Chapter Text
The wind of Melida/Daan whistled an eerie, discordant tone as it blew through the empty, crumbling ruins of what had once undoubtedly been a metropolis.
Mand'alor Jaster Mereel stood atop the ruins of what had once probably passed for a skyscraper, a tall building now fallen over and broken open. Gray-green eyes scanned back and forth over the empty city, while the wind pushed through short black hair, grown out only slightly longer than the standard commando crew cut he had worn for most of his life. He was a tall man, and from his perch atop the fallen building, he could see as far as the low level of smog would let him.
His buy’ce was clipped to his belt, exposing a weathered face, lined with stubble he hadn't bothered to shave off that morning, and sporting a nose that had been broken at least twice throughout his life. From the neck down, he was encased in a full set of beskar'gam .
His chestplate was a rich green, matching his greaves and buy'ce , and the kar'ta in its center was painted a bright red. His gauntlets and boots were both black, but were outlined in unpainted silver beskar . A Mythosaur sigil in black, the symbol of his movement, adorned his right shoulder.
He looked every bit the warrior his people expected him to be. And he was here on this broken planet to hunt.
Whatever the ruins before him had once contained - homes or businesses - all evidence of their existence had long since been erased, the contents of the building looted, destroyed, or simply succumbing to age.
The ruins looked like what a holo-novella imagined a bombed out city to be. Dull and gray, overcast by either natural clouds, ash, or smog. On this planet he couldn't really tell. The landscape as far as the eye could see was littered with broken buildings and cracked stones.
That so much of the city had been hewn from stone had likely been in the hope of building a city that would last - one that wouldn't rot with the passage of time. Little good that had done. All that was left now was an empty battlefield, one that bore its scars for all to see.
He was pulled from his musings by a loud crash and turned around to the dust settling as the last large chunk of stone was dropped behind him.
His ship, the Legacy, had just turned its tracking beam off, and now angled off to port in order to land, their little barricade now done.
It wouldn't mean anything in ship combat, but their employers had assured them their marks had no such technology available to them. So after some deliberating over how best to set up their base camp, they had used the ship's tractor beam in order to move rubble to form a little half-circle barricade at the city's outer edges. Anyone coming from outside the city had to cross cleared flatlands, and would be easy to spot and deal with. Anyone coming from inside the city would have to go over or around the piled stone.
Jaster watched the ship, a smile touching his face as he recognized the exaggerated care with which the ship was slowly put down. Jango had clearly not forgotten what had happened the last time he had been allowed to land the ship.
He triggered his jetpack for a short leap, landing on top of their impromptu barricade, before making his way down on foot, a task that involved leaping from stone to stone, trusting in the shocks in his armor to prevent him from hurting himself. The barricade wasn't so high or treacherous that he felt the need to waste jetpack fuel, but it certainly took longer.
By the time he reached the ground and was walking toward his ship, the ramp had already descended, and his children were making their way down.
Arla, his eldest at 24, was in the lead, her short blonde hair moving slightly in the breeze. Half a head shorter than Jaster, she was also wearing a full set of beskar'gam , save her buy'ce , which she was carrying under her arm. Unlike her family, most of the set was painted an overbright combination of red and gold, except her chestplate, which was a deep black. She was practically a walking beacon anywhere she went, which Jaster knew suited her just fine. She was saying something to her younger brother Jango, who had just turned 21, and was already securing his buy'ce over his head. Jango was the shortest of the three of them, and was very upset when he learned he would likely not be growing anymore. He kept his dark hair cut shorter than Jaster's, disliking the way it naturally curled as it grew out, claiming it made him look like a child. He was stocky and well-built, in beskar'gam painted a blend of bronze and orange. Like Jaster, the kar’ta at the center of his armor was red. Unlike the other two, his armor was edged in white all along its sides.
Jaster knew that his son's late start had bothered him. The white meant nothing to outsiders, but to Mandalorians, Jango wore his inexperience like a sign. Jaster had pushed him on it once, assuring him that he had earned the right to re-paint by now, but Jango had only shrugged nonchalantly and dismissed the topic. Jaster honestly couldn't tell if the boy was still struggling with doubts or if he actually just didn't care that much.
"...not like the air is toxic here, you know," Arla was saying as Jaster came within earshot. "You don't have to jam that on your head the first chance you get."
"I know! But could you blame someone for thinking it was?" Jango asked, his voice distorted slightly by the vocoder in his buy'ce .
"Not really," Jaster grunted as he came closer, both his kids' attention drawn to him as he stopped in front of them.
"See anything new?" Arla asked, brushing a lock of her blonde hair out of her face.
"Only that it's worse than it looked from the air," Jaster answered with a sigh. Arla made a face.
"And it was pretty ugly from the air." She glanced over their impromptu barricade. "You know, there's no way anyone in the area didn't hear that."
"Which would be a problem, if it wasn't the plan." Jaster reminded her, before turning to Jango. "And the plan is…?"
Jango stood to attention, as though he were just some new recruit, and nervously recited, "Arla and I are performing joint reconnaissance while you stay and watch the ship to see if anyone comes to investigate!"
"Jango!" Arla snapped before Jaster could respond. "That is not proper rest position. What are your arms doing just dangling at your sides? And you will address your CO with the proper respect!"
Jango regarded her silently for a moment, before asking, coolly, "Are you proud of being able to do such a good impression of Silas?"
" Ad'ika ," Jaster said pointedly, although he couldn't totally keep a trace of amusement out of his voice. Both kids turned back to him, Arla's cheeks pinking slightly.
"Sorry buir ," she mumbled. "But I mean - come on, you saw how he was acting."
"I was-" Jango began furiously, before Jaster cut him off.
"You were nervous about being out on a proper hunt. There's nothing wrong with that. But you both should stop this before you head out. We don't know how dangerous our marks are and I don't want anything going wrong because you're bickering." He said it without any heat whatsoever. He knew it was in his children's nature to fight over anything and everything. It was as natural for them as breathing. But while Jango had been out in the field before, it had never been like this, with so little back-up and so many variables.
"Sorry, buir ," Jango said, sounding properly contrite.
"It's fine. I just need to know you two are focused on the task at hand." He watched them for a moment, and both of them nodded. "Good. Now I'm going to put out our proximity sensors and find a place to set-up, where I'll monitor you both. And I want you two to stay close to each other, understand? The Melida weren't clear about exactly what kind of weaponry this group has. It's unlikely that it's anything too dangerous but I don't want to take unnecessary risks."
He waited until Jango and Arla had nodded again before continuing.
"You find someone, don't pursue. There's not going to be much point. As empty as this place is, the noise of our packs is going to carry. Anyone out there will hear you coming well before you see them. That hopefully won't stop you from seeing them - or at least, picking them up on your heat tracker - but without knowing what these people are capable of, don't trust anybody with a head start. It'll be enough to confirm they're in the area and to give a place to start a proper sweep. Got it?"
" Lek, buir ," they chorused in unison, and Jaster grinned.
"Alright then. Let's get to work."
Arla put her buy'ce on and she and Jango made their way toward the stone barricade, while Jaster passed by them up the ramp to retrieve his equipment, pausing at the top as he heard the kids' jetpacks start up, continuing to listen as they traveled into the city.
Yes, that noise would definitely carry. With luck, anyone watching would think there were only the two of them, and would try and check out the ship while Jaster kept watch. He'd much rather be the one to deal with these guys first. It wasn't that he intended to keep Jango from seeing any action, but something about this job was making him uneasy.
It had seemed perfectly normal when Jango had proposed it, a mid-scale bounty on an insurgent group troubling a planet at war. That it was a civil war was rather irrelevant, provided that it didn't get in their way. But once he started researching the planet, (alongside Jango so it could double as a training exercise), there were some points that stuck with him.
For a start, he didn't actually know when the war had started. The few publicly available records that the Melida and the Daan had posted didn't have a specific date. They just referenced the war as having been ongoing "for generations" - a long time, sure, but non-specific. Republic records only listed the war as "on-going" with no start date. It seemed like nobody knew .
And it got stranger when he cleared their mission with the Daan. The Melida had been the one to hire them, but after reading up on the planet's circumstances, Jaster had been sure to contact a representative of the Daan as well, in case the Melida had been trying to trick them. But no, the Daan gave their blessing.
And that was weird . Because for two peoples that had a blood feud stretching back farther than any of them can even remember to have jointly agreed that a third party was needed to clear out an insurgent problem was a big deal. And yet, they had almost no information on them. No numbers, leader, motive, origin - nothing. Only a vague assertion of where they were based. It was what had originally made it appealing to take on. That kind of on-the-job recon and learning was exactly the kind of skills both Jango and Arla needed to develop.
And yet…
Pirates were everywhere, even in the Mid and Inner Rim, whatever the people living there liked to pretend. A group of opportunistic pirates trying to exploit a relatively isolated planet in the grip of a long-running war was perfectly logical. But if that was the case here, why wouldn't the Melida tell them so? They were clearly withholding some information, but what? And why?
It was why he wanted to make first contact with this group, why he had hung back and sent Jango and Arla ahead. They had a job to do, and they would do it, but Jaster didn't like so much being kept from him. He had no intention to get caught up in the planet's messy politics, and once his curiosity was satisfied, they could do what they came here to do and move on.
Setting up the proximity sensors was routine at this point. He knew how far apart to place them to get the optimal range, and finding the little nooks and crannies to hide them from prying eyes in the city required little thought, allowing him his musings as he placed them around the ship, before settling himself in the remains of a building across from their barricade, propping himself against what must have been an old support pillar and pulling out his datapad to track Jango and Arla's progress.
He was a little out of the way, but wasn't really trying to conceal himself. He had faith in his senses and reflexes - not to mention faith in his beskar'gam 's ability to take a shot if all else fails - to keep him safe. And so, he waited.
Arla and Jango were making a slow sweep of the empty city, their little figures on Jaster's pad pinging regularly with their scheduled check-ins, but there were no alerts of spotting anyone.
Jaster was just beginning to wonder what their next step would be if their marks weren't in this region when his pad flashed a warning that the proximity sensors had been tripped.
The sensors were set to send off a private alarm to Jaster's pad, and he was careful to give no external sign that he had noticed anything, keeping his eyes downward as he tracked the newcomers' progress.
Interestingly, they weren't making their way over or around the barricade, but were moving parallel to it, slowly coming toward Jaster from his right side; looking for him. Whoever they were, they were smart enough not to assume the ship was unguarded. He had no visual input, and could do nothing but watch the little dot move closer and closer to him.
Eventually, it stopped. He couldn't be certain without looking up to check, but he was fairly sure that whoever it was had stopped at an angle they could see him from.
His heart began to beat faster as he waited for a rifle shot to hit him, glad he had sealed his buy'ce before settling in.
Nothing happened.
The seconds rolled by, turning into minutes.
Nothing.
It seemed his watcher didn't want to shoot him.
So… what, then? Did they know they were caught? Were they hoping to see Jango and Arla return? Just curious?
Jaster ran through the options in his mind and discarded each of them. There was no sense to it. They didn't need to be at the ship to see Jango and Arla return. They hadn't made any attempt to leave. And who approaches a hostile Mandalorian in full armor, in a warzone out of sheer curiosity?
Jaster didn’t like not knowing.
He stood up and stretched, taking his time doing it, allowing his shadow time to react. When he glanced down, he saw the dot hadn't moved. Good. Smart enough not to fall for an obvious bait to get them out of cover. Just as well Jaster wasn't planning on using any more bait.
"If you're not interested in shooting," He called, ensuring his voice was loud and clear. "Maybe we can talk instead."
Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then, off to the right, a few small stones were knocked loose and fell off of a raised platform as a figure rose from behind a broken pillar a little ways up their barricade. They pushed back the hood of their cloak, but from this distance, Jaster couldn't really make out any features, only really seeing the rifle in their hand and the fact that they seemed to be covered in chalk dust - which he supposed made sense for someone making their way around this place on foot.
Rather than calling anything back down to him, the figure elected to just focus on getting down, rifle still in hand, as they picked their way amongst the broken stone. Jaster walked toward them, making sure his hands were visible, and drew breath to compliment their climbing skills.
However, his words died on his lips as the figure made the last leap to the ground and stood level with him.
A cold wave of anger washed over him as the boy straightened up, brushing away a few rocks that had clung to his pants. He was maybe half Jaster's size, wrapped in an overlarge dull gray cloak that he could now tell had been intentionally covered in the dust and dirt of the city to better blend in. It didn't hide the fact that the boy looked painfully thin and gaunt, his eyes surrounded by dark bags, and his hair, which must've once been a bright color, was wispy and covered in the same dust as the rest of the city.
His planned easy-going demeanor was gone, and he leaned forward without meaning too.
"What are you doing out here, ad'ika ?" His voice came out flat and cold, and some small part of him was glad the boy couldn't see his glare behind his visor.
The boy frowned. "That's your opener? And what does 'adika' mean?"
"It means child, because I was expecting an adult ." Jaster growled. "What hut'uun sent their ad out here instead of coming themselves?"
"No one sent me!" The boy was clearly surprised by Jaster's behavior, and seemed a little affronted. "I came out because I was the best choice to. We wanted to see what you were doing."
"You are a child and shouldn't be in a warzone! You-"
"Well then I must be on the wrong planet!" The boy retorted hotly, interrupting him. "Or do you not know where you are?"
Jaster blinked, taken aback, and straightened up.
"I- sorry," He said, trying to ignore the clear look of surprise on the kid's face. "I'm not mad at you. Just shocked to see a kid here. Not exactly a great place for you to be."
"Yeah, well," the boy said uncertainly, clearly confused by this turn of events. "This is where I am."
"Right," Jaster replied, having absolutely no idea what to do with this conversation. "I guess my question is why are you out here? I could've shot you." And his stomach twisted at the thought. He wasn't even sure this boy was old enough to have started getting his armor pieces. He certainly didn’t look old enough to have gone through a verd'goten .
"I could've shot you, too," The boy replied petulantly, sounding quite a bit like Jango, which did Jaster no favors right now. "Although," he said more quietly, looking down at the rifle in his hands. "I'm not sure it would've done anything to that armor you're wearing."
Examining the rifle, Jaster felt himself agree. It was an old model, clearly well cared for, but in the way an old gun still seeing active use was. There were clear signs of wear and tear, a few pieces that had obviously come from different guns - he was half-surprised no part of it looked to be held together with some kind of tape.
"Is that why you didn't shoot?" He asked carefully, watching the kid for a reaction.
The boy didn't look back up at him, still staring at his rifle.
"I don't want to fight you," he finally answered, voice soft. "Wouldn't do us any good."
"Us?" Jaster asked before he could stop himself.
The boy's head shot up, and now he was glaring at him. "That's why you're here, then? Here to get rid of the Melida and the Daan's 'little problem'?"
Jaster frowned and, making a split second decision, reached up and removed his buy'ce , tucking it under his arm. The boy stared as Jaster sank down to one knee to be roughly on eye level with him.
"That is what we were hired for." Jaster said gently. "But on my honor, I am not going to hurt you. No True Mandalorian would lay hands on a child."
The boy's expression turned cold.
"I've heard similar promises before," He said flatly. "But you're going to have to pick, Mandalorian. Between that honor of yours, and your job."