The corridor erupted.
The fragmentation grenade detonated in a deafening blast that turned the tight shield arc into chaos. The shockwave tore through interlocked plates, hurled bodies backward, and shattered the formation’s precious cohesion. Shields flew loose. Security Forces stumbled. The grinding knot collapsed into smoke, sparks, and screaming alarms.
Tyr did not remember the sound so much as the pressure.
A hammer-blow to the chest. A violent shove from every direction at once. His armor absorbed the worst of it, but even beskar could not quiet the storm entirely. Shrapnel slammed into him at near point-blank range, ricocheting in shrieking arcs, some biting deep where plates overlapped.
He remained standing for a heartbeat longer than physics allowed.
Then the world tilted.
Through ringing ears and a haze of red light, he saw the Diarchy line buckling, men scrambling backward, dragging wounded, shields broken and scorched. Mandalorian blasterfire surged forward in disciplined bursts, reclaiming the corridor inch by inch.
The push had broken them.
Hands grabbed him from behind, gauntleted, urgent.
“Back! Back!”
Tyr tried to wrench free, rotary cannon still in his grip, but his legs betrayed him. Pain radiated outward from beneath his plates, hot and wet. His breath came thick inside his helmet.
He let himself be dragged.
Boots scraped across durasteel as two of his vod hauled him behind a torn bulkhead. Someone knelt over him, checking seals, swearing as blood began seeping from beneath a cracked seam in his thigh plate.
“Call it in,” a voice snapped over comms. “We need medevac now!”
Through the haze, Tyr forced his visor to focus on the corridor beyond. Diarchy forces were falling back in ragged clusters, their disciplined wall shattered. The shipyard alarms wailed louder now, frantic and uneven.
Good.
He managed a rasping laugh.
“They’re runnin’,” he muttered thickly. “Told you steel burns.”
Darkness crept inward at the edges of his vision as the medevac was called in. The last thing he felt was the lift of repulsors beneath him and the steady pressure of a brother’s hand on his shoulder.
—
White light replaced red.
The antiseptic hum of a hospital ward was a cruel contrast to the roar of the shipyards. Tyr lay flat on a medbed, armor stripped away, thick bandaging wrapped tight around his torso and leg. Bacta lines fed slow, glowing streams into wounds that even beskar had not fully denied.
He hated the stillness.
The door slid open with a soft hiss, and a familiar shape entered, one of his own, a shadow in the doorway.
Tyr turned his head slowly, jaw tight against the dull throb in his ribs.
“Well,” he rumbled, voice rough but steady, thick with that low, grounded cadence that carried more honesty than pride. “If you’ve come to tell me I was foolish… you’ll have to wait your turn. I’ve already had that speech from three others.”
A faint ghost of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
“I did what needed doin’. They had her boxed in. Had all of us boxed in, truth be told.” He shifted slightly and grimaced, breath hitching before settling again. “Couldn’t let that stand.”
His gaze drifted toward the ceiling, quiet for a moment.
“They pushed hard,” he admitted. “I’ll give ’em that. Brave, in their way. But bravery without mercy…” He exhaled slowly. “It breaks the same as anything else.”
He turned his eyes back to his visitor.
“We broke ’em.”
There was no boast in it. Only certainty.
Tyr swallowed, voice lowering a fraction.
“Next time, I’ll be quicker on my feet.” A dry huff of humor. “Hard to look fearsome when you’re flat on your back.”
Silence settled between them, but it wasn’t heavy.
“For now,” he said at last, closing his eyes briefly before reopening them, steady as ever, “let the Diarchy remember the sound of their shields splinterin’. And let ’em know we’re not done.”
Even confined to a medbed, Tyr carried himself like a man who would stand again soon.
And when he did, the war would be waiting.
