for me there.”

Next to her, Satine let out an inarticulate noise, more of anger than of pain. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she muttered under her breath. “You wouldn’t be allowed back, after what you did.”

Bo-Katan ignored her sister in a very pointed way. They both seethed in the Force, drawing the Dark Side even without being Force-sensitive themselves. Maul doubted that Bo-Katan had killed her father with her own hands, but she’d certainly opened the way and provided the circ*mstances that allowed it to happen. That would be enough to mark her kinslayer. He would have cared more about that if he cared at all about her .

“Let us go and see the newcomers for ourselves,” Maul suggested, waving to Feral and Savage to follow him. [ Goran , if we have your leave that is. ]

In the great hall above, Jacek Mereel was conversing with the other clan elders. She nodded a greeting but didn’t call them over, so they were able to slip out into the corridors outside without incident. “Where are Death Watch now?” Feral asked Kilindi, before Maul could get the same question out. “Have you seen them yet? What will they do with the ones that died? Are they all old?”

“I was in the salle with Bo-Katan and Satine,” Kalindi reminded him. “It’s not like I was there. If we go find Pre, he can tell us.”

“Were you not tempted to sneak away?” Maul murmured to her, raising an eyebrow in amusem*nt.

Kilindi elbowed him in the ribs. “I could have, but I was being responsible. It wouldn’t be a good idea to leave those two alone with each other.”

“So, where do you think the Kyr’tsade are now?” Maul asked.

“Mess hall?” Kilindi suggested. “It’s almost latemeal. Or Jacek said a wing had been set aside for them, so they might be there? They’ve probably had enough of fighting for one day, so I don’t think they’d go to the salle, and we would have spotted them on the way.”

The mess hall was a good enough place to start, and Maul was curious. Would he know any of them from his past life? Likely only if they were quite young.

“Is this wise ?” Satine Kryze said. He could feel her nervousness. She was not without any instincts of self-preservation.

“You are under Jango’s protection,” Savage reassured her. “You have nothing to fear.”

She didn’t fully believe him, but a week or two as their captive had at least settled her to the extent that she no longer believed they would kill her or torture her at any moment. She did not offer any further protest.

The mess hall was busy given the time of day, but even without the shriekhawk sigils of House Vizsla on their shoulders the Death Watch verde would still have been obvious. Everyone else was keeping a wide and wary berth around them. Just because they were allies now did not mean that they were trusted or liked. Maul’s eyes travelled over them - they wore their clan colours, more individualistic than the uniform blue, black and grey of Kyr’tsad under Pre Vizsla’s command. The only other Death Watch verde he’d seen in this time were Pre and Bo-Katan, so he could not draw any firm conclusions - it might be a mark of prestige and power. Or had it simply not been wise to draw attention to one’s clan in a time when Kyr’tsad had to run and hide from the New Mandalorian government?

“What is that ? Feral said, breathless with excitement.

Maul followed his gaze towards some kind of six-limbed animal lounging on the bench beside a verd in matte black, delicately taking pieces of meat from their hand with a maw of knife-like teeth. His nostrils flared, linking a strange, musky, unfamiliar scent in the air to this predator. He did not find it strictly unpleasant, but it was… insistent , for lack of a better word.

“I believe it must be a strill,” he replied. “They are traditionally used for hunting on Mandalore.” He had never seen one before himself, but had read about them.

Feral sighed. “That’s so cool. Do you think we could get one?”

“Ask buir ,” Kilindi said, amused.

The strill’s owner knew that they were being watched, and they were in earshot, but they didn’t react. The strill glanced over, but only flicked its ears in mild interest. Its presence felt more complicated in the Force than many animals - it was intelligent, if not fully sapient.

Interest in potential pets for Feral aside, there was something vaguely familiar about some of the other Kyr’tsade . That red and white armour…

The younger verd turned their head and Maul finally got a good look at their face. A shock of sudden recognition swept over him. Rounded by youth like pottery still being shaped, yet still unmistakable for the man he would become, Gar Saxon looked back at him across a gap of decades.

How long since the end of the Clone Wars? How long since the battle of Mandalore? Even though Gar had not died there, Maul had never seen him again.

He’d wondered, had he not, if any of his former comrades would be among Kry’tsad ’s ranks now. Yet that idle thought hadn’t prepared him for the strange reality of it. Was Rook Kast…? No, he did not see her - or a youngling who could be her - amongst the verde . Gar himself was only, what, fourteen, perhaps fifteen? Rook had been younger than him.

Maul ducked his head and looked away before Gar caught him watching. He wanted to approach, but he would not be able to explain their connection. Even if travelling through time had been believable, how could he make understandable a relationship which only one of them remembered? ‘ A long time ago you were loyal to me in a way only my brother had ever been before…’

His moment of inattention cost him. Feral was already walking over, gaze fixed on the strill and almost vibrating with his eagerness. “Hi,” he chirped to the verd in black. “I’m Feral Fett, he/him. Can I pet your strill?”

Maul was dearly tempted to strangle him, or if not that then drag him away, possibly with the Force. He couldn’t do so without having to explain his contradictory motivations - when he had been so keen to meet with Death Watch before, why would he hesitate now? He could only follow the rest of his family and do his best to fade into the background. Later, once he had a chance to retreat and reassess, once he had plotted out a plan of attack…

“It’s name is Lord Mirdalan,” the verd was saying. “You can pet it if it lets you. Hold out your hand for Mird to scent first.”

Feral put his palm in front of its maw happily. His smile split his face apart when it took a few sniffs then laid its head in his hand. It accepted his attention thereafter with lazy grace, though its chest rumbled with purring. Maul didn’t personally see the appeal, but most creatures of this sort he’d encountered over the course of his life had been doing their best to kill him.

“You must be the rest of the Mand’alor’s kids,” another verd said - this one in traditional Vizsla colours. “I’m Pol Vizsla, he/they.” He did a round of introductions of the rest of their group - Kilindi and Savage did the same on their side. Pol’s eyes narrowed slightly when they got to Bo-Katan and Satine. The intensity of his interest was sharp in the Force, but it did not show on the surface. He asked only polite, meaningless questions, and answered a few of their own.

He did not tell them anything they had not already known, or been able to guess. The eight of them remaining had sworn loyalty at least for now, cementing the uneasy truce between Haat’ade and Kyr’tsad . Precisely how they would combine their forces would be a question for the next meeting.

Maul remembered operational meetings more from Crimson Dawn than Death Watch. He had simply explained what he wanted to Pre Vizsla and Pre delivered, up until the point they turned on each other in inevitable mutual betrayal. After that, Gar and Rook were the ones to organise everything. Moulding feuding crime families full of the cowardly, duplicitous and incompetent into something useful and efficient enough that he did not drive himself mad with rage had been immeasurably more difficult.

Knowing how to do it was not the same as enjoying it. Maul could only hope this particular meeting tomorrow would be less dull.

Eventually they were able to extricate themselves from the conversation - mostly this required prying a sticky Feral away from the still, which certainly wasn’t complaining about the attention.

“You were quiet,” Kilindi whispered to Maul, once they had left.

“Merely cautious,” he replied.

“Since when?” she said, rhetorically. “Did you realise you kept glancing at that boy? Were you hoping he wouldn’t notice? I think you were starting to worry him.”

Heat flooded Maul’s cheeks and he was thankful the dark red and black of his skin meant no-one could tell. “No,” he said, then failed to think of anything to follow it up.

“No?” Kilindi said, a teasing smirk starting to grow. “No, what?”

“I looked at him a perfectly normal amount,” Maul replied with dignity.

“Brother,” Savage said, blinking hard as though he had just figured something out. “Did you… like him?”

Maul was briefly struck mute by the teenage idiocy of it all. “No!” he shouted. “No I did not… like him like that! It was simply…” He cast around for a believable excuse that wasn’t ‘I used to know him, but you cannot ask me how, and he would not remember me’. “He was the only one there our age. If they stay for any time it is likely he will want to spar with us.”

His heart sank as soon as he said it, because he was right. Verd’ika sparred with each other - it was normal and expected. Spurning him would be taken as an insult.

What would Gar think of him now, at this age? Maul was no longer a powerful Sith Lord, and his Mand’alor by right of single combat as well. What if he only saw the child? What if he did not respect him? What if…

Maul wrenched his thoughts from that direction of travel with an effort. None of that was important, and so it should not concern him. This version of Gar Saxon was an entirely different person, a new person who had not earned any of Maul’s regard. It had been easy enough to leave him to what had seemed his inevitable death during the siege, so why did he now suddenly care so much?

It was just the surprise affecting him. After he meditated and mastered himself again, everything would return to normal.

“Well I thought he was cute,” Kilindi said, relentless. “So if you don’t want him…”

“I am going to suffocate you in your sleep,” Maul promised her.

“You can try!”

Maul lengthened his strike, opening up some distance ahead of them. He would not dignify himself with this childishness.

Hopefully Kilindi would have forgotten about this by tomorrow… but he didn’t think she would.

Chapter 26

Chapter Text

Satine kept her chin held high despite the weight of dozens of pairs of eyes turning her way the moment she entered the hall.

“The duch*ess Satine Kryze, heir of her House.” Jango Fett’s voice rang from wall to wall, a mockery of the guards who would have announced her in the gleaming glass and marble rooms of Sundari if she’d never been forced to flee. Death Watch had filled her home with all the implacable destruction of a raging fire, cutting down retainers, clashing with other members of her House, all in their search for her. She remembered Uncle Theodore’s big, reassuring hands on her shoulders, pushing her through the service tunnel where only the cleaning droids went with a promise that someone would be waiting on the other side to take her away… She’d known by the look in his eyes that she would never see him again.

This was what these monsters would do to all of her people who resisted them, and after that they’d bring the tide of blood to the rest of the galaxy. It didn’t matter what the soldiers of House Mereel claimed. They might hide their viciousness away, they might claim they were in some way better, honourable , but they were still treating with Death Watch. They let animals in to sit down at the table with them. How could they say that they were any better? They wanted the same things. The New Mandalorians were the only ones standing in the way of history repeating itself, the return of the old ways, conquest, subjugation, families and children cut down or taken away…

Her own life didn’t matter in comparison to that. She would not be intimidated if they threatened her. She would find some way of stopping them from using her against her own people.

Warriors in full beskar’gam stood in rows and groups, clustered in knots that shared colours and symbols. The eight representatives from Death Watch were here, alongside all the others who had arrived over the last week or so. Satine had met most of them at some point, but kept her distance where possible. She didn’t want to know these people. Each new face was a dagger drawn and pointed at Mandalore’s heart. Each was a threat to seven centuries of peace. Each a traitor, a criminal, breaking the laws set down to protect them from themselves, and others from them.

Satine stood on the dais in front of them, refusing to be cowed.

“The rest of House Kryze is now aware of the duch*ess’ location,” Fett continued. “There’s no-one else of her direct bloodline remaining aside from her sister, who has renounced the New Mandalorians already. She is the head of her House.” He turned to her. “Will you order them to surrender?”

The question - the insult - hit her like a slap. “I shall not,” she said, in the coldest voice she could muster.

“You might be able to end this war with a word,” he told her. “If what you want is an end to violence…”

“Bending the knee to you, Mand’alor , would not be an end to violence. Violence is your way of life. It is everything you are and represent. I won’t allow everything the New Mandalorians have worked for to be destroyed.”

She hoped that he would argue. Her heart pattered fast in her chest and at least talking would give her some kind of control , even if that was an illusion. If he debated her he gave her perspective more legitimacy - but it seemed he knew that. Fett just turned away from her.

“I offered you the easy way out,” he said. “This wasn’t a choice between losing quickly and winning slowly after a tough fight. The New Mandalorians can’t stand against us.”

“Don’t be so arrogant!” she snapped at him. “My people won’t roll over for you any more than I will! Fighting to protect peace from those who would destroy it is the right thing to do, and most Mandalorians see that. What makes you so sure you can beat us now, after failing for the last decade?”

“Decade?” Jango Fett said. “You’re thinking of Kyr’tsad , duch*ess. The Haat’ade never tried to defeat you, just keep you off our backs, and we managed that just fine. Look around.” He gestured to the gathered warriors. “Do you even know enough about your people to recognise the clans represented here? You pacifists aren’t as popular as you think.”

Satine did recognise them, in point of fact. Her father had… had still been young, but Satine was his heir and had been educated as such. It wasn’t just her time on Coruscant studying galactic politics. She learned the sigils of the Houses and clans of Mandalore to know who she would one day be ruling, even if those symbols were forbidden from being worn on armour rather than just banners.

“Your House will negotiate with us, even if you won’t,” Fett said. His tone was dismissive, but that just banked the fire of Satine’s defiance up further.

“If they negotiate my release on any terms so favourable to you, I will rescind them the minute I return to Sundari,” she said. “Terms made under such duress and without my own consent will not hold me.”

That got a reaction from the rest of the room, a low murmur of anger.

“I suppose I’d be a fool to let you go then,” Fett said. “In fact what you’re really saying is you’re no use to me at all. What would be the point in keeping you alive then?”

Satine did not flinch. She couldn’t. She walked into this hall already certain of her heart and her decision. Once again she held her chin up, throat bared. “I will die before I surrender.”

Jango Fett turned back to her. Approached several stalking steps. He hooked his thumbs into his belt and stared her down. She was close enough to see the hint of his eyes through the polarised transparisteel of his visor. Flat. Merciless. She was certain he was capable of it. She could not control his actions, only her own.

He drew the Darksaber. Lit it. The thrum of caged plasma was not particularly loud, but it was suddenly the only thing that she could hear.

He swung.

The Darksaber stopped only a hair’s-breadth from her neck. The heat of it was painful, but only on the edge of burning and not over it.

After a moment, Jango Fett said, “Can’t say you lack the courage of your convictions.” Then he put the Darksaber away.

Blinking, Satine’s eyes refocused. She could see the scene as a whole again, rather than focusing on the threat in front of her. Her skin was damp with fear-sweat, but she had not flinched.

She’d passed through the fire unscathed and unchanged… no. She was still in the forge. This wouldn’t end until the war did.

On the other side of the dais Bo-Katan had taken a step forwards, was still frozen there with her hand half-raised. She hadn’t called out, Satine would have heard her, but she… she still reacted. Why? Bo-Katan didn’t care about her, she couldn’t, otherwise she would not have done all this .

Jango Fett paid her no more attention. It took the long span of repeated slow and measured breaths for Satine to fully master herself and pay attention to what he was saying, for words to be anything more than noise. At some point which she had missed, a holoprojector had been activated and was beaming light down from a position on the ceiling somewhere, showing a map of the Mandalore sector. Fett’s hands moved with sharp, sure gestures, mapping out positions, lines of attack, things that meant nothing to her.

Satine’s education was that of a diplomat, a true pacifist ruler. She’d chosen that, and her father hadn’t insisted otherwise. It just made sense to her - this was the future of their people, after all. At the time the Death Watch terrorists had been on the back foot, the position of House Kryze was secure, there was no reason to believe that any of that would change. Only now Satine wondered if the peace had been only because Death Watch were distracted. At that time they were fighting on two fronts, clashing with Jaster Mereel’s faction - though Satine hadn’t known anything about that.

Now she wondered if she had been too confident. Her father had been a warrior, though only from necessity - perhaps she should have considered if it was just as necessary for her to follow his example. She meant what she’d said - fighting to preserve peace might seem paradoxical, but it was an evil that had to be borne for the greater good that would come at the end of it. As soon as the terrorists were defeated, that could all be set aside and forgotten.

At the moment all this meant was that she didn’t understand much of what Fett was discussing with these people who lived and breathed war and violence. They didn’t care that they were talking about their military plans in front of her - who would she tell? How could she get word out to anyone?

Fett changed the focus of the map to Mandalore itself. The blasted desert wastes of the planetary south spread over the uppermost part of the globe as he spun it north-down, scattered with bright dots that marked out cities - the domes that would one day help to reclaim what had been destroyed and regenerate it again. War had scoured their planet before, and now it would again.

The war council went on some time longer, slipping between Mando’a and Basic. Satine tried to memorise what details she could, the names of ships, which clans promised to bring how many warriors and what resources, but she struggled to keep it straight in her head. In the end the meeting drew to a close, and everyone started to leave. One of the Death Watch representatives came over to Fett, that pungent creature of his trotting at his heels, but Satine was distracted from trying to listen in by a fist colliding with her shoulder.

“Why are you trying to get yourself killed?” Bo-Katan hissed at her.

“Perhaps the only thing your side and mine might agree on, is that dying for one’s principles is a very Mandalorian thing to do,” Satine replied, rubbing her shoulder. It hadn’t been a full-force punch, but Bo had still meant for it to hurt.

“He wouldn’t have killed you,” Bo said, but Satine thought she didn’t fully believe that herself. “It would be foolish anyway.”

“Indeed,” Maul said, sliding himself into the conversation in that slick way he had. “We have no intention of giving your people a martyr to rally behind.”

Satine glared at him with deep dislike. She trusted Maul least of all his siblings. There was something wrong behind his eyes - when she looked at him it didn’t always feel like a child looking back. It might be something to do with the Force, the strange mirror of the Jedi’s abilities he apparently possessed. Whatever the true reason, instinctively he made her uneasy.

“Come,” Maul said, with the tone of an order. “ We have other things to do, and you cannot stay here.”

----

[ Mand’alor, a moment of your time. ]

Walon Vau stood below the dais, keeping a respectful distance. Jango couldn’t think what he might want to talk to him about. There had been plenty of time for questions once they’d finished hashing out the various potential ways the coming campaign could go.

[ Come up here, ] he said, waving him over. [ What is it? ]

[ I think you should know what Tor had me working on. ]

[ Yes, ] Jango said, attention sharpening. He wasn’t the only one - next to him Silas did the same. [ I want to hear this. Can’t imagine it’s anything good. ]

[ It started out as something that could have been at least helpful, ] Vau said, folding his arms over his chest - it seemed slightly defensive. [ Chances of it working were always slim though, to say the least. ] He sighed, shook his head slightly. [ I’m getting out of order. Like I said, this Death Watch thing was new for me. Partly it was clan pressure - since before that mess that took you out on Galidraan I’ve been working training contracts with the Ithorian Defence Forces. Good pay for honest work. Wasn’t planning on coming back anywhere near the Mandalorian Sector, but after the assassination of Duke Kryze, Tor Vizsla put out a call for someone with interrogation skills. ]

[ To interrogate who? ] Jango asked, not liking the sound of this.

[ Satine Kryze isn’t the oldest living member of the Kryze bloodline, ] Vau said. [ Adonai’s younger sibling Theodore was captured during the attack. Tor thought they could be made to give up Satine’s location, or failing that, at least provide useful military intelligence. ]

[ Torture? ] Silas said, hands balling into fists.

[ Hah! ] Vau’s laugh was short and humourless. [ Sure, if you want a mess of noise with very little signal in it. Picking that apart’s more trouble than it's worth. Interrogation is about gaining the target’s trust, forcing them to build some kind of bond with you, making them want to tell you. It’s a lot easier with petty criminals or mercs with no personal skin in the game. An ideological battle like the one we’ve all been getting stuck in the last couple decades? I knew when I volunteered that it probably wouldn’t work, but I thought, well, if there’s a chance of ending this mess for good? Then it’s worth it. ]

[ And when it didn’t work? ] Jango asked.