The prisoners had been made to stand in rows before execution. Nameless they were, of little worth and less to the Iron Covenant. Sith acolytes, perhaps some in greater power, yet all manacled and restrained. There had been no pompous ceremony nor drawn-out torture. The Mandalorians of the Iron Covenant stood by their honor even against the darkest horrors; the mercy of a swift death would be far greater than whatever their foe had granted the captives. After the bodies were removed and burnt, service droids were assigned to clean the remains of the bay floor. Even after the removal of corpses, the stench of death remained.
Once it became clear that the plague, despite all efforts, had saturated the planet of Abregado-Rae so thoroughly as to render it beyond the Iron Covenant's ability to hold the world, withdrawal from Abregado-Rae was swift and procedural. Few warriors were lost in the tactical retreat, but those who were passed on bravely to the Manda, their journey in this mortal plane complete and their souls granted eternal rest.
"We should have sterilized the world," Gallius Saxon, Alor'an, remarked bitterly as he surveyed the droids mindlessly going about their sanitation duties. "Even as the Crusaders of old. Ended the Sith there and have been done with it."
"And the civilians?" Romul stood next to him, silent, the giant Alor ponderous in the wake of their retreat. By the amount of Sith pawns slain that day, he could not consider it a loss. Yet he had vowed to the Gado chieftain that he would lay down his life to protect their world; yet here he remained, while Abregado-Rae withered away. "Those I swore to protect? Where is the honor in betraying my vow to them?"
"They are not Mando'ade, Alor." Gallius seethed. "They should not factor into the calculus of destroying the aru'ese."
"And yet an oath was sworn," Romul mused, as untractable here as on the battlefield. "Millions were saved, Gallius. The world is inconsequential, as Mandalore was." A similar conversation had been had decades before, when the Sith Empire had razed Mandalore. Then, too, had Romul been presented with two hard choices: either stay and die, or retreat and live. Then, as now, Romul had chosen life and its infinite possibilities. Even now the millions of Gados saved were being relocated to an uninhabited yet amiable world, close enough to Kestri that the Iron Covenant would maintain a watchful eye over it, yet far enough removed from the galaxy that their people would recover in peace.
The Gados were saved; but the Sith remained. Justice demanded its dues. Perhaps Gallius was right. To truly slay a monster, must he become one?
A sweeper droid passed where they were standing, its servos repeating the same back-and-forth motion without thought.
"They will call us weak," Gallius finally said, unable to bear the weight in his bosom any longer. "That we abandoned the world, after all our vode sacrificed."
"We know the truth of the tale," Romul comforted his second-in-command firmly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "That is enough." A silent word of understanding passed between the two, both veterans of many world-ending conflicts. Some had gone their ways, others hadn't.
There was still much work to be done, for what was yet to come.
