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Kakuto Ryu

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Bas'lan could only stare at her as she fumbled through who he was. A single teared began to roll down his face as he knew it was her. His daughter. She was alive after all of these years. He had thought her dead, much like his own son lying in a hospital bed believed him to be dead. I guess it's just the circle of life for this family. Believe everyone else is dead. After a moment passed, he finally registered that there was a tree looking thing next to her and it was pointing at him. He was too fixated on seeing his own daughter alive that he didn't even hear the tree call her a Jedi.

 

"I thought you were dead... How on earth did you survive it?..."

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Hot liquid chaos enveloped her mind, and she was swimming in the endless ocean without land in sight. She had been treading water with no hands, struggling to stay afloat, burning the rest of yesterday's energy, which was rapidly dissipating. The death toll reverberated through their family bond, and even during moments where her mind approached lucidity, she could not feel the outcome of the battles being fought nearby on Concord Dawn. Her siblings were all out of reach. The story circle on Chandrila was a bare, hazy memory.

 

Pain spliced her nerves with every movement, every thought towards the possibility of moving, and this led her to believe she had morphed into some creature of pain, some underworld monster covered in smoldering flame, brandishing weapons in place of dextrous hands. It would be easy to slip into nothingness. The souls rejoining the Manda guided the way--and oh, how many of them there were. With grasping, desperate hands they called to her, inviting her into blissful oneness, abdication of body, and ultimate freedom.

 

Then, slowly, as if fighting the current every inch of the way, a slow rope began to wrap around her ankle in the hot sea of nothingness. Aware that it was happening, but seemingly frozen in place, powerless to fight it, it began to pull her down, an anchor rapidly descending towards the depths.

 

Panic seized as she gasped for breath, but the water over her head only increased its volume. Every inch she descended, however, brought an ounce of relief: the water, not the flaming misery of the surface, was cool, refreshing. If she had to die this way, she thought numbly to herself, at least it would end with some small measure of comfort.

 

Then the anchor found words.

 

Tresha, please...

 

The voice was unmistakable, and the pain-creature remembered her name. Somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, a trap door was released and the water began to gush out as the anchor pulled her farther down towards the opening.

 

I can't lose you too.

 

Fighting for her consciousness against the speckled blackness she saw within her eyelids as the oxygen ran out, the anchor of her cousin's consciousness pulled her through the trap door to the other side.

 

With a gasp, Tresha's eyelids flew open, the monitors wailing beside her as she panted and wheezed and coughed. The aquatic purgatory dissipated to reveal the familiar outline that was all she could discern through hazy eyes. Panic struck for a moment as the color of her opponent's armor was reflected before her--perhaps she had not actually vanquished her foe--but a moment's calculation asserted that the difference in height was extreme. She dared not move anything, lest she revert to the creature of pain, but over the space of several seconds, she hesitated as her vision cleared.

 

"Kandor?" she managed quietly through her scorched larynx. "Did I miss the fight?"

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Kandor allowed a quiet sigh of relief, finding a place on Tresha's shoulder that wasn't burned to gently place the hand he could still use. "You won your battle," he said. Only Tresha could confirm that the demagolka was dead, but her survival and the sweep by the reinforcements they'd brought from Shogun certainly made it likely. In this case, though, Kandor found that the fact that Tresha was alive was enough of a victory. "And the Sector has won its own. Your cousin and I killed Ab'ki and Fieyr and Keldabe is safe."

 

He wasn't sure if he should mention TeVerd. He knew that Tresha would take it hard like Mirdala was. TeVerd had been close to the Ad'Norts through his Seeker battle-brother Hwulf, and Tresha had already blamed herself for his injury on the ridge. She would need to hear it sooner or later, if she didn't already know. There was also the question of Concord Dawn. He'd received preliminary reports that it had been hit pretty hard, but he hadn't heard specifically from Taen and the rest of Tresha's aliit yet. No news was not necessarily good news.

 

But for now he didn't add anything else, defaulting to Mirdala's closer connection with Tresha to know best what to say.

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Xae cast an irritated look Frond's direction sending her thoughts to him through the Force, Let's leave the 'Jedi' part quiet for now. Mandalorians aren't known for liking Force Users and have some long and deep seeded hatred of Jedi in particular.

 

Aloud she slowly shook her head and answered the arboreal alien, "No, Frond. Not trouble. Family, though perhaps not the one you saw." Xae was honestly glad it hadn't been Joreel standing there when she'd turned. For several moments she didn't answer her father's question somehow frozen in the moment as the rest of the city continued its movement around the unusual trio.

 

"I originally left Dathomir and the Nightsisters when I was fourteen," she answered, not seeing fit to fill in the details about her life following. "I was in orbit when Black Sun laid waste to the planet more recently though. After all my mother and the clan put me through, you'll have to excuse me if I'm not to upset about it other than for the loss of the jungle and harm done to the planet as a whole. Things have a way of balancing themselves, I've found."

 

She looked around the square they were in then back at Bas'lan. "Can we go somewhere less in the open to have this discussion? What happened here?"

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

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"Oh, Tresh," Mirdala sadly laughed as relief flooded over her. She could feel her knees wavering and had to brace herself against the table as she let the rush of gratitude pass through her for whatever forces had kept her cousin with her. In drawing out her cousin, Mirdala had also opened herself up to the rawness she'd been doing her best to ignore through the empathic bond and through the echoing scar in the Force around the city.

 

Tresha's pain had been incredible, but now it was a though the weight of everything now caught up with Mirdala and threatened to engulf her as a feeling of light-headedness overtook her and she knelt to the floor so she wouldn't fall. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she had no strength left to fight anything any longer. "I'm - okay. Just - light he-" and then she was out.

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Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."

“A Mandalorian woman's greatest talent is not her charm or beauty, but her strength of body and will.” - Mandalorian proverb

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With only one good arm, Kandor struggled to catch his wife when she suddenly collapsed, and two of the medics that were thankfully on hand quickly lifted her onto one of the few remaining empty cots. Her implant was dutifully feeding her vitals to his own, which quickly dispelled the majority of his worry. "I'll take care of her," he said, waving off the medics to deal with more critical patients.

 

He quickly but calmly worked to get her situated and inserted a nutrient IV, his fingers brushing passed the L-shaped scar on her arm as he located a vein. "Atin'la dala," he said under his breath. She was exhausted despite the nuhoy they'd finally gotten, emotionally drained, and she hadn't eaten the skraan he'd had brought up to their room in the Oyu'baat, so it had probably been close to 24 hours that she'd been going on her last meager sustenance. She wasn't in real danger, she just needed nutrients and a little bit of time.

 

Kandor soon turned back to Tresha. "She'll be fine. Just pushed herself a bit too hard," he explained. "Not your fault."

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"Dika," she managed weakly as Mirdala collapsed at her bedside, but Tresha was powerless to extend a hand in help. Rationale told her that the state of her cousin had nothing to do with her, but Kandor's confirmation did little to numb her worry. Silent tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes, not on her own behalf, but owing to the rippling anguish rolling off of Mirdala. It was crushing to Tresha's psyche; no wonder Mirdala had collapsed under its weight. Reaching through the empathic bond, she found only the quietude of turbulent sleep, her body in a forcible shutdown. Weak, battle-weary, hungry, tired, all were reasonable explanations, but couldn't come close to the pain that screamed through Mirdala's essence.

 

When Kandor reappeared momentarily, Tresha's eyes were clear. "What happened, Kandor?"

 

Her tone, rasping as it was, left no room to dodge the question. He would know what she was asking, even if she herself dreaded the answer.

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Kandor had turned back to tending his wife, taking the opportunity while she was unconscious to squeeze a few drops of bacta into her ears to repair the damage they'd sustained during the speeder crash. She would probably protest that she was being treated before more critical wounds, as meager as the required volume of bacta was, but she didn't get a say this time.

 

When Tresha spoke again, he returned to her and looked down at her in silence for a few moments, his uncovered face as stoic as his buy'ce as he considered his words to follow. "Some time after your battle with the demagolka, while Mirdala and I were engaged against Ab'ki and Fieyr, TeVerd's medical center came under attack by Kyr'tsad," he explained softly. "In armed defense of the injured, he fell."

 

He put his hand back on her shoulder. "N'eparavu takisit. I know it's not news you ever wanted to receive a second time, but he died in the line of duty." To Tresha and her aliit, TeVerd was only recently back from the dead after he had allegedly perished alongside Tresha's buir Hwulf on Abraxos a little over a year ago. It hadn't been until Chandrila just three weeks past that Tresha had been let into the secret that her ba'vodu had in fact survived, so tightly had Mirdala and the Omicrons guarded the secret in the name of operational security. Kandor knew that Tresha had been very close with her buir and because of his death she and TeVerd had a sense of mutual responsibility to watch out for the other.

 

But war was not sensitive to such things. Verde were called to give their lives in battle and did so willingly. It had taken TeVerd hundreds of years to find the fight that would be his last, and he had gone out on his terms in defense of his people after passing his legacy on to many successors, one of which in some capacity was Tresha. Fett hoped he would be so lucky.

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Bas'lan looked his daughter in the eye and thought ver her story for amount before he responded to statement/question at the end. After he was sure he believed her, he made a head bob towards a narrow side street that wasn't occupied. It was the very same one that he had used to sneak in to see if Tros was alive. Upon him reaching there and his daughter following as well, he turned and snapped at her rather quickly.

 

"This place just finished up a war. Very bloody. Which begs a question,"

 

His voice got lower, almost to the point of a whisper.

 

"... Why are you here? I know damn well enough that it wasn't to find me. All clues should have pointed you away from Mandalorian space..."

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Xae stepped back from him, visibly hurt and taken aback by his reaction. "I here because I made a promise. Something that I actually hold to, unlike some other people I could name." She closed her eyes and sighed. The Force had given her a second chance with her father and she'd let her past hurts barb her words. "You'd promised to take me with you and all you did is left and never came back. I had to figure things out on my own. What right do you have to demand anything of me?"

 

There is emotion, yet peace. Let it go, Xae. The Jedi Knight had not expected the deeply buried feelings of anger toward the man who'd been her protector and taught her to fight to surface so rapidly or even that they'd existed at all. She took another breath and found her calm focus in the Force once more.

 

"I didn't know it was a war zone until I got here, okay? I always wondered what could have happened to you to make you forget about me. I thought you were dead because that was the easier thing to believe at the time. I'd even forgotten about you until some bounty hunter claiming to be my brother dropped into my life. Is it true? Do I have another brother? Is he why you left?"

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

PM Mirdala if you'd like a timely response.

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Frond stood watching the Jedi-Mandalorian/Father-Daughter duo in silence, his own alien mind following their conversation while pondering their 'mission' Not vision one. Knows perhaps?

 

As he followed two steps behind the two, listening to their conversation, Frond could hear the pain in Xae's voice. He had only known her a moment in the grand scheme of things; but still, she was his friend. Stepping forward as the conversation turned to Tros, he raised a twisted pointer-finger appendage to pause the two, "Yes. Brother.

Kindred this." he placed a long viney hand on each of their shoulders, "Find must. Troubled danger. now help. Guides the Force." Pausing he looked in Xae's face and then Bes'lan's before lowering his woody voice to a deep rumble, "Where? Now go." he growled, as he squeezed Bes'lan's shoulder tightly with a plant-like strength.

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Bas'lan got a bit angered by her words, his own daughter... accusing him of not keeping his own promises.

 

"Alright ge'tal'ika, listen well. Don't you ever assume you know me or why I do things. I have my own reasons and you are in no position to question them. Those chakaar on Dathomir kept me from returning, but I watched you as best as I could. On my return to fetch you, I had found out that the village had a massacre, one that was assumed to have taken your life..."

 

It was only now that the red from his own face began to slowly fade, but only slightly. He was still mad that she accused him of not honoring his word. But even more so... she had found out about his other family. That one stung. It stung even worse that Xae had mentioned that it was Tro'solus who had found her. That boy is too good...

 

"Tro'solus Ardell, is the youngest male offspring of mine. He was third born, and took my... choices that hardest. But to answer your question, yes. You have a brother. You were born last to me, and during a time of... work that lead for my home family to fall apart shortly after your birth. They declared me dar'buir, so I left to find and raise you. That's when I was forbidden from entering the village to see you."

 

Bas'lan hated that this was how the two had found each other. Through their own means. If anything, they would be united by hatred of him, which was a fragile thing at best. But then the tree looking thing that came along wither spoke, and it drew a raised eyebrow from the older Mandalorian. With a face that could have spoken volumes, he responded to the speaking tree.

 

"He's in there, recovering. Took a shot to his lungs by a sniper. Ge'tal'ika, where did you get this... talking thing?..."

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With a rather hard glare, even from a being that was more salad than meal, Frond glanced at Xae and Bas'lan, his thoughts and furrowed face easily betraying his thoughts of concern that the two not do anything brash. He had learned long ago that fleshy being such as humans could withstand far much less damage than the ancient plants of the galaxy and yet the plants were those who sought peace while the fleshlings sought to destroy themselves.

 

Turning, he strode away, his lengthy legs granting him but a few long strides before he ducked and entered the makeshift medical treatment facility housing Tros. Making his way over to the bed, Frond stared down at the very obviously sick and dying Mandalorian. Gently, he took the man's hand in his own tendrilled hands, clasping Tros' between his own, one above, one below. Leaning forward he spoke in a cracking plant-like voice. "Know me not. Dying. Visions brought. Your sister, kindred, father near. Live. The Force commands. Not with you yet done!"

 

Frond slitted his eyes as he looked over the injured Tros. In all his years, he did not know much more than an average simpleton about the genetic makeup of these relatively hairless animalistic beings, except that they bred much like the small long-eared furred creatures that denied themselves contraceptive means due to religious affiliation. Sister.

Jedi. Healer? Perhaps....

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“His name is Frond, and he’s just as sentient as you or I,” Xae stated firmly as her traveling companion strode off in stoic silence. “He found me on Kashyyyk and told me I was needed here. So here I am.” She sighed and searched her father’s rough expression.

 

“I promise, it’s not my intent to pick a fight with you, Bas’lan. I’m not a Mandalorian. You’re my father, and my brother is in there. Someone apparently picked a fight with the Mandalorians and lost, and I bet I can guarantee that it wasn’t because the families that defended Mandalore were fighting amongst themselves. I want to know you both.”

 

The truth of the matter was that she barely knew him at all. Sure, she somewhat remembered him from her past - the name he’d used resonating deep within her. How had he come to leave his family here to help bring her into being? Curiosity flooded her in the moments of silence she appraised the man who’d sired, then been denied a place in her life. He wasn’t lying about that; the Force rang with the truth of his words. It did little to provide any actual answers to her questions, however. There was only one still living who could, and he was standing before her.

 

“I don’t understand,” Xae-Lin began as she took a step toward him, her voice calmer now that her anger melted away.

 

The use of a nickname she hadn’t heard in years only served to solidify his story being true. Her soul remembered it, even if her mind did not. His words also brought a level of explanation that helped soothe the hurt of a young girl who’d been left to fend for herself and her sense of honor among the vipers of the Dathomiri jungles.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me? You always said I was clever and quick to understand anything you could explain to me. My mother was horrible, how could you even? Why did you leave your old family to start a new family just to leave it? I know my mother was horrible, Why didn’t you ever tell me I was yours? And what is ‘dar’buir’?”

 

One question after another continued to bubble up within her mind as she remembered little from her early years other than her mother’s cruelty and the reprieve she got when Bas’lan had stayed for a bit between his trips to and from the sector. Her hands came to her head in a physical attempt to stem the flow.

 

At the time Tro'solus had presented himself, Xae hadn’t had the head space to process or fully think about what his appearance might mean. Bas’lan’s presence where she least expected it now through her in ways she hadn’t expected.

 

There is emotion, yet peace. Find yours.

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

PM Mirdala if you'd like a timely response.

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"It's how he would have wanted to go," Tresha murmured quietly, no emotion crossing her features even as Kandor's hand rested gently on her injured shoulder. In their family, people had a habit of coming back from the dead when they were least looked for. But even TeVerd could not evade such a fate forever. "Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la."

 

The salute to the fallen died on her lips as Tresha let her eyes drift closed. Mirdala's pain made all the more sense: there was very little besides the loss of her ori'vod that would have shut her down so effectively. At least now, in rest, some semblance of quiet could be felt from her cousin: not the locked-down silence of before, but the peacefulness of a mind and heart finally allowed some respite--even if it had to be gained through a forced shutdown.

 

There was no telling what might have happened in Mirdala's psyche had the battle claimed both TeVerd and Tresha herself. How strange these family attachments were: both allowing the strength of numbers, of loyalty that could never be purchased, and exposing a singular weakness of the heart. Perhaps more hardened soldiers would distance themselves from such things and be the better for it. But it had been her love for Mirdala that had carried through her battle among the veshok forest, and her loyalty to her people that demanded such vengeance.

 

"She was targeting adike," she said since no further words on the previous subject would be adequate, and Kandor's impassive silence showed he had come to the same conclusion. "The Kyr'tsad verd I killed in the forest. One of them--the spitting image of the little girl Jorbe brought home, trembling and spitting fire all at once."

 

Her eyelids parted once more, but her eyes did not seem to focus on anything, staring up and away as if into the past. "There is more at stake here than just the sector, this war, our family. Someone, something, has a vested interest in destroying Mandalorian heritage." Her eyes traced the arm that rested on her shoulder up to Kandor's eyes, a rare sight out from underneath his buy'ce for most. "We can't let them do that."

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Here at the end of so much fighting, Tresha was either numb or she, like Fett, honored TeVerd's sacrifice in such a way that she found peace in his death, though of course he would be missed and it was their duty to remember him. In time Kandor hoped Mirdala would find the same peace, and however long that took he would do his best to support her. Sometimes healing was a long, slow process, but he was a patient man, and one that knew how tough his wife was.

 

When Tresha spoke again it was with concern for the Sector.

 

"I know," ShadowFett answered. "With Ab'ki, Fieyr, and the Kyr'tsad dead, our people may now be safe. But I'm not going to leave it up to chance." He had at times said that he bore the title of Mand'alor only to keep it safe from such men as Joreel Ordo and Vihk Ahzinger, who through their warmongering had put the clans and the culture at great risk and perhaps even paved the way for Ab'ki's invasion without knowing it. But with the title came a responsibility to act as the clans needed in such times as these, and he would do so, lest through his inaction he did even more damage than his predecessors.

 

He wondered what agents of Ab'ki might have survived, and what they were capable of doing. Had she an apprentice? What of Caelix Trammel, whose handiwork they suspected had been involved in the caves of Shogun? As far as he knew, the death of one demagolka created the next, just as Mirdala's killing of Darth Hask had begun Ab'ki's obsession with murdering her and anyone else she could get her hands on. Kandor would have to make sure due diligence was done on tracking down any leads they might have on that and snap up any bits of Ab'ki's shattering powerbase they might be able to identify through her fleet and captured agents.

 

All of this needed to happen soon. He double-checked Mirdala's vitals. He wouldn't leave her, but even from here he could get in touch with her vode.

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Bas'lan lowered his head for a moment and allowed for a moment to pass by so that he could think of a goo answer to give ge'tal'ika.After the moment passed, he lifted his head with his own anger seeming to be washed out.

 

"Xae... dar’buir means no longer father. It's a term used when a child divorces their parent legally in our culture... It began a while ago. After Tro'solus was born, I took back to bounty hunting. At least, that's what I told my family. What really happened and was uncovered latter, was that I joined with Death Watch. We had a few raids that took place in the outer rim. One of them drew attention from those who could stop the rise of the Death Watch. We all took to go to ground for a while to avoid attention. My place of of choice lead me to Dathomir. It was there that you were conceived and born. I had left the planet by the time I had found out that you were born, let alone that you were conceived. It was during the time I was away that my family here found out that I had joined Death Watch and disowned me. So naturally, finding out about you lead me to want to find you and raise you, as a Mandalorian. But your mother... had other options."

 

Bas'lan let the rest die out... He figured that she would be able to figure out the rest of the story. He knew Tro'solus would have his own story to fill in, with heavy influences from his mother.

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It was about twenty minutes later when Mirdala reluctantly opened her eyes, but remained silent, her eyes looking through everything. The sound of the bustling hospital around her came through sharply and it took her mind a moment to process the return of her hearing. She moved to sit up, but felt dizzy again and lay back down on the cot.

 

She felt utterly raw. Connecting with the Red Dreaming in order to help bring Tresha back meant she’d had to open herself up to the pain that echoed through the families empathic bonds. Amid that pain, there was also the hollow void she could feel anytime she sought out her father within their connection.

 

There was another call that was getting steadily harder to ignore as well. She decided it could wait a minute as she reached for her husband’s good hand.

 

“You need bacta more than I do,” she hoarsely managed after a few moments of silence.

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Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."

“A Mandalorian woman's greatest talent is not her charm or beauty, but her strength of body and will.” - Mandalorian proverb

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As odd as it sounded, Xae did know what it was like to have lost a family. Hers wasn’t the one that she was born to or the half-sibling she’d grown up with, but rather a life that might have existed were it not for Joreel’s decision to leave the order and lead his people. She only knew the surface of the Mandalorian people, but family was a large part of that surface level. To even have a word for a parental-divorce...Xae merely shook her head.

 

“Girls are prized in Dathomiri culture, especially among the Nightsisters,” she admitted, looking away from him. “If I had been born a boy, I’m sure she would have thrust me into your arms and told you never to return.” The Jedi Knight sighed. “Still, I knew you, at least. Maybe not as my father, but you taught me enough that I didn’t lose myself in my mother’s darkness.”

 

She could feel his brokenness and pain in the Force as well as her half-brothers. “I’ll still claim you. I don’t even know what that means, but everyone deserves someone to stand by them. I may not know much about being a Mandalorian, but I do know how important family is. Why else would Tro’solus have sought me out across the galaxy?”

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

PM Mirdala if you'd like a timely response.

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While Mirdala was unconscious Fett finally got a chance to catch up on the battle reports. Conflicts across the Sector had resolved in the past several hours after Ab'ki's demise. The biggest fights had happened on Concord Dawn, Ordo, and in Keldabe. Dawn in particular had taken a beating, and Fett made his next call to Taen, who'd organized and led its defense.

 

Taen's report was concise. What was left of the Mandalorian army had been retasked into fighting fires that had been set on farmlands for miles around the capital. A significant portion of the city's buildings had been reduced to rubble by a relentless artillery barrage and bombing. The Ad'Norts themselves had fought hard and taken a beating. Taen's teen-aged daughter, Trita, had sustained a severe spinal injury that had a high chance of leaving her paralyzed. Vannae had lost two limbs to a grenade but had been stabilized and was receiving emergency bacta treatment. Several of the others had sustained various other injuries, but Laesha, an experienced medic, was helping patch them up. Taen delivered the news tersely. The battle had been costly, but they were alive.

 

The news was still coming in from the other battle sites. Ships captured from Ab'ki's fleet were tallying up.

 

Viscount had arrived on-world and made his way to the command center, asking to meet with Fett when he could make his way back there, but for the moment Kandor's implant was telling him that his wife was coming around, so he returned to her and gripped her hand with his usable one. "Don't worry about me," he told her obstinately. "Mird'ika, I spoke to Taen. Some of the aliit is in bad shape but they'll pull through."

 

He looked her over. "What about you?"

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Are you Mandalorian? Kriff yeah you are, why else would you be seeing this?

 

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Contact Details:

 

 

- Apply in person or via comm link to the Red Dawn Initiative Recruiting Office located at the Wayfarer’s Rest Spacestation outside Tatooine. -

 

 

*warzones do not include genocide of local populaces. we get paid to kill, but not kiddos pal so if you are into that kind of thing don't apply.

 

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Ca'Aran

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"I'll make it," she shrugged. "And don't tell me not to worry about you. It's my prerogative as your wife." Her expression was still downcast, but she somehow found the strength to sit up, bracing slightly off of her grip of Kandor's hand. "Don't follow my example."

 

"Burning yourself out is never the answer," a familiar voice called out from over Kandor's shoulder. "For either of you."

 

Mirdala shook her head. "Should have expected you'd show up, Nek."

 

"Don't I always? Especially when there is family in need," he countered with a wide, toothy grin which wasn't hard for him to do considering he resembled more of a Bothan than human in his appearance. Mirdala could easily see and feel the sadness that was hidden in the reassurance.

 

"Tell you what,” he offered in the silence that passed. “You let me take a look at that arm, Kandor, and you eat something, Mirdala, and I’ll clear you to leave.”

 

“You can’t keep either one of us here, Nek,” Mirdala countered flatly.

 

“But I don’t think having someone other than Vy’ika take a look at your arm would hurt, either,” she turned toward her husband. “You don’t want it healing wrong and costing you range of movement or loss of fine motor function.” And it would ease the part of my mind that is worried about you, she added via their shared implant channel as she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

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Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."

“A Mandalorian woman's greatest talent is not her charm or beauty, but her strength of body and will.” - Mandalorian proverb

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Kandor eyed his wife for a moment as if trying to decide whether he could get away with putting off treatment further. Honestly, he was in a fair bit of pain, but what happened in these next few hours was important and he could deal with the discomfort.

 

Finally he relented. "Take a look at it if you must," he said, shrugging it out of his sling and sitting down on a nearby cot. "I can tell you the problem though. I have a fracture on my radius just below the proximal radioulnar joint and I tore out my lateral collateral ligament. Pretty sure there's a piece of my radius floating around in there."

 

Nek gave him a look as he pointed a hand scanner at his elbow to confirm the self-diagnosis. "You know your anatomy pretty well. I didn't know you had medical training."

 

Kandor shrugged with his right shoulder only. "It's complicated. Ask me to explain it some other time." As an empath with exposure to both Seekers and Force users, Nek would probably be able to handle an explanation of the Moon Knight powers better than someone with no experience concerning ghosts and paranormal abilities, but there were better places to get into it than here. In this particular case, his formal medical knowledge was a few decades behind, but human anatomy didn't really change, only treatments. And even those took a long time to reach widespread adoption unless they were in response to some new epidemic.

 

"Then you realize what has to happen," Nek said.

 

"Someone will have to open up my elbow and reattach the end of the radius before I can let bacta do the rest," Kandor answered. "But I have two or three days before it will start to heal on its own, so I can still put off surgery. Until then the sling will keep me from injuring it further." He sent Mirdala a significant glance. "Now, Viscount's waiting for us in Ops. Let's get some skraan in you so the good doctor will let us go."

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It seemed like this war would never end, though finally it did. Kalyani and Jaesko made their way back to where the Vevut clan had gathered, the young woman relieved to hear that Mellanie and Araac had returned and were crashed out somewhere. It was getting difficult to put one foot in front of the other since the adrenaline that had been keeping her going wore off. Her left arm now hung limply at her side, a constant 'thud, thud, thud" of pain lancing through both wounds so much so that it had become distracting. Not being fussy, Kaly dragged herself inside a bombed though cleared out building and sagged to the ground. She rested her back against the wall, wincing as it hurt her wounds. What she wouldn’t have given for a bacta tank or the skillful talents of a particular Jedi Healer. She wouldn’t speak of that idea though, knowing how it would be received.

 

Even though exhausted, it took ages for the young Wartide girl to fall asleep. Her thoughts were too busy for her mind to rest. She wondered how Mellanie was, how her twin brother Kane was - wherever he was - wondered about her Mother and Aunt Brina. Her tired eyes met with Jaesko’s as her friend made herself as comfortable as she could on the floor as well. For all the enemy she had killed, Kaly couldn’t forget that first one. The man just wouldn’t stop haunting her thoughts. That was why she kept trying to keep her mind busy - so she wouldn’t think of him. Wouldn’t think of how she had killed him, regardless of the fact that he would have killed her first had he put more effort into it. She’d just got him first. “Get some sleep Kaly. We’ll find Mel and Araac tomorrow.” Jaesko’s voice seemed to come from a great distance as she wearily raised her head. “Yeah…” she murmured finally giving in to the sweet oblivion that had been teasing her, her mind finally falling into a calmer state allowing herself to sleep and with any luck she wouldn’t have another nightmare...

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Bas'lan felt a little bit of a sting in her words, although, he knew that she didn't mean to let it be there. The sting was his own doing. His own failures and shortcomings. He words, while very true to the heart of a Mandalorian, left him feeling more worried about his son. Finally, he looked at the tree, who seemed to be a bit more worried about Tro’solus than that of the reunion that was taking place. Letting a lot of his own emotions sink, he finally lowered his own head and looked away from Xae and the tree looking thing.

 

"I guess I should show you to his room then, ge'tal'ika."

 

With that said, he turned and began to lead them, still very secretly of his own identity from the rest of the population, towards the hospital that Tro'solus was at.

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"Dika," the voice came quietly. Tresha stood behind Mirdala, dressed in baggy combat fatigues and a form-fitting tank that revealed what remained of her extensive injuries. Her left arm hung in a sling identical to Kandor's, a synthskin-sealed nub where her hand should have been, and heavy bandages covered bacta patches on her right shoulder which itched something fierce. Determined to get a word in edgewise so that her disappearance would not be taken the wrong way, she held out her right hand noncommittally, where her rucksack hung from her fingers.

 

"I'm going home. Taen's holding everyone together, but he shouldn't have to do it alone. Trita especially," she said, not needing to insinuate the crushing sense of uselessness the girl would undoubtedly be present to should her injuries not make any improvement.

 

With a fatigued half-smile, she added, "And you have someone to look after you." Her eyes flicked to Kandor. Such an acknowledgement not only reaffirmed the massive amount of trust she had in him, but issued a subtle command that he would undoubtedly understand. Impulsive and brash, Mirdala's will and temper had never met its match until Kandor came along.

 

Her body wracked with desperate aches, she opted not to embrace her cousin, but instead, slung her pack over her wounded shoulder and reached for Mirdala's hand, grasping it with a desperate fervor. She made no attempt to quell the quiet devotion that emanated through the family bond as she said her farewells wordlessly to her best friend's jade eyes.

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For timely responses, please direct PMs to JJS.

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“I’ll see you to your mother’s care, at least,” Nek interjected. “That way you won’t have to wait for a transport and -”

 

“I won’t worry about you as much,” Mirdala finished, as she rested against Kandor’s right side. “Let us know if you need anything. It might be odd, but you can return to the safehouse if that would be easier. We’ll make sure you have the codes.” Mirdala highly doubted for one minute that Tresha or any of the Ad’Norts would take her up on the offer to use the Chandrilan manor any longer than absolutely necessary. Their family’s roots and blood were in the soil of Concord Dawn.

 

“Don’t think you can get out of eating something, either,” Nek warned over his shoulder as he left to prepare his ship for transit to Concord Dawn.

-----

 

After Mirdala had downed enough bread and managed at least one small bowl of soup, she and Kandor made their way to the Ops center where Viscount was bent over one of the readout consoles. “Glad to see you both made it through,” he offered cordially, his eyes lingering on Mirdala for just an instant before shifting his attention back to Kandor. “The sector took quite a beating it would seem. You understand the danger has not lessened with Ab’ki’s passing.”

 

Mirdala raised her eyebrow in question, but then the pieces began to fall into place. She knew first-hand how hard Keldabe itself had been hit, Concord Dawn was fairly decimated in spots, and damage reports were still pouring in from the affected worlds. “Anywhere the fighting was hard is open to further attack. Do you know something?”

 

She looked at Kandor and didn’t have to guess at his thoughts since he’d started nearly this very discussion with her before they’d gotten the news that Tresha was alive, but injured.

 

Viscount grimly nodded. “There is greater chaos in the rest of the Galaxy and it is known what has happened here. Some would see that as an opportunity to gain a foothold in the sector’s weakened state.”

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Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."

“A Mandalorian woman's greatest talent is not her charm or beauty, but her strength of body and will.” - Mandalorian proverb

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Kandor personally thought that no one had sufficient political motive pick a fight with the Mando'ade even battered as they were. But the galaxy outside the Sector was changing as the aruetiise again looked to make war on one another, and in the past those conflicts had at times made their way into the Sector by someone hoping to gain access to beskar or mercenaries through the occupation of Manda'yaim or the blackmail of the clans. They had the opportunity now to close off such a threat with almost perfect certainty.

 

"Ab'ki's fleet is much larger than we'd anticipated, and most of those ships have been captured. They're the makings of a sector defense fleet that could turn away even the Remnant or Galactic Alliance," he said. "I'm going to reestablish the Mandalorian Protectors like Spar's but bigger." Viscount wasn't the only one in Ops listening to what he was saying, and Fett noticed he had the interest of some of the commanders and verde that had helped oversee the battle for Keldabe. "We'll refit Ab'ki's ships and learn to operate them. With the aruetiise starting to fight among themselves again, the Protectors should be able to hire out forces and we can funnel a portion of the earnings into rebuilding our cities and building new ships."

 

He leaned against the large holotable in the middle of the command center. "Getting started will be rough," he admitted. "Until we get contracts, we won't have the credits to invest in the fleet. I'm open to any suggestions on that, but otherwise the process of getting the fleet working will have to be gradual."

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"The another reason I came," Viscount remarked, handing over a data pad tabulating the accounts for both Ab'ki and Judyc Viba. "Her records were a bit trickier to trace, but you'll see that I was able to recover much. Viba's records would have been harder to hack if I didn't know you."

 

Mirdala looked past Kandor's elbow at the readout and gave an appreciative nod. "You've been busy."

 

"I have a good infomerchant in addition to the skills I possess myself as you'll recall," he remarked flatly.

 

Mirdala pursed her lips together and shook her head as she pictured the pale-skinned Twi'lek and uncomfortably recalled the woman's rather forward nature and coquettish mannerisms. Deren's wiles were her weapon and, though her standards were high, apparently wasn't the sort to quibble about such trivial things like species or gender. Mirdala had first met and worked with the woman while in deep cover during an operation with Viscount in the Corellian Sector. Deren had also assisted Mirdala with her cover and connections when she and Kandor had traveled to Hapes.

 

"Kind of hard to forget."

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Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. - "Train your sons to be strong but your daughters to be stronger."

“A Mandalorian woman's greatest talent is not her charm or beauty, but her strength of body and will.” - Mandalorian proverb

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Xae followed Bas'lan Ardell along the same path she'd seen Frond disappear. From where Frond was standing over her half-brother, it wasn't hard to figure out which injured figure was Tro'solus.

 

"I'm kind of shocked they let you in here without a fuss," Xae whispered as she stepped in beside her tree-like friend as she took his place holding Tros's hand. "I told you I'd find you in Keldable as soon as I was able. I guess it was one hell of a war, then?" Her tone was light, an attempt at humor in order to evoke a response. "I found Dad. I believe you."

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Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

PM Mirdala if you'd like a timely response.

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