A Young Girl’s War Between the Stars

  17

  Mandalore, Sundari, 42 BBY.

  Eight days into negotiations and things were going well, at least according to what I had gathered from conversations between Masters Dooku, Qui-Gon, and Dyas. They had moved past the point of understanding each side’s point of view to sitting down and attempting to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement and a series of concessions each side could agree to, and it was all thanks to passing on something Jaster had told me in our first meeting in his tent.

  The True Mandalorian faction wanted to fight. To sell their services. They sought honor in combat for a worthy cause. They wanted to keep some of the old Mandalorian traditions alive, but not return to their more bloodthirsty past.

  The New Mandalorians were pacifists and didn’t want to fight. They wanted to focus on rebuilding Mandalore, establishing trade, and building political relationships. In other words, they wanted the political victory, not the military victory.

  The solution was obvious and I was surprised they hadn’t considered it yet. It was so obvious that I hadn’t even brought it up because I assumed it had been dismissed. That is, until I passed along what Jaster had said to Master Dooku and the others and had followed it with a simple question.

  Why don’t they just join forces? The pacifists stay at home and run the planet. The warriors act as both the military and an expeditionary force, selling their services to their trade partners.

  After that, things had progressed relatively quickly on the negotiation front. Of course there were still details to work out, quibbles about one thing or another, but for the most part it seemed both sides liked the idea.

  Their biggest disagreement was over just how much latitude the True Mandalorian faction, once both groups incorporated under one banner, would have to go seek out jobs. Jaster wanted to be able to sell their services to anyone willing to pay, so long as the cause wasn’t awful. Satine wanted them to only sell their services to the Mandalorians’ allies, and only with the approval of a civilian (pacifist faction) oversight committee. It was causing some delays, but was still well within the projected timeframe for coming to some sort of reasonable conclusion and securing Mandalorian aid.

  So of course, that’s when everything would go to hell.

  Over the course of our time here, I had established a bit of a pattern. I would meet with Jango in the mornings. We would fly out somewhere to practice various skills to familiarize myself with new equipment.

  Sometimes, he would change that up a bit and bring a squad or two of his people for training and we would either work together practicing various maneuvers and tactics, run practice battles against opposing groups, or occasionally I would get to enjoy myself fighting against whoever he brought for training—usually with various limits imposed upon myself to make it more challenging. Things like not being able to use my lightsabers, or being forced to stay on the ground, infiltrating an enemy camp without the use of the Force to capture an objective without being seen, or evading capture while being pursued through whatever terrain we ended up on that day.

  When the day ended, we would head back to whatever camp Jaster’s people had made that day. They moved around from day to day because Jaster was, if I was being bluntly honest, a paranoid old bastard. That didn’t mean he was wrong however. We knew there were enemy forces on planet, the Death Watch were out there somewhere, but as far as I knew they hadn’t engaged yet.

  I spent the evenings speaking with Jaster on the subject of history, war, the Codex, and a variety of other subjects for an hour or two. Having read through the Supercommando Codex, I couldn’t say I disagreed with it. Honestly, much of its contents appealed to me—both as a former Japanese person for whom the idea and importance of honor had been instilled since birth, and as a soldier, ensuring that the cause you were fighting for was worth fighting for and you were getting paid for it, and not having your life spent wastefully. I would have liked to be able to refuse assignments, or retaliate violently against commanding officers making stupid decisions or abandoning, if not outright betraying me and my people.

  When our conversation wound down, Jango would take me back to Sundari, and I would spend an hour or two a night in the ship speaking with the projection of Ajunta Pall, learning new things and practicing what he taught me, while getting the occasional history lesson. I would be going back to try to verify everything I’d learned when we returned to the temple.

  However, I had a feeling that the projection was being truthful and that most of what it was saying would fall under the header of ‘forbidden knowledge.’ Such as the knowledge that Revan had used both the light and dark sides of the Force and had been stronger for it, all without ‘falling’ later in his life. Or that it used to be much more common for Jedi to fall in love and start families, even if it was against the rules at the time—those rules used to be a lot less strict than they seemed today. Or, using the example of Revan and Bastila Shan, love was a strength, not a liability—which again, made me want to do research on exactly when the Order decided that normal, healthy human emotions were decreed to be universally bad for Jedi, who decided that, and why.

  After checking the ship over for potential sabotage, I would make my way back to our hotel and spend a couple of hours in meditation there, working on my computation orb. Sometimes, rarely, that time was spent with Obi in shared meditation, but more frequently of late she had been staying out later and later, on ‘guard duty’ for Satine. Of course, everyone saw what was going on. It was impossible not to. The Masters didn’t put a stop to it however, which could be taken for silent approval, if not encouragement. I was confident they saw it as ‘strengthening ties with our allies’ or something along those lines. I couldn’t help but feel that it was unprofessional, given that we were on the job, and had the potential to cause a conflict of interests, but…

  It’s said that one learns more through failure than success. I was willing to stand aside and keep quiet, and if nothing came of it, so be it. But if something happened, as long as we could recover from it and it didn’t lead to the death of Ms. Kryze, then it could be used as an object lesson to dissuade mixing business and pleasure in the future.

  So why, with my years of combat experience fighting a protracted war on multiple fronts, did I do something so foolish as establish a highly visible pattern for anyone with eyes to see, when I knew that out of all of us I looked like the easiest target?

  Because out of all of us, I looked like the easiest target.

  If you know the enemy is in hiding, waiting to spring some trap, then there are only a few ways to respond, which depend on how much information you have. If you know the enemy’s general location, or most likely location, you can send force reconnaissance and attempt to destroy the trap. Without that information, you can either prepare and keep going as you have, and wait for the enemy to come to you… or you can bait your own trap.

  So when I left the ship one night after making sure no one had stuck a mine or something on the exterior and felt someone’s attention on me, I suspected that someone had finally taken the bait. As casually as I could, I began making my way out of the hangar, extending my senses and focusing on my pursuer as someone began to quickly close in on my position.

  I was getting to the point where I could start to differentiate between both sex and alien species by the feel, or flavor of their emotions—though it was a bit harder to tell most near-humans apart on the species level. This one felt human, or close to it, and female. Her emotions felt steady—on mission, for the most part. At least, until I passed under a light and she got a good look at me. I felt her surprise, followed by a bit of anger and what almost felt like betrayal—not directed at me specifically, but it was impossible to tell who or what it was aimed at. Then, there was a sense of resignation as her emotions settled. A bit of regret. Determination. She had apparently decided to carry out whatever task she had been assigned with regard to me.

  I felt her approach quickly and, while there was a mild inkling of danger, I didn’t feel like my life was under threat. I heard her footsteps against the metal deck and turned, just in time for her to grab me from behind and shove a blaster against my temple, one hand roughly covering my mouth. “Shh,” the woman hissed through a blue and white armored helmet. “Not a sound. No funny Jedi tricks. Come along quietly and you’ll live to see tomorrow. If you fight me,” she thumbed the blaster’s safety off and it whined against the side of my head. “Nod if you understand.”

  I nodded slowly, once. She pulled, jerking me back into the shadows. I allowed myself to be dragged deeper into the dock area and into a small ship. As soon as the hatch was closed, I found myself shoved face down onto the floor and quickly frisked and the lightsabers at my waist taken, then a pair of metal handcuffs slapped around my wrists. I winced as I was jerked up from the floor by the cuffs, my arms torqued a bit too far behind my back. From there, I was shoved into a jump seat and strapped in.

  She pulled back and stood there, studying me. After several moments, she said, “You’re taking this better than I thought you would.”

  Her emotions were expectant—she was waiting on something. Having taken a number of prisoners and conducted many interrogations in the past, I knew how this routine went, however. Capture a prisoner. Wait for them to speak, or say something to entice them to respond without asking a direct question. When they spoke ‘out of turn,’ smack them around a little to intimidate them and reinforce the idea of who was in charge with a little pain. A prisoner is only to speak when asked a direct question and is to comply with all orders and any other response, any sign of defiance or refusal, is to be met with pain. Discipline, to establish firm boundaries for acceptable conduct, not torture. Torture rarely works and is often a complete waste of time.

  What I hadn’t expected was for her to get impatient and unprofessional. When I refused to comment, not playing along by the expected script, she backhanded me anyway, snapping my head to the side with the force of the blow. I tasted blood and my teeth on that side ached.

  “Acknowledge me when I speak to you.”

  “You were going to hit me regardless of what I said,” I pointed out, and got a slap across the opposite cheek for the response. That one, at least, I had been expecting.

  “You don’t know that.”

  I laughed. “You must be new at this.”

  “I’m not! Shut up!” the woman growled, and I got another smack for it.

  “The point of the pre-interrogation intimidation routine is to establish clear and concise rules for how the interaction is to play out. You’re doing it wrong. You’re establishing that any response or lack thereof will result in violence on your part. At that point, it ceases to be establishing rules and starts becoming torture. Worse, you have failed to maintain your calm and have allowed a child to bait you into responding emotionally. You are not in control of yourself, let alone me. Perhaps you should take me to someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “I said shut up!” she pulled her fist back and swung for my nose. I twitched my head to the side and her fist missed my head by an inch, slamming into the bulkhead behind me. I jerked my legs up, locking my feet on either side of her helmet. Thrusting upward and lifting, I jerked it off her head and sent it flying across the room, dragging my feet back down into a kick to her face that sent her reeling.

  The woman below the helmet was young—perhaps a couple of years older than Obi at most. Sixteen or so, maybe eighteen. Red hair. Green eyes. An otherwise pretty face marred by a scowl and a busted nose. The face looked vaguely familiar, but I quickly placed it as she stooped down and retrieved her helmet, now staying well out of my reach.

  “I was right. You are new to this. Young, too,” I mused, studying her. “You’re related to Satine Kryze.”

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  The redhead’s jaw clenched, before she turned and walked into the cockpit. She didn’t answer verbally, but her emotions at the mention of Satine’s name all but screamed that the answer was yes.

  The ship’s engines fired up and we lifted off. I spun up a formula to start measuring our heading, speed, and time so I would be able to find my way back from wherever I was being taken. I could feel the anger and humiliation radiating off of the girl and smirked at having struck a nerve. I’d need to pay her back for those smacks later, too.

  In the meantime, I closed my eyes and focused inwards, concentrating on healing my face. Soon enough, the pain faded and I felt the swelling go down. By the time we landed, my face felt good as new.

  Tor Vizsla sat in front of one of their many campfires, enjoying a glass of something just this side of stripping paint off of space ship hulls. His mind wandered as he waited for word from his operatives in the field.

  Around him, his fellow Mandalorians were a rowdy, noisy bunch as they drank, ate, fought, fucked, and found other ways to simply enjoy life. To enjoy living. Being alive. Being the victors.

  Because that was what being a Mandalorian was about.

  Killing your enemies or anyone who had anything they wanted, taking their shit, conquering the survivors and adding their number to their own, and then doing it again as they burned their way across the galaxy. That was the way of the true Mandalorian!

  They had no need for ‘honor.’ Honor was what whoever won said it was. That was the privilege of those who lived. They won, the other asshole lost, their cause was just and the other guy wasn’t. They should’ve fought harder if they didn’t want to die or get conquered. Morals. Right and wrong. Those were all things that the strong got to decide.

  That damned fool Mereel wanted to abandon that. Wanted to bind their collective hands behind their back. Have them fight shackled to a set of rules and a code of conduct that their enemies wouldn’t bother with. He wanted them to only fight acceptable targets, and instead of just taking what they wanted the old bastard wanted them to sell themselves out like a bunch of whores with no respect for themselves, their people, and their heritage!

  But at least Tor could respect that Mereel fought for something. Mereel’s ideas of what they should be doing and how a Mandalorian should behave were stupid and went against everything their people had stood for, once upon a time, but at least he believed in them and was willing to fight and die for them. He and his people had conviction. Even if Mereel had stolen the title of Mandalore from him.

  Kryze, on the other hand…

  We should kill every last one of them. Everyone but the youngest children. Take them all in as foundlings and teach them the true way of the Mandalorian.

  Satine Kryze and her people were a waste of precious resources. Pacifists who didn’t understand the heart pounding, sweat dripping, blood tasting glory of combat. The thrill of killing an enemy, subjugating his people, then pushing his wives, sisters, and daughters down and raping a baby into them to dominate his bloodline forever—then moving onto the next battleground and doing it all over again. To the victor go the spoils.

  As if summoned by his thoughts, Tor heard the whine of engines and looked up to see one of their recon ships coming in for a landing—the one he had loaned to Bo-Katan Kryze. He smirked and tossed back the rest of his cup before holding it out, a young woman in a partial set of Mandalorian armor standing nearby quickly refilling it.

  It had been a surprise when the uppity cunt’s own sister had joined his cause, but not an unwelcome one. She was all bright eyed and idealistic, and entirely swayed by his words and deeds. He could see the hero worship every time she looked at him, as he had with so many other young women since they had broken off from Mereel’s group.

  Red hair. Green eyes. Tight, fit young body. The devotion to throw herself on his cock if he ordered her to. And if things went their way with the Jedi, he planned to reward her with just that. It all depended on how much the Jedi valued one of their own younglings.

  On a personal level, Tor didn’t care what happened to their own young. If they died, then they weren’t fit to survive anyway. But he knew that wouldn’t fly with his people, so he told them what they wanted to hear. That their children were everything—their legacy and hope for the future. Some crap he made up that sounded like the sort of bullshit Mereel would spout. But if the Jedi cared for their brats as much as his own people seemed to, then they would be off planet by the morning and he could get back to the business of killing his enemies.

  He’d caught wind of this summit between Mereel’s so-called ‘True Mandalorians’ and Kryze’s ‘New Mandalorians’ months ago and had returned to Mandalore to prepare. More subtle efforts at disrupting the negotiations had paid off and delayed things, wasting their time and lowering their guard the longer Tor went without striking. After all, if he was on the planet and knew about their little meetups, there was no way he wouldn’t take the opportunity to try to kill both of his enemies in one fell swoop—it would be too tempting to pass up. He knew they’d be thinking that, so he didn’t do that. Instead, he had waited.

  Unfortunately, he had waited too long, and the Jedi—who had been dragging their heels about sending someone to help negotiate—had finally got off their asses and sent a team. Tor wasn’t well-versed in the who’s who of Jedi, but he recognized two of them at least. Dooku was an old man with a long and storied career—in other words a known element and an enemy to be respected. Qui-Gon Jinn was likewise a name to avoid on the battlefield.

  According to his spies within both camps, the negotiations were actually proceeding quickly now, and soon enough Mereel and Kryze would be a united front against him, and his people would be hunted down and killed to the last—it’s what he would do to them. So now, Tor had to scramble a bit to find a way to get rid of the Jedi, preferably without giving away that he was preparing to strike against the summit soon. That was why he had people moving into place inside of Sundari with man-portable missiles, setting up on the roofs of nearby buildings to prepare for tomorrow. If the Jedi fucked off tonight, then tomorrow, Kryze and Mereel would show up, find the Jedi missing, and catch a missile to the face before they figured out anything was amiss.

  His spies had been watching the Jedi, however. He’d listened to the reports and was… disappointed, really. These were not the warriors he was expecting. They went about without a care in the world, completely unaware of their surroundings and the potential danger they were in. His men had gotten close to them on numerous occasions without so much as a twitch from them. They left their youngest member to wander Sundari, when she wasn’t in the care of Mereel’s people—just let her come and go as she pleased from their ship to their hotel, and out into the city. His people knew their schedules down to the minute by now and the girl was especially predictable.

  It was a simple plan, but simple plans were the best. They required the least amount of adjustment and were the hardest to fuck up.

  Step one: grab the girl. Bo-Katan had been tasked with retrieving her and Tor doubted she would have any trouble. For as young as she was, Bo-Katan was good. A bit green still, lacking in experience, but that would come with time. She had the skill and if what Tor had seen was any indication, the girl wouldn’t put up a fight.

  Step two: threaten the Jedi. He’d call them, show them that she was still alive, then make sure they understood that she wouldn’t be if they didn’t get the fuck off of his planet by the time dawn came to Sundari.

  Step three: kill Mereel and Kryze.

  Step four: return the girl to the Jedi. For all that they seemed to have potentially given up on being warriors, Dooku wasn’t one of those. If it was any other Jedi, Tor wouldn’t have thought twice. He’d execute the girl and dare the Jedi to do something about it, then kill them when they came back down planet-side. Dooku, on the other hand… No. Better to honor his deal, hand the girl over, and make sure that old monster fucked right off from Mandalore and Tor didn’t give him an excuse to clean house. He’d already be pushing his luck with the kidnapping, and killing his clients. Killing the girl would guarantee the old man would go on the warpath. There was a difference between a good fight and a slaughter, when it was him and his people getting slaughtered.

  It was a simple plan. A good plan. So why was it that, the moment he saw Bo-Katan drag the girl out of her ship, Tor felt like the plan had gone sideways?

  She was smaller than Tor expected. Younger. But there was something there… something he didn’t like.

  It was in the way she moved, he decided. Even with her hands shackled behind her back, disarmed, and with a blaster pressed against the back of her head she didn’t cower. She didn’t look afraid. She moved like she owned the place. It was like looking at one of those old Mandalorians who had been in the shit—had seen war and come out the other side alive.

  She moved like she was the most dangerous thing in the camp.

  Then, her eyes swept across the camp and found him. Silver-blue eyes met Tor’s brown and his heart skipped a beat, then hammered in his chest as adrenaline spiked. It felt like staring down some big predator who had decided he was lunch.

  Tor wasn’t afraid. Never afraid. But he suddenly found himself feeling justifiably cautious and wary as Bo-Katan marched the girl over to his fire. Something was wrong, but for the life of him he couldn’t tell what.

  “Did she give you any trouble?” he asked.

  The redhead winced, and for a moment, she glared at the back of the Zeltron girl’s head. Finally, she answered, “No.”

  It was a blatant lie, but he couldn’t see any real evidence to the contrary—aside from a spec of dried blood at the corner of the girl’s lips. They both looked healthy otherwise. Which told him the girl had probably run her mouth and gotten slapped for her trouble. The lack of any swelling was an incongruity, but not one he was going to dwell on.

  Directing them over to where someone had set up a holo-com at his orders, he saw they had gained the attention of most of the camp. People began filtering in and standing around behind them as Tor prepared to make the call. That was good. It would show the enemy strength in numbers.

  He looked to the girl. “What’s your Master’s comm number, girl?”

  The corners of the girl’s lips twitched upwards just a hair and she told him. Tor nodded and began dialing as Bo-Katan pulled her helmet back on. Quietly, the red girl asked, “Afraid to show your face?”

  “Quiet,” Bo-Katan hissed.

  “What would your sister say?”

  “Shut up.”

  So he was right. The Zeltron girl had run her mouth and gotten into Bo-Katan’s head. Tor supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised. He knew all about Zeltrons and what they could do, but he doubted many people had looked at it with an eye for turning one of them into a Mandalorian and using them as a weapon—if they could get one of them to close their legs and stop thinking with their genitals for long enough to do the job.

  A moment later, a hologram sprang into being above the portable holo-com, showing the inside of a hotel room and the three Jedi Masters. They took in the scene quickly and frowned. Dooku’s eyes focused on Tor and for a moment, Tor almost ordered the evacuation of his people off planet.

  “I am Jedi Master Dooku. And you are?”

  “Tor Vizsla. I lead those who follow the true way of the Mandalorians. We are the Kyr’tsad.”

  “The Death Watch. Yes, we’ve heard of you,” Dooku nodded. “May I ask why you have taken my apprentice?”

  Tor nodded, chuckling. “Straight to the point. That’s good. I want you gone. Leave Mandalore. Take your ships and leave the planet by dawn. Don’t tell Jaster Mereel or Satine Kryze you’re leaving. Tomorrow, I’ll send someone up with her to meet you and hand her over. Then, you’ll leave. You don’t interfere in Mandalorian business again. If you refuse, or fuck around, I’ll kill her.”

  One of the two Masters in the background, Qui-Gon, stood up and moved out of the viewing range of the comm on their end. The other, the one Tor didn’t know, let out a quiet chuckle that turned into a sigh as he looked not at Tor, but at the girl. Tor cast a glance at her, but found she looked the same as she had before—too calm and like she was waiting for something.

  “I understand,” Dooku murmured, nodding. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to speak with her briefly.”

  Tor scoffed, but gestured towards the girl. He’d allow it. If she said anything he didn’t like, like trying to signal their location, he’d cut off the comm and give her a lesson in manners. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you.” Turning to the white haired girl, he asked, “Tanya. Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “My hosts haven’t been the most hospitable, but I’m fine. What are your orders?”

  “Do what you feel you must.”

  For some reason, the smile that crept up on her face made Tor’s skin crawl. “But master, the Council complained about Dathomir.”

  “The Council aren’t here.”

  “Understood~.”

  This time, Tor had to fight down the impulse to reach for his weapon—and he didn’t like that. No little girl should be making his instincts scream ‘kill it’ like this. He spoke up, drawing Dooku’s attention back to himself. “You have until sunup over Sundari. Try anything and the girl dies.”

  “Unfortunately, you will not live to see the sunrise,” Dooku shook his head.

  “I’m not fucking around here. I will kill her. Do not test me—”

  Clink.

  The metallic sound was surprisingly loud in the tense atmosphere. The accompanying thump of something hitting the dirt was even louder. Tor heard a grunt and turned to see Tanya rubbing her wrists and rolling her neck. At the side of her head, Bo-Katan’s blaster pistol shook in her hand and the grunting sound repeated as she reached up with her other hand to steady the weapon—no, he realized, to get her other finger in the trigger guard, only for the other hand to stop.

  The red girl took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth in a quiet sigh. “I believe you have something of mine.”

  Tor didn’t hesitate. He drew and fired in a single, smooth motion—only to find Bo-Katan being jerked by some unseen force, or perhaps Force, between his blaster bolt and the red girl, the bolt splashing off of her armor. Then, a pair of silver objects jerked free of the redhead’s belt, flying through the air to stop, hovering beside the young Jedi. Bo-Katan landed in a heap on the ground and her blaster pistol jerked out of her hands, slapping into the white haired girl’s palm.

  Unfortunately for her, she was outnumbered more than forty to one—a fact she was reminded of when every Mandalorian who had been standing with Tor drew their blasters. For some reason the girl’s smile only grew wider as she began to laugh.

  “How wonderful! You’ve all decided to fight! That makes this so much simpler! Instead of taking prisoners and having to watch over you, you’ve provided me with the one thing I love most…”

  White-silver beams of light ignited to either side of her, casting the girl’s face in stark light, making her red skin look painted in blood. When her eyes caught the light of her sabers, they seemed to glow.

  “A target rich environment~!”

  All hell broke loose.

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