Borleias

[Moon Knight]

About two hours later Kandor signed the final document with a flourish. He didn’t really have a legal name, but his signature in a rarely-used Mando’a cursive script, was a practically-illegible but reproducible way to at least identify himself that proved sufficient for these matters. The truth was, with the lack of any formal government on Manda’yaim, he had no birth certificate, most of his bank accounts and other legal possessions were under false names, and he technically wasn’t a GA citizen, having been bestowed New Republic military rank in unusual circumstances by joining the Augury under his oft-used pseudonym “ShadowFett”.

 

Several times throughout the process Saresar had remarked how unusually quick their approval process had been as he’d worked with them to explain the procedure and get things squared away legally. Meanwhile they’d done their best to keep Aerri occupied with the toy she’d been given and another snack, and eventually she’d climbed back onto Kandor’s lap and dozed off.

 

Now he gently roused her. “Ready to go, Aerr’ika?” he asked her.

 

The child looked up at him with sleepy brown eyes. “Go home now?”

 

“You’re going to stay with us for a few days while we try to find your parents,” he explained. “Is that okay?”

 

She seemed to think about it. “Okay Kandor,” she said seriously.

 

He chuckled, picked her up, and set her on her feet while standing up. “Thank you,” he said to Saresar.

 

“No, thank you for being ready and willing to watch her,” Saresar replied. He shook Fett’s hand, then produced his card. “Call me if you have any questions, particularly since you two are first timers and don’t have any kids of your own. Otherwise we’ll be in touch as soon as we can place her.”

 

And just like that they walked out of the precinct with a child at their heels. Not what Kandor had thought the day would bring when he’d woken up that morning. He knew it was most likely a temporary arrangement, even if it was possible that the GA would be unable to find Aerri’s parents, in which case they would have a big decision to make. But this was a chance for him and Mirdala to see what it might really be like to be buire. It was a challenge he had declared that he was willing to take on, but he had to admit the suddenness of it made him realize how little earnest thought he had given it.

 

“Whoa,” Aerri said quietly as they walked out onto the landing pad and approached the Justice, having been brought there by 2277. She had reached up to grab Kandor’s hand while they were walking and he’d gone along with it.

 

He looked down at her. “That’s our ship, the Justice. There’s someone onboard that you should meet, then we can go get some proper skraan in us and go shopping for next few days.” His old copilot had been listening in on the process as they’d gone through it, of course, and knew what to expect. The beskar’ad was actually handling the news fine, given that the arrangement was temporary and overlapped with their already-planned downtime. But he was going to go into whatever passed for conniptions if it happened to be extended.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

It took nearly the entire two hours for Mirdala to complete her statement, considering all of the information that she’d taken from the Klatooinian when combined with the data package 2277 had provided her. She’d also had to buy some time for her to carefully hack her way into the GA’s social network systems and help along the approval of her and Kandor’s status as emergency guardians for Aerri, being equally careful to cover her tracks.

 

Sgt. Izak was already familiar with her skills in hacking and hadn’t questioned when she’d presented him with the organizational information for the trafficking operation, but it had made for a longer than usual questioning session since she’d had to go over the data and corroborate it with what her would-be-attacker knew of the other lines of “business” they’d been involved with. She wanted to set up Izak’s team to be able to handle the clean up with an air-tight case. She owed him that much.

 

By the time she’d snagged a ration bar and was reunited with Kandor, Aerri, and the Social Worker, she was as exhausted as the little girl now asleep in her husband’s lap. She waved off the Social Worker and held her arms out for Aerri, but the girl insisted on walking. It was a good sign she was going to be okay.

 

The girl settled into her lap as Kandor piloted the Justice back to its berth at the resort, now awake and more curious at her new surroundings. When they arrived at the shopping area near the resort, Mirdala sent Kandor for groceries while she saw to the other things they’d need for Aerri. She’d already gotten confirmation from the hotel that a cot had been reserved for their room and would be delivered as soon as they were ready for it.

 

When they returned to their room, Mirdala opened the door and winced at the array of electronics, weaponry, and armor parts still strung about the room from the penetrating radar installation and other tweaks they’d been working on before they’d left for lunch. “You should probably get all of this secured while I give her a bath and get some food started,” she observed in Mando’a, tightly gripping Aerri’s curious hands as she walked her to the refresher before the child could get a chance to explore the interesting looking bits strewn about the room.

 

Leaving the toddler-proofing the room to her husband, Mirdala finally began to relax as she helped Aerri into the bath and began working on the tangled mess the girl’s hair had become. The same tune as before came to mind and she hummed it as Aerri played with the bubbles in the water, genuinely seeming to enjoy her bath.

 

“Mirdala?” Aerri asked, the “r” sound coming out slightly like a “w” sound.

 

“Yes, Aerr’ika?” she responded.

 

“Are the bad men going to take me away again?” Suddenly the content little girl who’d been splashing happily one moment was gone.

 

Mirdala set down the comb she’d been using to gently work the tangles loose, and rested her forehead against the girl's forehead similarly to how Tresha would calm her when she was about the same age. “They’d have to get through Kandor and me first and there’s no way either of us is going to let that happen. We care about you and will keep you safe.”

 

Aerri threw her arms around Mirdala in a wet hug, but the Mandalorian woman didn’t mind in the least. This is going to be harder than I thought, she realized praying that she didn’t have to give the girl to total strangers. Her heart knew this little girl was supposed to be theirs, so she’d just have to be patient until Kandor came around to see reason.

Mirdala hugged the girl back, cradling the back of the girl's neck which caused the child to cry out. “What’s wrong, Aerr’ika? Let me look.”

 

The little girl drew back and obediently turned around in the tub while Mirdala swept the child’s hair over her shoulder to look at the back of her neck.

 

”Kandor, can you bring me the small medkit from my bag?” she transmitted to her husband as she saw the discoloration and abrasions on the back of the girl’s neck.

 

It wasn’t anything major, but the fact that Mirdala didn’t know how long she’d been in that filthy environment was cause for concern if it had become infected. Her own mother had taught her well how to spot the signs of infection and the area certainly did look inflamed. “Don’t worry, we’ll get that fixed up and feeling better,” she promised, scooping some of the warm water up and flushing the area.

[Moon Knight]

Kandor appeared a moment later with the medpack in hand, crouching next to the tub. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

 

Mirdala leaned Aerri forward and showed him the back of her neck. There was a thin but nasty red line along the bottom of her neck near the start of her shoulders. It extended part way around the sides of her neck before terminating, and the wound was patterned slightly. “Rather like a thin chain was pulled off her neck,” he observed in Mando’a.

 

Mirdala nodded as she opened the pack, “That’s what I was thinking. Think you can keep her distracted for a moment while I put this on? It might sting for a bit, but she’ll be okay.” Her tone had remained gentle and soothing as she spoke before she switched back to Basic and addressed Aerri, “I have some medicine I’m going to put on your neck where it hurts. It might sting a little, but I want you to squeeze Kandor’s hands as hard as you want okay?”

 

“No! I don’t want it!” she protested, pulling away from Mirdala.

 

Kandor grabbed a towel off the rack and reached out to grab her. “It’s okay, ad’ika,” he told her. “This will make it stop hurting sooner.”

 

“We don’t want you getting sick,” Mirdala offered, her soothing tone never wavering. “After I’m done I can braid your hair again so it’s pretty, won’t that be nice?”

 

“No!” she protested as Kandor managed to get the towel around her.

 

“K’atini,” he said firmly, bringing the squirming child over to Mirdala. “It’s for your own good.”

 

Mirdala looked up at him surprised with his tactic, but she took advantage of the opening it presented and applied the ointment from her kit and slapped on a protective covering so Aerri wouldn’t be able to scratch or rub off the medicine. The poor girl shrieked the whole time likely more out of everything she’d been through rather than the ointment actually hurting for the few seconds it did.

 

”I’ve got her,” Mirdala transmitted via her implant as she reached for the girl in the towel-bundle. ”Can you go start the prepwork for dinner while I calm her back down?”

 

Fett nodded and made his retreat. At the store he’d picked up the ingredients for Mirdala’s fish stew, which he’d helped her make during their stay on Hapes, so he knew the drill.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Back in the refresher, Mirdala sat on the floor cradling the girl and rocking her as she repeated “I know, I know” soothingly almost as much to herself as the child in her arms. In the whirlwind of everything that had happened since she and Kandor had initiated their escape from the trafficking facility with Aerri, she’d been pushing her own emotions and demons to the back of her mind. But now, in the surrealness that was their current situation, they found her again as she hugged the child close to her, the girl’s tears finally subsiding into the occasional sniffle from within the warm and fuzzy towel.

 

She knew that Kandor was right about finding Aerri’s parents, and she knew what felt right in her own heart. The fact that the two were at odds didn’t exactly do much to help her current mental state, but she had been the one that wasn’t willing to let Aerri go that night. Would that have been the easier choice? she wondered. For us, certainly, but for her?

 

For a moment the image of Aerri’s protests at being separated from Kandor during the extraction echoed in Mirdala’s mind and she wondered if she’d be able to keep her promise to the social worker that they’d be able to prepare Aerri for the eventuality of leaving them once again, this time, potentially, forever.

 

“What’s wrong?” Aerri asked, reaching up and putting both hands on Mirdala’s face. “Do you miss your mommy and daddy too?”

 

That did it. The tears Mirdala had been fighting back came forth as she nodded, smiling sadly. “I do. But you want to know something? Our people have a saying - Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la - which means that those we love are never gone, just marching far away from us.”

 

Aerri seemed to consider this for a moment before giving Mirdala a hug and whispering, “I wish they’d march back.”

 

“Me too, ad’ika, me too.” Mirdala returned the hug and then redirected the conversation. “Let’s get you dressed and I’ll get some food going. I bet you’re hungry, right?”

 

The little girl nodded and dashed off into the next room giggling, leaving the towel in Mirdala’s lap.

[Moon Knight]

Kandor was halfway through chopping the vegetables when a not-nearly-dressed child came tearing out of the bedroom, his exhausted-looking riduur chasing after her with a nightgown. He glanced up at the proceedings, shook his head and resumed his work. He supposed he would have to get used to this, at least for the next few days, and he wondered not for the first time if he was actually ready to become a buir.

 

After a minute Mirdala made her way into the kitchenette, the toddler now clothed and climbing on the couch. “You okay?” he asked. “Need me to help with the skraan or watch the kid?”

 

“I need to cook for a bit, cyar’ika,” she admitted. “It’s been a hard day and I’m having trouble digging myself out.”

 

“Feeling a bit shell-shocked myself,” he agreed, slipping his hand around her waist.

 

The door chimed and suddenly Aerri dashed over to him, glancing at it uncertainly as she grabbed his pant leg. He frowned down at her for a moment, put down his knife, then picked her up and went over to answer it.

 

“The cot you requested, Mr. Trent,” the beskar’ad outside stated. Behind it was a fold-up bed.

 

Fett let the droid in and directed it to the bedroom where it could set up. Aerri watched curiously. “That’s where you’ll sleep, Aerri,” he told her as the process completed. “Thank the droid.”

 

She suddenly looked a bit shy, but finally spoke. “Thank you, Nan-e-e.”

 

The beskar’ad bowed curtly and made its exit and Kandor carried the girl back out into the living area. “Who is Nan-e-e?” he asked her once Mirdala could hear them. “Another droid?”

 

“My Nan-e-e,” Aerri insisted.

 

He walked over to the couch and sat down, putting her next to him while Mirdala continued her work with the meal. “Tell me about Nan-e-e,” he encouraged her. “Do you miss her?” He guessed at a gender.

 

The child nodded, but then climbed off the couch and ran over to the transparisteel door out to the balcony. “Go outside?” she asked.

 

Fett decided to let the subject drop for now. Ultimately anything they could get from Aerri might help them find where she came from, but it wouldn’t hurt to give her a day or two to get used to them before trying to coax more information out of her. He walked over to her and turned on the balcony lights, as it was already after dark. The pool had an extending transparisteel cover, so he agreed.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Aerri hadn’t eaten much of the fish or vegetables but had eaten most of the flatbread Mirdala had made to go with the meal and his wife had been more than content to let the girl eat her fill of whatever she chose. Indeed, the child fell asleep with some of the bread still in her hand, beyond tired from whatever she’d been put through.

Mirdala rose and scooped the sound asleep girl up in her arms and carried her toward the bedroom. The cot was already set up so she tucked in the girl alongside the stuffed ronto someone at the station had given the child. Aerri stirred slightly but then settled deeper beneath the blanket. Mirdala smiled down at the little girl, then rose and closed the door partially behind her.

 

“I’m not sure what I’ve gotten us into, Kandor,” she admitted, with a glance back toward the bedroom door as she started in on the dinner dishes.

 

He joined her. “It’s a big change, isn’t it? We’re doing the right thing, watching over her for a few days, but if we can’t find her parents...” There was an uncertainty in his voice that she rarely heard.

 

“As much as I don’t want to voice this...are we the best possibility for her?” Mirdala answered. “Outside of hunting a Sith Master, we don’t exactly have much of a plan and we can’t exactly take her with us on that hunt, so we’d be abandoning her again.”

 

He was silent for a few seconds while he gathered up the rest of the dishes. “We could make it work,” he said. “Between the two of us, your aliit, even Twenty-Two. Home could be the Justice or the Enigma or Concord Dawn... but it’s going to be very difficult for us to be with her all the time in our line of work.”

 

She grew silent once again, her exhaustion seeming to catch up with her all at once. “About the guard…might as well get that out of the way...”

 

He put a hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing I can tell you that Kirlocca didn’t already. I can’t tell you how to draw on the Force, cyar’ika, and you know your limits better than I do. But every time you do something like that there’s some part of me that just worries that I might not get you back.”

 

“That’s just it,” she began, “in that moment...I’m not sure I did. All I could think about was Lura and how he was just like him. They got quicker deaths than they deserved. I wanted to make this one suffer for all the ones I found in his mind that couldn’t.” She closed her eyes and stepped away for a moment before turning back to face her husband. “I don’t think I can go through another mission like that again. Force-capable or not.”

 

Kandor studied her for a moment. “Okay,” he finally said. “I won’t ever ask you to.”

 

Mirdala nodded, understanding that there were no guarantees there wouldn’t be a next time. “I think we both could use some sleep. It’s been a long day and there’s no telling when she’ll be up.”

[Moon Knight]

In the morning Fett, eternally a light sleeper, awoke to see Aerri attempting to climb down from her cot. He glanced at the chrono. 0630. It would have to do, he supposed.

 

Getting up quietly so as not to disturb Mirdala, knowing she’d had a rough night as it was, he picked up the little girl and carried her outside the bedroom, softly shutting the door behind him and setting her down. She immediately bolted for the refresher, but paused in the doorway and looked back at him expectantly. He sighed, admittedly not sure what he was supposed to do, but followed her.

 

A moment later they managed to get things sorted and headed back out into the living space.

 

“Hungry,” she announced.

 

“Sure, kid,” he said, opening a cupboard in the kitchenette and grabbing one of his breakfast ration packs. He opened the packaging and broke the corner off one of the wafers, then stooped and offered it to her. He pointed at it as she took it. “Skraan.”

 

“Skraan,” she repeated. She eagerly took a bite out of it but immediately made a face, shoving the rest of it back towards him. “Skraan is yucky!”

 

He chuckled. “Skraan is food. Once Mirdala gets up I’ll make something more to your taste,” he said. He moved back into the living area and starting his morning exercise routine since they weren’t going for a run through the city. He dropped to the floor and started doing push ups. Aerri laughed and immediately jumped onto his back, giggling when he continued until he reached the end of a set.

 

“You know, Aerr’ika,” he said in good humor. “You’re a real handful.”

 

“I’ll take that as a good sign,” Mirdala yawned from the doorway. “Why don’t you try what he’s doing Aerri? I already know you’re a brave girl, you can be strong too.”

 

“Come on, let’s try it,” Kandor said, getting back into position. Aerri watched him for a moment, then did her best facsimile. He did another set and she sort of followed along as he counted his reps out loud in Mando’a, Mirdala walking past to the kitchenette. “Solus, t'ad, ehn, cuir, rayshe'a, resol, e'tad, sh'ehn, she'cu, ta'raysh...”

 

Apparently the extra sleep had done his wife good because a few moments later he heard her laughing from the cooking area. “What did she think of the ration pack?”

 

Kandor paused counting. “I think I’ve ruined the word skraan for her…” he lamented.

 

“I’m sure I can fix it,” she promised. “Why didn’t you just offer her some fruit?”

 

“Gotta start her on the good stuff,” he joked between push ups as Aerri attempted her own as well as the counting in Mando’a, with mixed results.

 

That got another laugh out of her. “Well, while you two work up an appetite, I’ll work on the skraan,” she called in Basic.

 

“Why do you two talk funny?” Aerri asked suddenly, stopping what she was doing and sitting upright.

 

“You talk funny, ad’ika,” he replied, switching to sit-ups before offering a better explanation. “Different people from different places talk in different ways, using different languages. Mirdala and I are Mandalorians.”

 

“What’s that?” she asked, leaning against his legs and resting her arms on his knees.

 

“Well,” he explained, forming his words around his reps. “The planet we’re on now is called Borleias. If someone is from Borleias, they’re called a Borleiasian. I’m from Mandalore, so I’m a Mandalorian.”

 

“But people here talk like I do. You don’t. Is Mirdala from Mandalore too?” The girl was full of questions this morning.

 

He paused his reps to rest. “Very close,” he answered. “Do you remember what planet you’re from? That way we can figure out what you are and why you talk like you do.”

 

“I’m from my world,” she stated. “I’m me. And I talk like me.”

 

“Well next time I go to planet Aerri where everyone speaks Aerrese I’ll have to ask if anyone knows you,” he said before starting another set. It had been worth a shot, anyway. Unfortunately Aerri’s still-developing Basic had a very general accent that could have been from virtually anywhere in the mid-rim or parts of the core.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“I’m from Shogun,” Mirdala clarified, “but I’m a Mandalorian because I’m from the same sector as Kandor and we share the same culture,” Mirdala answered, bringing in some buttered toast and fruit jam for Aerri. ”I’ve got another idea Kandor.”

 

She held out her hand for Aerri as she made her way to the balcony and sat the plate on the table as the little girl scrambled up onto the chair. “Tell me more about your home. What did it look like? Was it high up like we are here? Or was there lots of room to run and play outside?”

 

“Both,” the girl managed between bites. “It’s fun to hide in the flowers. Nan-e-e always finds me though.”

 

“What about your parents?” Kandor asked as he came over to join them. “Do they play with you and come find you?”

 

“Sometimes. Mirdala misses her parents. Do you miss yours?”

 

She sure knew how to ask the tough questions. Kandor scratched the back of his neck. “My father was a bad guy,” he simplified. “His name was Judyc. Do you remember your parents’ names?”

 

Aerri nodded, then stuffed her mouth full of bread and jam.

 

“Slow down, ad’ika,” Mirdala admonished, worried that the girl was going to choke herself. “Small bites.”

 

The girl nodded again as she chewed her food, then proceeded to take the smallest bite possible. Mirdala didn’t seem to notice, however, and asked the question again. “What did everyone else call your mommy and daddy?”

 

“My-Lord and My-Lady.”

 

Aerri had likely been a play at a ransom of some sort by the traffickers or whoever else they’d gotten mixed up with, Mirdala realized. That meant that it was it was only a matter of time before the GA tracked down the girl’s parents or someone came forward to claim her. Strangely, the thought did little to set her mind at ease. Probably has more to do with my experience with the Sivaaras than anything else, she reasoned.

 

“Well, at least we have a few more pieces, however vague they are,” she replied to Kandor in Mando’a. Before he could reply her comm beeped. “It’s Izak,” she remarked, rising to take the call back inside the suite.

[Moon Knight]

“Did they find my mommy and daddy?” Aerri asked hopefully to Kandor.

 

“We’ll have to wait and see,” he answered. He wouldn’t expect that quick of a turnaround, but it was conceivable.

 

Mirdala returned several minutes later, looking somewhat relieved. “They need my help sorting through that mess of data. Apparently, Izak remembered that I had something of a knack for it and since we’re already involved…” She let the sentence trail off. “There’ll be a speeder for me in about twenty, unless you two want to tag along. I’m sure you two could find something in the area to do.”

 

“Sure, we’ll head into the city,” he replied. “Find some place so Aerri can stretch her legs a bit.”

 

“Okay, I’ll get us ready if you’ll pack a bag for her,” Mirdala said, taking Aerri’s hand. “And no ration packs. Grab some of those cracker sandwiches I had you get and some cheese or fruit. I’ll grab the extra set of clothes.”

 

Fett feigned innocence and set about his task.

 

------------

 

Half an hour later the speeder dropped Mirdala off at the station and Kandor asked it to take him and Aerri to a local park that 2277 had helped him locate. There was a decent field and some kind of playset with various fixed and repulsorlift-equipped obstacles. Ad’ikase of varying race and species, mostly around Aerri’s age by appearances, were running amuck while their adult counterparts sat on benches nearby to supervise.

 

He did stand out a bit here even without his beskar’gam, from the looks of things. It was mostly stay-at-home or single mothers or nannies a decade younger than him trying to look trendy for what was sadly one of their only opportunities for social interaction with other adults while stuffing oversized tote bags full of snacks and tissues under their benches.

 

“Go on,” he encouraged Aerri, who was eyeing the playset a bit shyly and holding on to his pant leg. She still looked a bit uncertain. “I’ll be right here.” He indicated a mercifully-unoccupied bench.

 

Finally she nodded and headed for one of the obstacles. Kandor was immediately glad that Mirdala had seen fit to dress her in bright colors to make her easy to spot as he sat down to watch. He soon had re-established his uplink with 2277 and asked the beskar’ad to start taking him through the news, after checking in briefly with Mirdala. He had to admit, despite his initial reluctance to install the device when he’d joined the Augury, by now he considered it almost indispensable, even outside of operations.

 

While he was catching up on some of the chatter coming out from the criminal underworld chafing under the overzealous Imperial control of Nar Shaddaa he noticed a Twi’lek and two human women eyeing him surreptitiously from the next park bench and chattering just too quietly for him to hear. He crossed his arms and tried to ignore them while absent-mindedly performing a tactical analysis of the playground in case he needed to make a ba’slan shev’la.

 

It was no use. Soon one of the humans came over, fixing her hair slightly and perching on the bench near him. “You’re new around here. Which one’s yours?” she asked, glancing at the playing ad’ikase. When he only responded with a dubious look, she tried again. “Must be that one in the red shirt. She’s cute!”

 

“Suppose she is,” Fett answered -- in Bocce.

 

The woman did a double take at the unfamiliar language but somehow wasn’t put off. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you raising her alone?”

 

“Can we not have the rest of this conversation?” he asked, again in Bocce.

 

Now having picked up on a question but with no idea what he’d asked, the woman started to look genuinely uncomfortable. “Well, uh, we’ll have to talk again sometime,” she said, excusing herself to return somewhat-dejectedly back to the others.

 

She didn’t get far however before Aerri came running back over. “Kandor! I squished a weird bug over there! It went pop all over my hands! See?” she was shouting proudly… in Basic, of course.

 

The woman turned back around to face him, hands on her hips. He gave her a slightly apologetic look. Osik. He quickly turned to Aerri. “Ori’jate. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“So...you and the Captian, huh?” Izak remarked casually as he and Mirdala were sifting through data pads.

 

“Yup,” she answered without looking up from the credit trail she was chasing amidst all of the severely disorganized files. “You know, for once it’d be nice if the criminals actually kept decent records.”

 

“So he’s got a face, a wife, and a name…” The GA Sargent shook his head in disbelief, not taking the hint to drop the subject. “I don’t think any of us ever expected that development.”

 

“Which one?” Mirdala remarked, putting down the datapad and looking him in the eye. “He’s no different from you or I. We’re a bit more guarded, perhaps, but no different than any other couple and he’s no different than any other man.”

 

That wasn’t entirely accurate - only one man was Moon Knight and only one man possessed Kandor’s drive and skill set, but that was a nuance that had little place in the conversation.

 

“I was sorry to hear about the war in your home sector.”

 

“It happens from time to time. We bounce back.”

 

He shifted another stack of data pads from some of the other unsolved cases they were trying to link to this trafficking ring before asking, “What brought you two to Borleias?”

 

“Did you call me in to assist with data sifting or to interrogate me, Sargent?” Mirdala asked sweetly enough, but the GA lawman had worked with her enough to know not to take it at face value.

 

He held up his hands in mock surrender, “Just making small talk, Constable.”

 

“And I’m just trying to concentrate,” she responded calmly and shifted her attention to the data slate she’d been using for her notes.

 

<<If I could be of some assistance, Mistress Ad’Goran?>> 2277 transmitted via her implant channel. The sudden voice in her head that wasn’t Kandor’s made her jump.

 

“Damn creepy droid,” she muttered under her breath. Was he always monitoring them?

 

“You alright over there?” Izak looked back up at her obviously having seen the start.

 

Mirdala waved him off. “Nothing, just a resource chattering in my ear unexpectedly.”

 

<<I did not mean to startle you.>>

 

”It’s fine, Twenty-Two. If you want to sift through this with me, I’m not going to stop you,” She transmitted back.

 

<<Your read-through speed would be less efficient than simply parsing and cross-marking my copy of the data.>>

 

Of course Kandor snagged his own copy, Mirdala thought to herself. “By all means. Keep me informed,” she said aloud, touching her hand to her ear as though she had an ear comm in.

 

<<This task will have my full focus while Master Fett attempts to fend off unwanted attention of his own.>>

 

“What do you mean by that?” She sat down the datapad wondering what trouble Kandor might have found himself in with Aerri.

 

<<It would seem the disproportionate species female to male ratio in the park is gaining him some notoriety among the females.>>

 

“So nothing he can’t handle, then?” Mirdala didn’t bother to stop the spread of the mischievous smile across her face as she turned back to her notes.

[Moon Knight]

Kandor retreated to a nearby water dispenser to help him clean the insect innards -- which 2277 helpfully identified as those of a Laikosian talc beetle -- off of Aerri’s hands. There was only a faintly visible blue stain left afterwards which hopefully would come off during a better scrub.

 

For the most part Aerri didn’t seem to mind the process. She was chiefly curious to examine the goo as it came off her palm. As soon as they finished, she dashed off towards three alien children who had gathered and were watching them patiently. “Let’s find another one!” she shouted as she reached them.

 

Fett sighed. He turned back towards the park benches and found that the three dalase that had sent a delegate to approach him earlier had now spread out, one to each of the three available park benches, making it impossible for him to sit without inviting a further social encounter. Shrewd, but ultimately a mild annoyance best combated directly.

 

He approached the closest bench and sat. The same woman as before was casually sizing him up. “So you must be some kind of nanny or hired help?” she asked, no doubt having heard Aerri call him by his first name, combined with the fact that she was probably not his biological daughter based on their difference in skin tone.

 

“Emergency foster parent,” he answered flatly in Basic. “And no, I’m not taking care of her alone. My wife is at the police station attempting to clear up the situation in which the child was recovered.”

 

She gave him a somewhat-dubious look, not sure if he was now being truthful, and glanced meaningfully at his left hand. “No wedding band?”

 

“Mandalorians don’t wear rings,” he said. His voice became frosty. “Tend to get caught on weapons or mashed under gauntlets during battle, taking fingers with them.” He produced a data pad, checking to make sure Aerri wasn’t getting into trouble before turning it on. “Now, I’m sorry, but I’m not here to socialize.”

 

The woman harrumphed at him but seemed to get the idea.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala shook her head and helped him with some of the printouts, “Not at all, I can’t blame you for being curious. The fact he had to describe himself over the comms in the middle of a firefight so he wouldn’t get shot is pretty telling.” She smiled, surprised that she was okay with opening up like this. Then again, Izak had been a former team member, her second, in fact. Even if she’d learned through her missions with her brothers that you didn’t always have to trust a teammate beyond their ability to act professionally, it didn’t mean it would hurt to continue some friendships, especially the ones in CoreSec...or the GA…

 

It made her head spin. “I’ve got a question for you. Is it CoreSec? GA? What now?”

 

Izak laughed. “I don’t think we’ve gotten the memo on that. Most of us just still go with CoreSec, though there’s been a few others tossed about - Galactic Alliance Law Enforcement, Galactipol, Allied Law Enforcement - you know whatever fun acronyms or quippy-sounding names the bureaucrats come up with.”

 

“Yeah, I know what you mean. That’s why I went back to the Journeyman Protectors. Less bureaucracy and more getting things done.”

 

“I’m sorry about the delay,” he began, loading up the last box.

 

“We wouldn’t have gone in if it wasn’t something we could have handled ourselves. The two of us usually find a way. After taking down a Sith-led invasion force, a bunch of ill-prepared goons was hardly that much trouble.”

 

 

“I wouldn’t expect so,” Izak intoned. “Thank you for your help, let me know if you piece together anything else that we can use to build a case. I’ll keep pulling at the thread from my end and see what unravels. Tell your husband I said ‘hi’ and that it was nice to finally meet him face to face.”

 

Mirdala offered a wave as she ducked out of the room, “Will do!”

 

----------

 

It didn’t take her long to traverse the few blocks to the park on foot. The warm afternoon air was pleasant as a slight breeze blew toward her, carrying with it the scents and sounds of the park as she rounded the corner. It was something she’d missed the last few days since she and Kandor hadn’t been out for the run that had become part of their daily routine.

 

She and Kandor would have to devise a way to take Aerri out on their morning runs or alternative forms of exercise that they could include her in. It was odd to suddenly remember that they were caring for a child and would have to continually make accommodations for her well-being. Still, if they were to be buire one day, it would have to be something to consider and plan for.

 

Kandor wasn’t hard to spot seated on a bench as far as he possibly could be from a rather sour-looking woman, or maybe she was just horribly bored, Mirdala couldn’t be sure.

 

“Hey, cyar’ika, everything okay? Twenty-two mentioned some unwanted attention earlier?” she asked in Mando’a with a meaningful glance toward the woman who’d turned to appraise her. Switching back to Basic, “May I help you with something?”

 

The woman looked taken aback. “I’d just assumed you’d made the whole thing up to keep from talking to me.”

 

Mirdala raised her eyebrow as the woman gathered her bag and scurried off, red-faced.

 

“Sounds like you had an eventful day,” she remarked with a quick kiss on his cheek before she took the seat next to him and turned her gaze toward Aerri. “Has she done okay?”

[Moon Knight]

"She's more willing to make friends of strangers than we are," Kandor answered, looking back out across the playground and quickly spotting Aerri's red shirt. She was still running around with the mixed bunch she'd fallen in with earlier, although they hadn't yet managed to catch and destroy another insect and he was pretty sure they'd lost interest in the pursuit. He supposed it was easy to make friends as a child. No complicated matters of ideological compatibility, no painful history of betrayal to create caution, no thoughts ahead to even the next day.

 

He turned his head towards his wife. True, long-term compatibility was a much rarer thing, but when it happened it was all the more valuable. Aerri's sudden arrival had raised all sorts of questions about what their shared future might look like, but after what they'd already been through, he thought they could beat just about anything. "Find anything out at the station?"

 

---------------------

 

The next few days were long. Living alone or with just one other, Fett could settle into one task for long periods of time. He would focus his mind on working out, on working on his beskar'gam or other equipment, or on doing research on potential cases with 2277. With an adiik around, it was quite different. Aerri always needed a steady barrage of new things to do to keep her occupied, and she lacked the attention span or patience to concentrate on a given activity for long. This added substantial variety to the day, and while Kandor didn't mind a change of pace, it was definitely a disruption of his normal interests, and at times he realized he was more attempting to placate Aerri to minimize that disruption than actually orienting himself around her numerous needs.

 

For the most part she was mercifully well-behaved, which made the whole thing less difficult, but their interactions weren't without pain points. If left to her own ends, Aerri found ways to get into their gear or into other places that weren't safe for her, so she needed near-constant supervision. Nights after the first additionally became a bit rough, as Aerri began to experience nightmares driven by her ordeal, and soon Kandor had resorted to moving her cot over next to the bed to make it easier to comfort her. Some of the girl's emotions from the event flared up during the day as well and, struggling with feelings she'd never before experienced, she would melt down or act out in episodes which Kandor and Mirdala soon realized they could do little about other than weather them and offer what comfort they could.

 

In the morning of their fourth day together, the orders they'd placed for their gear arrived and they decided there was no getting around Aerri interacting with their kits as they worked on them to integrate the new parts. They kept weapons out of reach with safeties on so that she didn't accidentally discharge anything, but letting her interact with the plates, soft parts, and cetare was harmless enough.

 

Fett was working on putting the finishing touches on Mirdala's repulsor gauntlet while she was hard at work adapting the new vac-sealed flight suit to mount her plates. Looking for a misplaced tool, Mirdala stepped out into another room. Aerri, meanwhile, had been flipping the targeting rangefinder on Fett's helmet up and down for the last minute or so and now she'd decided to try to pick it up.

 

"Big helmet," she said to herself, struggling even to lift it. With all the tech he'd crammed in there it weighed a good few pounds.

 

"Buy'ce," he corrected her. "We call it a buy'ce."

 

"Boo shay," she repeated, still trying to lift it onto her head.

 

He laughed and grabbed Mirdala's bucket off the bed. "Here, try this one," he said, taking his own from her and placing the smaller and lighter helmet on the girl.

 

The helmet flopped around as Aerri experimentally turned her head, then took off at a run around the room -- the only pace she seemed to know. It quickly became clear, however, that she couldn't see a thing through the T-visor, and she ran smack into the nearest wall, bouncing off and, unperturbed, picking another direction in which to take her chances.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala was searching through Aerri’s “nest” that she’d made in the back of the closet with some of the spare blankets and pillows when she finally located the maglock calibrator she’d been looking for. Shaking her head, she began to fold the remnants of their earlier game, placing the items back on the appropriate shelves when her com chirped.

 

Expecting a check-in from Rhys, she answered without looking, “Su’cuy, Ori’vod,”

 

”Sorry Constable, I don’t speak your language,” Mr. Saresar’s voice responded.

 

Mirdala’s heart sank for a moment before she responded. “Forgive me, I was expecting a call from someone else. Things are going well with Aerri. I don’t think we forgot about any check-ins, did we?”

 

”No. You both have more than upheld your end of things. I’m actually calling to report that we’ve found Aerri’s rightful guardians.”

 

She walked into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, grateful that she’d shut the door when she’d started looking for the tool in their weapon’s cases. “‘Rightful guardians’?” she echoed in a measured voice. “So her parents are dead then? You’re certain?”

 

”Yes, Constable. I can provide you more details when you bring her to the station. They’ll be here in the morning. Please see to it she’s ready.”

 

Mirdala didn’t even bother acknowledging him before she shut off the connection. For several minutes she sat staring at the wall. She’d always known this was the most likely outcome of the arrangement they’d made with the local officials. Even if someone hadn’t turned up for her, a permanent foster placement position would have opened up and they would have had to give up Aerri then. Still, she hadn’t expected it to be so soon, or so abrupt. She’d wanted more time to prove to Kandor that this could work and hopefully he’d come around to adopting the girl. In an instant, with a single comm call, the sliver of hope she’d clung to evaporated.

 

Not one to break a promise, she sighed and rose from the bed, just as an audible clunk followed by a giggle came from the other room. “I found it,” she quietly announced, as she watched Aerri bounce around the room. Her jaw clenched slightly, before she added, “I see you decided to let her try on a bucket.” Somehow seeing Aerri running around their hotel suite in her buy’ce made the news she was about to deliver that much harder.

 

“Boo shay! Boo shay!” Aerri repeated the word over and over as though it were a new and exciting game.

 

Mirdala looked over at Kandor, an eyebrow raised.

 

Kandor hadn’t looked up from the gauntlet. “Have to start her early if she’s going--” he began absently before he caught himself. He looked up at her. “Something wrong?”

 

“Yes...and no,” she began, switching to Mando’a as she sat next to Kandor on the sofa. “They’ve tracked down her ‘rightful guardians’,” she changed the pronunciation on the last two words to closely mimic the social worker’s tonality and speech cadence, though the words remained Mando’a. “Her real parents are dead, Kandor.”

 

She wanted to add that they would have been right in adopting her nearly a week ago. She wanted to say they should fight for her. She wanted to pretend the last five minutes hadn’t happened. Instead, she remained quiet as Aerri bounced off of another wall and took off the helmet, giggling. The little girl had picked up on the shift in her mood and was now bringing Mirdala’s helmet back to her. “I didn’t break it! It’s strong! See?”

 

Mirdala offered the girl a sad smile, placing the offered helmet on the floor and holding her arms out for Aerri. The child eagerly crawled into Mirdala’s lap as the woman announced, “I think it’ll take more than a few run-ins with the furniture and some walls to break it, cyar’ika.”

 

“Are you okay?” Aerri asked, looking at Kandor for reassurance, as Mirdala held her closely.

 

Fett smiled at the girl. “We found your family,” he answered, utterly unsure how he might explain that her parents wouldn’t be among them.

 

“My mommy and daddy?!”

 

Mirdala took a deep breath and closed her eyes, “Not quite I’m afraid. I-,” she broke off. “Do you remember how we talked about the bad men that took you?”

 

Aerri’s posture changed slightly and she began to hold on to Mirdala just as tightly. She nodded.

 

“The bad men took you from your parents, but we saved you and you’re safe here with us,” Mirdala gently reminded the girl in her arms as she rubbed her back soothingly like she had the last few nights when Aerri had woken them both with her nightmares.

 

Rhys had suggested talking with Aerri through the nightmares and going over things as many times as the girl brought it up in order to help her make sense of the feelings and always reassuring her that she was safe. It had helped console the girl when nothing else would and Mirdala was grateful for his insight.

 

She should remain here safe with us, Mirdala thought even as the girl repeated the last few words.

 

“Mommy and daddy...weren’t safe?” the girl asked.

 

“We don’t know,” Mirdala answered honestly. “We’ll find out tomorrow though.”

 

Aerri’s face scrunched up and she wriggled from Mirdala’s lap and ran for her stuffed Ronto. “He’s going to find his mommy and daddy,” she announced loudly and ran into the bedroom.

 

Mirdala leaned forward, resting her head in her hands, “Well that went well…”

[Moon Knight]

Kandor sat down next to his wife and put an arm around her shoulders. They'd known this was likely to happen, but it was going to be rough on all of them after they'd just started to get used to each other. And the fact that it wasn't actually Aerri's parents that were claiming her soured it a little more, though being adopted by close relatives was a very Mandalorian-sympathetic arrangement. When his wife’s parents had been murdered, Mirdala’s grandmother had adopted her rather than the Ad’Norts. His understanding was Mirdala hadn’t had a close or amiable relationship with Tsikala, but it had been a claim the Ad’Norts had respected.

 

-------------

 

"We’re still doing the right thing," Kandor reminded Mirdala in Mando’a. They were aboard a speeder driven by a beskar'ad that was taking them back to the precinct to get the rest of this sorted out.

 

"Why doesn’t it feel that way?" She didn’t even look up stroking Aerri’s dark hair as the girl rested her head in her lap. She hadn’t slept very well at all and had fallen back asleep shortly after the speeder took off. Even as her hand brushed over the girl’s braided hair, Mirdala was reaching out to the girl’s mind through the Force, helping to keep Aerri’s sleep peaceful. "And why didn’t I think of this three night’s ago?" She yawned, having spent much of the night up herself.

 

"We knew we might get attached," he said. "But she belongs with her family, direct parents or not."

 

The speeder was now pulling up to the station. Fett paid the driver while Mirdala gently roused Aerri and picked her up. As soon as they got inside, they spotted Izak waiting for them. "Good morning," the Sergeant said. "Aerri's guardians will be here in a moment."

 

"I'd like to see their papers," Fett said. He doubted CoreSec would call them in if the guardians' identities and claim to the girl weren’t substantiated, but there were some things he wanted to see for himself.

 

Izak winced slightly. "See, that might be a bit of a challenge--"

 

Suddenly Aerri squirmed for Mirdala to put her down and took off at a run deeper into the building. "Nan-e-e!" she shouted.

 

Two people and a beskar'ad were coming out of one of the nearby offices. The latter, some variant of the 9E-series nanny droid, immediately stooped to pick up the girl. "So glad you are well, Mistress Aerri," it intoned in a soothing feminine voice.

 

The two humans approached them. They were a well-dressed but otherwise ordinary-looking couple perhaps in their early thirties. The woman wore a broad smile. "Hi there, Aerri," she said, putting a hand on the girl's arm. Aerri gave her a shy look and continued to cling to the 9E.

 

The man then pulled something out of his pocket -- a small locket, it looked like, and held it out. "Mine," Aerri said, clearly recognizing it clutching it.

 

Finally the pair approached Fett and Mirdala. "You must be the officers who rescued Aerri from that awful place," the woman said. "We're so fortunate you came along at the time you did."

 

Kandor nodded and shook the man's hand, giving them both appraising looks. "I'm Captain Fett, and this is my wife Mirdala," he introduced them. "We were happy to be of assistance to Aerri and the other victims."

 

"I'm Elias and this is Trissa," the man replied. "We're Aerri's aunt and uncle. Again, we can't thank you enough."

 

"She’s a bright little girl," Mirdala remarked, matching the woman’s sweet tone with one of her own. "I’m glad we were there to intervene and even get to know her these last few days." Kandor could tell from the slight creasing at the edges of her eyes that the polite cordiality was merely a mask she was wearing. It wasn’t surprising considering the emotions involved in the situation.

 

"Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her," Trissa assured her. "What happened to my brother and his wife was terrible, and Aerri doesn’t need to suffer her whole life for it."

 

"We’d love to stay and chat," Elias said, "but really I think we ought to get going. Lots of big changes for all of us to start getting used to."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“Ad’ike are certainly an adjustment,” Mirdala admitted, still projecting a confident acceptance of the situation that she didn’t feel. “Could we have a moment to say goodbye to her? I feel we’ve all gotten to be close friends over the last few days.”

 

Elias looked at Trissa, apparently eager to be on his way, but ultimately nodded and escorted his wife a short distance away, leaving Aerri with the 9E-series droid.

 

“Come here, Aerr’ika,” Mirdala began as she knelt down and held her arms open for the girl. “I know it can be scary without your mommy or daddy. It was for me and I was much older than you when my parents went marching far away. I had family that took me in, just like you do now.”

 

She hugged the little girl close, before taking the child’s hands and resting her forehead against hers. “Your aunt and uncle love you and will take good care of you just like your mommy and daddy did. I’m not saying you won’t have to get used to one another. You are strong and brave and you got used to two people who are very different from you in just a short while. You are safe. Remember that.”

 

Aerri nodded against her forehead and repeated. “I am safe and they love me just like mommy and daddy do. I have Nan-e-e to keep me safe too.”

 

Kandor knelt beside them and tousled Aerri’s braids. “You’ll be okay, ad’ika,” he reinforced. “Nan-e-e will keep you safe from the bad guys like we did.”

 

The little girl pulled her hands from Mirdala’s and threw her arms around Kandor’s neck, hugging him back before dashing back to her nanny droid. The pair made their way over to Aerri’s new guardians and the four of them disappeared down the hallway.

 

Mirdala, however, did not watch them go, having turned slightly away as she continued to battle her emotions against her need to project a calm and professional demeanor. ”I don’t like this. I really don’t,” she transmitted to her husband. ”I’m still not sure we’re doing the right thing.”

[Moon Knight]

Kandor turned to face his wife, putting his full attention on her and meeting her eyes. ”Is this a Force thing? Aerri recognized the droid and the locket. If you tell me you know they were deceiving us, we can fight this battle together.”

 

Izak approached them, unable to hear their words. “Everything okay?”

 

Fett looked expectantly at his wife.

 

“I don’t know, cyar’ika,” she replied in Mando’a. “I just really wanted her to be ours. Probably just processing. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

 

Fett held her gaze for a few more seconds. “We’ll be okay,” he finally answered the Sergeant in Basic. “I would still like to see their documents and learn a little more about the situation, however.”

 

Izak scratched his head. “So, here’s the thing. The guardians -- Aerri’s family -- are politically sensitive individuals.”

 

“And what the kriff is that supposed to mean?” Mirdala interjected, some of her annoyance at the situation creeping in. “Sounds like some polite way of saying they’re a crime family or some kind of cartel organization that the GA isn’t particularly interested in pursuing.”

 

“It just means their identity is protected,” Fett explained, more familiar with aruetyc legalese than Mirdala despite their shared service in CoreSec. “Details about their lives and whereabouts are strictly need-to-know because it attracts too much attention, and sometimes the wrong kind. We know her parents were the Lord and Lady of somewhere, and it’s not surprising that her aunt and uncle would take precautions given what likely happened.”

 

He thought for a moment. “We might be able to make a case that we deserve access,” he said.

 

Izak shrugged. “You can try. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure the bureaucrats will see it your way, and it may take a while to clear even if they do.”

 

Kandor gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Well, Sergeant, we won’t take up any more of your time,” he said. “I appreciate your assistance.”

 

The cop shook his hand. “Thanks again for stepping in, Captain. Ma’am.”

 

Mirdala nodded, but remained quiet as they left the station and headed back to their hotel.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Mirdala headed straight for the balcony as soon as they entered their suite, not even bothering to shut the sliding door behind her. She’d tried to find some level of calmness amid the emotions that swept through her, but even resting against her husband the entire ride back didn’t provide the usual grounding effect. She was tired of losing, and she was still kicking herself for not letting go of hope with Aerri.

 

<< What will become of you if your nightmares come true? If the galaxy starts to cave in around you?>>

 

Kirlocca’s warning and wisdom came flooding back to her amid the turbulence of her own thoughts and feelings.

 

<>

 

But what am I supposed to do when every time I find a measure of serenity, some greater force decides to change the game on me? She sighed, gripping the safety railing and looked out over the rest of the city toward the direction of the precinct, allowing the sounds of the metropolis to fill in the auditory absence left by the child they’d invited into their lives for a short while.

 

Tentatively, she reached out to the Force looking to connect and find some measure of center and grounding. She could sense the good and the healing that her and Kandor’s actions had begun as those involved in 39 connected cases started to find their own measures of peace in the closure of those case files.

 

They had that potential to continue to bring more peace to the galaxy and right many of the wrongs beings did to one another through the organization Kandor wanted to found. The only way that could happen was if they could get enough credits together to found it. Keep moving forward.

 

Finally, she broke her silence as she turned and strode back into the suite, saying the first words to Kandor since she’d asked for clarification about the use of “politically sensitive” regarding Aerri’s new guardians. “I’m going to get everything on and double check the calibration. Think we can find a place to run a few field tests and recalibrate the new gear?”

[Moon Knight]

When Mirdala went out to the balcony, Fett also took a moment to sit down and recenter himself. There were so many paths, so many things that they could be. Two weeks ago they'd been fighting as soldiers in defense of Keldabe. Then they'd been taking some time off to recuperate from the stress and pain that had come upon them. After that, they'd spent the last few days as buire -- and as that alone. A glimpse at something totally different, and something that he was convinced they had the ability to be. Now he looked around the apartment, the last signs of clutter related to Aerri's stay with them still lingering but her presence starkly absent, and he turned his mind to the future.

 

No one of those things could be their marriage. Maybe one day they would talk about adoption again, but they could never be long-term the kind of parents they had been for Aerri for the last few days. Fett was Moon Knight. He was a soldier and he would never stop turning towards the galaxy's many dangers. He was also a husband who cared deeply about his wife and knew that there were things she wanted desperately, including a sense of normalcy and to raise a family. And so Kandor Fett could never be a soldier exclusively just as surely as he would never give it up.

 

It hadn't been easy for Mirdala to give up Aerri, even though the evidence had been strong that she was being returned to people who were better able to care for her than they were. Shab, it hadn't exactly been easy for him, either. He took it seriously that his decision had overridden her desires. And the thing was, her gut instinct had a pretty good track record. She'd admitted that she'd probably just gotten attached and it had been an emotional response, and that was likely to be the case, but he was going to do his due diligence.

 

"2277," he transmitted via a private link to the beskar'ad. "I want you to try to find Aerri again when she surfaces. Also see if you can learn anything about her past or her family. Maybe investigate the activity of the trafficking organization and see what worlds they operate upon as a good place to start."

 

"Yes, Master," 2277 replied. "I am not certain, however, given the evidence and ongoing official investigation, that this is worth the required time."

 

"Your opinion is noted, burc'ya, but this is a special case and we need to be thorough," he replied as Mirdala returned from the balcony.

 

The fact that she had returned to a business mindset either meant that she was putting the whole thing behind her and moving ahead, or that she was just putting it in the back of her mind and trying to ignore it. One of the ongoing challenges in their relationship was keeping their communication open in these circumstances, but they wouldn't be throwing themselves headlong into a hunt right away, so Fett decided confronting her about it immediately would be an error.

 

"I'm sure there's a private range somewhere in Laikos," he answered. "Honestly not finding the hotel room quite to my liking anymore. What do you say we check out when we get back?"

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“Sounds good to me. This whole thing has left me feeling restless again,” she admitted, heading for the bedroom where her new vac-sealed suit had been tucked away in the closet the night before. “Even if we don’t leave Borleias yet, I’d rather stay on the Justice. No sense in getting too comfortable here.”

 

It didn’t take too much longer than usual to get everything on, though the extra weight at her wrists would take some getting used to as would the penetrating radar that had been installed. Figuring there was no time like the present to start adjusting things, Mirdala encased herself within her beskar’gam and began running through a few stances to check how everything moved with the new improvements.

 

Behind the mask of her buy’ce, Mirdala found solace in the weight and strength of the armor. The tears that she’d been fighting since Aerri’s had had parted from hers, flowed freely, hidden beneath the crimson, black, and grey of her buy’ce. Letting the little girl go had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, Seeker trials and TeVerd’s death included.

 

It’s stupid, she chided herself, unconvincingly as she switched to a different fighting stance and continued her movements. Kandor had been the one to even warm her to the idea of being buire, then Judyc had stolen the possibility from them even as she’d finally embraced the idea of creating a family with Kandor. Unexpectedly a little girl had fallen into their laps, but Kandor’s moral compass had proved correct and, though they’d gotten a few brief days to see what being buire would be like, Aerri had ultimately been returned to her family as promised.

 

Throwing punches at thin air was becoming increasingly unsatisfying, so she halted the movement and returned to the suite’s living area. “Moves okay,” the slight quaver to her voice mostly masked by the voice amp’s projection. “Find a place?”

[Moon Knight]

ShadowFett was in his black beskar’gam and looking like himself again except his buy’ce was on the counter while he fiddled with the new fuel line to his flamethrower. He looked up from the task when she came in, and he knew her too well to miss the tremble in her speech.

 

Solemnly he stepped close to her, trying to look through her T-visor for her jade eyes as he considered his words. “You know,” he began quietly. “When you told me the story of how Jorbe picked you up accidentally in a raid on BakToid, how he saw a little girl in a bad situation and was compelled to step into that scenario and care for her, I learned something very important about what kind of man I wanted to be.

 

“Finding Aerri in that cell, I was convicted the same way I think he was all those years ago. I needed to help her,” he continued. “I don’t know if Jorbe and Cyare felt ready for you to come along when you did, just like I don’t know what it would really look like for me to be a buir. But let me tell you… I was ready to do anything for Aerri. I still am. Giving her up makes me feel like I may have failed her and so failed myself.”

 

He paused, reaching up to carefully unseal her buy’ce, slowly lifting it off her head. He met her red-rimmed gaze unveiled by the dark transparisteel, setting the helmet down and placing his hands on her shoulders. “But I have to think that the best thing for her is to be with her family, people who love her as much as we do and are much less likely to get themselves killed in the line of whatever duty we are called to do.”

 

Her jade eyes seemed to swim for a moment as she looked back up at him, just before she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her forehead against his chestplate. From the way her body shook, he could tell she was crying again, but it only lasted a few moments before she sniffed and met his eyes again. “We didn’t fail her,” she started. “We didn’t.” There was slightly more conviction in his wife’s voice the second time. “You were right. It would have been selfish of us to keep her.”

 

“I sure hope everything turns out okay for her,” Kandor said, then leaned down and drew Mirdala into a kiss. When he pulled back out of it, he took a deep breath and let it out. “Now… I believe we were going to go shoot some things and remind ourselves that some problems have straight-forward solutions.”

 

“Sounds like a plan,” she replied, hugging him once more before donning her helmet and grabbing her weapons bag.

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

“Let’s try that one again,” Mirdala called, using the Force to roll the dummy grenade back toward Kandor when none of the other patrons appeared to be looking. “I think I’m starting to get it calibrated in.”

 

By now most of the novelty of two Mandalorians showing up in full battle kit had worn off among the sparsely populated range staff and patrons. They’d already sighted in and calibrated the various blasters and rifles they’d brought with them, getting in several rounds of marksmanship practice despite Mirdala occasionally shooting his target playfully instead of hers. All that was left was testing the new and repaired gear on their respective kits.

 

Her goal was to get both wrist repulsor calibrated so she could adequately and predictably control their deflection as much as she could control it with the Force. The whole purpose of integrating the tech into her right gauntlet was so that she could still have some measure of what the Force made her capable of while she could also operate inside a Force-less bubble.

 

Ab’ki’s fight had taught her the value of being able to have as many tricks as possible against a Sith because she never knew which one could be the one that saved her life or the life of someone she loved. One of the trickier things about hunting a Sith was keeping her own Force abilities as under wraps as possible as an unexpected ace up her sleeve. Luckily her empathic abilities made that relatively easy since she was able to slip in and out of the general background of the Force more or less at will, or even flaring just enough to attract attention if she wanted it and even full-on static disruption against a target when she needed it.

 

Her husband nodded and threw the grenade at his wife again, this time she was able to amp up the power and tighten the beam enough to “toss” it nearly all the way back to him. ”A few more like that, and I think we’ll be good,” she transmitted via their comm channels.

[Moon Knight]

ShadowFett was pleased to note throughout their training that his replaced systems all seemed to be working efficiently. Targeting rangefinder installation and recalibration was always a bit touch-and-go despite the relative frequency with which the thin metal stalks got sliced or blasted off during combat.

 

But he was mostly pleased to be back in his beskar'gam again for the first time since leaving Manda'yaim. Until perhaps Concord Dawn he had worn the armor almost exclusively and had even spent periods sleeping in it, particularly in the field. The black and blue plates were his identity, and even Mirdala had barely seen him outside of them for the first few years of their partnership. A lot had changed since then and he had drifted psychologically from the single-minded verd he had been, now seeking many things beyond personal glory and professional reputation. But though that warrior had evolved into something he considered greater, forever would he be most comfortable clad in beskar, prepared to fight worthy battles with all of the tools that he had trained thousands of hours to master.

 

His focus this session was less upon his own equipment, however, and more upon assisting his riduur in acclimating to her new additions. It took a lot of precision to redirect grenades toward specific locations with a wrist-mounted repulsor cannon, but she was taking to it readily. He guessed if he tossed her a jetii'kad she would be able to deflect and redirect blaster fire with it, so he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. He had trained very hard his whole life to be able to do some of the things Force users could do naturally, and there was much they could do that would be forever beyond him. That his wife and hunt-partner would be trained in that power, combined with the memories of wielding the Force he had inherited when he'd become Moon Knight, had helped him to release the bitterness he'd once felt towards jetiise bal dar'jetiise for this fact, and now he was ready to ally with or combat them equally well.

 

Now Mirdala was becoming consistent with the exercise, and so he encouraged her to turn on her penetrating radar and keep going. The radar added a significant amount of additional visual stimulus, much of which wasn't relevant to the immediate task and thus made it difficult to focus on what was important. He began the exercise again, tossing one or more projectiles towards her and challenging her to repel them with only the repulsor -- compared to the Force, a very blunt instrument. However, by interfacing with 2277, who could remotely alter the settings of the visual display, Mirdala was able to begin customizing her experience, applying a series of color highlighting, gradients and blurs to help her distinguish objects of varying distance and velocity.

 

They trained for several hours, pausing only to rehydrate, before reaching a point where they deemed they had made as much progress as was possible in one day. Fett placed a high value on repetition and muscle memory for mastering the fundamentals of skills, but repetition had to be extended over several days, bringing into each one a fresh perspective and renewed focus. Once certain actions became rote, they could be performed reliably in battle without a thought or delay, and then they could be expanded upon and be used in situational improvisation and integrated into an evolving and unique combat style that was more than just a toolbox of memorized moves.

 

Afterwards they headed back to the hotel, walking in full beskar'gam through the resort. No doubt Mirdala was enjoying the improved environmental controls that her new vac suit provided, Fett thought. A self-contained system that would enable her to survive in outer space, it did substantial work to keep her body temperature even and her skin temperature comfortable.

 

They didn't intend to stay long. Fett immediately set to work packing up their tools and equipment while Mirdala went through the closets. They would be leaving with more than they'd arrived with, since they were now responsible for everything that Deren had arranged to be here for them as well as whatever they'd since purchased. Working together they made quick progress, however, and less than 20 minutes later they had a stack of equipment boxes and suitcases in the middle of an otherwise-pristine hotel room.

 

Fett headed back into the bedroom to do one last check to make sure they hadn't left anything behind when he checked under the bed and something caught his attention. Wordlessly he grabbed the object and moved back out into the living space where Mirdala was securing the magnetic lock on a weapons case.

 

"Mird'ika," he said to get her attention, offering her the item. It was the stuffed ronto Aerri had been given following her extraction and to which she'd clung for most of her stay here. He paused for a moment. "Might want to hold onto this."

[Mirdala Ad'Goran]

Another twist of the knife in her heart.

 

Mirdala didn’t immediately reach for the stuffed toy as her husband held it out to her, pain and emotion that she’d just managed to shut away springing unexpectedly from their neat little containers in the corner of her mind where they’d been kicked.

 

Part of her wanted to leave the ronto behind as much as she wanted to leave behind the piece of herself that was struggling to let go of the little girl who’d so wonderfully and unexpectedly disrupted their lives for a few days. Some of that part of her was still angry about the situation and she nearly asked what the point was and even thought of merely taking the toy only to toss it onto the couch behind him and leave it for the next guest or to languish in a lost and found somewhere.

 

She wished she could turn herself off as easily as her husband seemed to and put some distance between all of the pain for even a little while. Kandor’s mindset was one of forward movement and he was extraordinarily good at compartmentalizing. However, his offering Aerri’s toy only highlighted that there was some sort of departure from his usually logical nature that indicted the little girl had left a deeper mark on him than even his words had expressed earlier.

 

Mirdala remembered that she had been another one of those departures for him. As little sense as it made to her to keep the toy, she knew she wanted to even if it became another scar she bore. They’d all managed to adjust and even had just seemed to be finding a sense of what their version of normal could look like before the call that took Aerri from them. The ronto was an indication that adoption could work for her and Kandor; they now had a better picture of what their lives would look like and what they’d need to prepare for the next time they took that step for real.

 

All of this ran through her nimble mind in mere seconds, before she extended her hand and accepted the ronto as a kind of unspoken promise between the two of them. They would make this work. It might not be soon, but they would be buire one day.

 

She stepped closer to him and rested her helmet against his with the stuffed ronto tucked under one arm and felt peace settle into her heart.

[Moon Knight]

When the bellhop droid answered the door and perceived the two Mandalorians in full armor, it hesitated for a moment as though not quite certain what to make of things. Peeking around the room, it burbled a sense of astonishment at the orderliness of the room and lack of broken objects.

 

Fett directed it to bring the hovercart in and started loading equipment and clothing bags onto it, not particularly paying attention to the beskar’ad’s attempts to do it itself. He and Mirdala didn’t speak much as they finished and headed downstairs, Fett heading up to the desk to inform the hotel that Yaren Trent and wife Kida were terminating their stay early while Mirdala supervised the loading of equipment onto the speeder that would take them back to the Justice.

 

A few minutes later they were back aboard the ship, the place Fett had always considered to be yaim. It seemed like their most likely course of action was to strike out for the Shadow’s Gambit and begin tugging on some threads to see if they could get wind of Quietus, but some things needed to happen first. Fett wanted to verify the bounty before they committed to a hunt, but he also wanted to give his riduur a couple more days to make sure he wasn’t pushing her into something.

 

Thankfully they had another stop they needed to make that would give them time to sort both of those out. Vi’ika, having not been welcome at the resort, had been left back on Manda’yaim with Cinva and Verdeyuii, and Fett wanted to drop in on the Protectors once more now that they’d had a couple weeks to get settled. It would be a quick but worthwhile stop.

 

Not needing more of a plan than that, the Justice soon lifted off and departed Borleias for a return trip to the Mandalore Sector.

[Darex Trevelian]

Darex had wanted to take Armiena to a Jedi world, but Xae had sent him the navpoint for Borleias. He hadn't said anything, but instead shot off a comm to the Jedi healer he had contacted, and made the jump. Hyperspace made communication with the other vessel impossible, and it irked him that he couldn't check on both Draygos, but he trusted that Xae was taking care of them.

 

It was a long several hours in the cockpit. He kept himself busy with logistics for the Order, listening to the messages on his comm and queuing up responses to be sent as soon as he kicked in his sublights again. Vos and Adenna were partnering with the Imperial Knights, it seemed. It didn't surprise him, but it was sobering. He felt that the Order was going to lose both of them. The actions of the Imperial Knights gave him serious concern. They were proving themselves to be more interested in shooting first and asking questions later--if they asked questions at all. But Darex knew that the galaxy wasn't just made up of light and dark. People weren't one or the other. They were varied and complicated, and that was what made the possibility of redemption so important. In retrospect, he felt it had been the right decision to separate their Orders, but he saw no issue with working alongside them.

 

The news about the attack on Kashyyyk tore at his heart. The Force fed him a brief image of the wroshyrs burning, and he mourned for the loss of life. If there had been a way to stop the Sith...but he knew by the time he could scramble the fleet, the Sith would already be gone. No, all he could do was commit the Order's help in whatever the wookiees needed to rebuild, and hope that next time, they would have enough warning to stop the massacre before it happened.

 

After returning Vos' comm, he recorded a statement for the holonet stating just that. After shutting off the recorder, he grimaced. Since when did being the Grandmaster mean being a politician? he mused. Perhaps the galaxy has changed...or perhaps I've lost my way. What he really wanted to do was just sit and meditate on that for a while. Ever since he had returned, he had felt off-stride. Part of that was likely still readjusting to things, but he wondered. His path had always been very clear to him. So why did it now seem twisted and confused?

 

He shook his head. There was still work to be done. He quickly ran through several other communiques, which included updates on the fleet, the status of the temples, and a quick message from Jax and Alana that mostly showed his son's feet from where Jax had dropped the holorecorder. Still, it made his father smile. Those kids need to get back in class, he thought.

 

Yet another message was from Knight Cadan, recommending her apprentice for knighthood. Darex reviewed her attached report, and was pleased to see that this Aelyn Talis sounded like she had been well trained and would be a valuable asset to the Order. After a few moments, he approved the advancement.

 

Once all his business was done, there was only an hour left of the flight. He grabbed a quick nap, and woke to the proximity alarm beeping. As the countdown expired, he smoothly leapt out of hyperspace and kicked in his sublights. His sensors spotted the Lambda shuttle about ten klicks ahead of him off his port, and he throttled up to decrease the distance. His comms automatically uploaded, and there was a new one waiting for him from the healer he had contacted. She was already in orbit and ready. Darex initiated his active comms, found her, and shot her his transponder information, asking her to follow them down.

 

By this time, they were entering Borleian airspace, and Darex's comm board lit up. "This is Borleian traffic control, please state your ID, the purpose of your visit, and declare any cargo."

 

Darex eyed the Golan defense platform in orbit as he replied. "This is Jedi Grandmaster Darex Trevelian, accompanied by several other members and partners of the Jedi Order." He sent the transponder codes of the three vessels. "We have wounded onboard and are seeking immediate medical attention. We have our own healers, but we would appreciate the use of a medical facility."

 

There was a pause on the line, then they were given clearance to land in the capital city on the southernmost continent. Darex thanked them and took the lead. Now that they were here, he was even more eager to see Armiena with his own eyes and make sure she was alright.

[ObliviousKnight]

Draygo woke with a shiver, having fallen into an actual slumber during their jump through hyperspace. Her sightless eyes shifted as she took stock of her surroundings with the Force; the Jedi Knight, a vaguely familiar woman, was still at her side and maintaining vigil in the cockpit; her mother and her operatives were still in the passenger compartment, though one of them was fading quickly. Her bony fingers touched at a bandage on her bald forehead, then at a peculiar knob of metal that had been implanted in her inner thigh. That confirmed that the fever dream of the last few hours hadn’t been some trick of the Force or a nightmarish fit of delirium; she had been rescued, albeit into a world of pain, vague, unfocused shapes and muffled sounds.

 

“I know you.” She muttered, the words struggling throat a vocal apparatus that felt dry as gravel. “Sorry, I can’t make much out… thank you.” Her hands threw the throttle forward, trusting that either Darex or the Jedi Knight had contacted Borleian traffic control and explained their emergency. A beacon shone out in the shuttle’s sensors and she drove the vessel towards it, quickly breaching the planet’s atmosphere and soon settling at one of the larger hospitals in the world’s capital.

 

Not soon enough for one of the wounded, unfortunately. The fading Force signature diminished to oblivion, and a muffled sob issued from someone in the passenger compartment.

 

A low growl emanated from the back of the cockpit. Behind Xae, a Togorian with a dramatic coat of black and white stripes stood at the entrance to the cockpit, a scent of sweat and burned fur radiating from her. Her ears twitched and her slit pupils dilated with displeasure upon seeing the familiar continents of Borleias. Undoubtedly Draygo had expected that the planet still played host to a Jedi outpost and had hoped to convalesce in familiar surroundings, but she had also been out of the picture for several years. The Galactic Alliance wasn’t the same government that it had been, and the Jedi Order’s influence clearly had diminished with time.

 

And now, with this shuttle settling at a landing pad at a publicly accessible veteran’s hospital, she was now going to have a very busy day removing the evidence of their passage when she would have preferred to look after her grieving compatriots.

 

Once the shuttle had landed with a minor degree of clumsiness, a grey-haired Gotal who had seen many years of service with the Jedi Order came charging up the boarding ramp with a trio of medtechs from the hospital, repulsorlift stretchers in tow. Pannor Gloth knelt by the fallen Umbaran in the passenger compartment, his grey head slumping as he realized that no intervention devised could do anything to change his condition. He moved further into the shuttle, and Draygo moved to rise from the pilot’s seat but was unable to accomplish more than painfully shifting her shoulders.

 

“‘n walk.” She muttered, frowning at her paralyzed legs. “I can walk… spast, I can’t walk.” No matter; she was badly emaciated from years of hibernation and months of treatment at a lab specimen, and was easy to lift out of the chair and place into the repulsorlift stretcher.

 

____

 

Several minutes later, Draygo had been moved into a little-used wing of the hospital, at last resting peacefully in a cot with air-light sheets. The myriad surgical wounds in her back, shoulders, and legs and been bandaged and treated with bacta and the veteran Jedi had been placed, after much complaint and protest, into a healing trance to convalesce. A bacta tank was being prepared for the damage to the deeper tissue and profound neurotransmitter imbalance that she had suffered from months of experimentation.

 

Misal refused to leave her daughter’s side and was shrugging away the attention of his staff, even though she was breathing with some difficulty and was clearly in a significant degree of pain.

 

Gloth explained for the Grandmaster and the others present. “She will heal, though it will take some time. She’s suffering from a significant degree of blood loss, depletion of bone marrow and other fluids. I suspect that the paralysis in her legs is caused by a set of implants placed directly over the femoral art. We’re still running some scans on the implants to see if they might hold any additional surprises, but we should be able to remove them without significant difficulty.

 

As for her blindness and deafness, these… people… removed the optic and cochlear nerves. I don’t understand why… but we can repair the damage that they’ve done. With your permission, Ms. Draygo, I’d like to keep her in a trance until we can at least repair the damage.”

 

Misal just nodded, refusing to let go of her daughter’s hand.

[Darex Trevelian]

As he landed, Darex forced himself not to immediately jump out and rush over to the Lambda without doing his post-flight shutdown. You've been flying without an astromech, he told himself firmly. You have to take care of your ship. Impatience was not usually his problem, but he found himself nevertheless hurrying through the checklist. As soon as he was done, he hopped out of the ship and hurried into the hospital, ignoring his rumpled tunic and helmet hair in his eagerness to see his friend.

 

He turned the corner, slipped by a medical droid, and slid the door open at a touch. And there she was. Emaciated, her breathing labored, blood oozing out of wounds all over her body. But she was alive. Anger stirred in him, much stronger now that he could see the damage done to her himself. With all your power and resources, you can make sure they're finished, a voice whispered to him. You can make sure they never hurt anyone ever again like they've hurt her. He took a deep breath. He had a right to be angry, but he didn't have a right to seek revenge. He reached for calm, and let the Force flow into him, emptying himself. Armiena was putting up a fuss about being placed in a healing trance, but he stepped forward. "For once in your life, just let yourself heal, alright?" he said with a warm look in his eyes.

 

She eventually acquiesced, and Darex was left to listen to the doctor's evaluation with the others. "Thank you, Master Gloth," Darex replied. "Can you make any hypothesis as to why they did what they did? Any pattern that might arise from her overall condition?"

 

The other Jedi shrugged. "It's difficult to say. It's clear they were experimenting on her. This wasn't just torture. But to what end, I have no idea."

 

Darex nodded absently. "Of course."

 

He moved around to the other side of the bed opposite Misal, his gaze resting on his old friend's face. The last time he had seen Armiena, she had come up with a desperate and rather crazy plan to trick Faust into giving up his location. She had asked Darex to modify her memory so that they could spring a trap. He had agreed, diving into her mind and using the Force to remove her short-term memory, and then she had rushed out, bent on her mission. He had never seen her again, and Faust had survived until a few months later when Darex and Onderin had finally been able to take him down. Armiena probably didn't remember asking Darex to do that, now that he thought of it. Those memories had never been restored. With some unease, he realized she might have rather a lot of questions. They hadn't been able to put a timeline to exactly when she had been captured.

 

He raised his eyes to Misal's face. "She'll be okay, Misal. And when she wakes, she'll likely have a lot of questions." He paused. "Now it's time for you to get looked at. I'm not going to face her waking up and realizing that you've refused treatment. Let Master Gloth look at you, or at least one of the med droids." He gestured to the bed next to Armiena's. "You can stay right here."

[ObliviousKnight]

The last few days passed in productive silence, no one having much time for anything beyond their immediate tasks and recovery. Xae-Lin was forced to depart for Felucia shortly after having her superficial injuries attended to--such was the life of a Jedi. The survivors of Misal’s fireteam had been wounded or seriously injured over the course of extracting the younger Draygo. Even in her wounded state, the Togorian was busying her mind by continually erasing the hospital’s records of their presence and the treatments that were being prescribed for Armiena; the others were convalescing from broken bones and blaster grazes. All of them were grieving for their lost comrade, whose body was interred in the hospital’s morgue until a proper memorial could be held for the fallen Umbaran.

 

Renn Hamis, the leader of the fireteam, disappeared once his relatively minor wounds had been treated, citing the need to make preparations for his friend’s memorial service.

 

The Gotal Healer was far too busy to make time for socialization. As he soon discovered, the damage done to his patient’s body had been quite extensive, though the damage was more inflicted through targeted operations than sadistic torture. Armiena had lost a dangerous amount of weight--aware of the former Grandmaster’s reputation for physical training, Gloth was horrified at the sight of her skeletal form. She’d lost far more blood than what was considered safe for a woman of her weight; nearly every major bone and limb had been probed for marrow and other tissue. However, the surgeries, even those performed in her scalp and spinal column, had been performed by an experienced team of professionals; Armiena had been in more danger from her wounds becoming infected than the immediate damage to the tissue. If their arrival had been delayed by a few more hours, Draygo would have slipped into sepsis and scarring from surgical wounds would have been the least of the Healer’s concerns.

 

The Gotal Healer and his staff worked without delay, only pausing a few times each day to take meals and rest in shifts. After a round of bacta immersion therapy to stabilize their patient and forestall the threat of infection, scans to the implants in her legs were completed and concluded that the nodules of metal were the cause of her status as a paraplegic--the implants blockaded the transmission of the sciatic nerves, rendering her legs useless. The implants also served as rudimentary tracking beacons, hosting an intermediate-ranged signal transceiver that was powerful enough for intrasystem communication. Even if the transceivers probably weren’t powerful enough for interstellar communication, Gloth nonetheless issued an interim report to inform the Grandmaster that it was entirely possible that Armiena’s captors were aware of her current location.

 

After they were able to remove and disable those implants, however, the Healer could allow Master Trevellian to worry about the tactical decisions and simply focus on rebuilding Draygo’s body and worrying about some anomalous results in the woman’s brain scans. Between the results of the scans and a unusual prescription that her mother ordered, the Gotal was quite concerned about his patient’s mental wellbeing and made a mental note to ensure that Misal was at her daughter’s side before rousing her from the healing trance.

 

____

 

Three days after arriving at Borleias, Misal received notification that her daughter was prepared to be roused from her healing trance. A complete recovery would take some more time, to say nothing of physical reconditioning, but Master Gloth was confident that Armiena was at least healthy enough to be awoken safely. The Miraluka summoned the Jedi Grandmaster to Armiena’s side, sipping idly from a cup of cheap herbal tea while the Gotal was at work. Her recovery had been straightforward--her injuries were largely from blunt-force trauma and broken bones, though she periodically winced and touched her left hand to her ribs.

 

The Miraluka sniffed heavily and wiped at her face while she watched the grey-haired healer touch a pair of fingertips to Armiena’s bandaged forehead and mutter a sentence in his native tongue. “Master Trevelian, I owe you a debt that I’ll never be able to repay. I… thank you for my daughter.”

 

Misal felt that Trevelian deserved some explanation for ber atrocious behavior over the last few months, to offer some account for the various disappearances and attacks on Coruscant. All of them had been necessary, even if the broken lives and hospitalizations had been an unjustifiable price for her daughter’s rescue. Her lips opened, but the Force began to gather around the unconscious Jedi and Armiena’s eyes snapped open. Eyes of emerald shifted frantically as the Alderaanian realized that she could actually see and hear again, not just perceive hazy shadows and unfocused murmurs. Every extremity still hurt, and now that she could feel her legs again, pain had surfaced in places that had previously been numb.

 

“How do you feel, Master Draygo? Do you know how you got here?” Healer Gloth asked in a low tone.

 

“Parts of me don't hurt as much.” Armiena groaned. A handful of seconds later, she realized that she wasn't in the sick bay of the Jedi Dojo on Borleias. The whisper of filtered air, the scent of disinfectants, and the thin, sterile sheets informed her that she was in a medical facility of some description. The sensors attached to her body immediately began to race as her heart rate and blood pressure skyrocketed; the currents of the Force circling about her crackled with energy as she rolled out of the bed and knocked Gloth to the floor.

 

Having not used her legs for several months, Armiena stumbled clumsily as she raced for the door in some half-planned attempt at escape. Fortunately for the wellbeing of the civilian healers who were working beyond the doors of this unused suite, Darex stood between her and the rest of the hospital and the emaciated woman’s sprint rebounded off of his larger frame. She fell to the ground in a heap, shaking and threatening to hyperventilate. Armiena had no idea where she was, but it was clearly an accessible location where her presence and vulnerable condition would be reported.

 

“Where are we, Darex?” She demanded once she was able to get her breath under control.

[Darex Trevelian]

The next three days were quiet for Darex. He thought about leaving, but discarded it. He wanted to be there when Armiena woke up, and it didn't look like the GA was quite ready for their liberation of Onderon yet. In lieu of that, there was no other situation that demanded his physical presence. The only bump in the relative monotony of the days came with the healer's discovery of the transceivers. That was enough for Darex to make a call to the GA base and ask them to increase security, as well as let him know immediately if any suspicious activity appeared on their scopes. He also quietly made plans to relocate Armiena. The Jedi had a good working relationship with the GA, but he didn't want to trespass on their hospitality for too long, especially if it might put their people in danger.

 

Finally the day came when they could wake Armiena up. He gathered with Gloth and Misal. As the other Jedi began to wake Armiena, Misal turned to him. He smiled warmly at her. "Armiena is probably my closest friend. Believe me, there is no debt. It was my pleasure. I'm greatly relieved that she is safe once more."

 

Any more of their conversation would have to wait, for the woman in question blinked and slowly opened. Grogginess was her first response, but it didn't take her long to snap to alert. She clumsily rolled off the bed, drawing the Force to her in panic as she tried to dart to the door. Darex quickly stepped in the way, and Armiena collided with him. She immediately collapsed, breathing heavily, her eyes wide with panic. He quickly reached down and pulled her to her feet, steadying her with his arms as she demanded answers. "Armiena, it's okay. Calm down. You're in no danger." She probably didn't believe him, and really, it was a silly thing to say to someone who had experienced her level of trauma, but he couldn't keep the platitude from slipping out. "We're on Borleias, at a GA veterans' hospital. You've been in a healing trance for three days." He radiated calm power in the Force and met her wild gaze steadily. "Remember? You brought us here once we got you off Iridonia."