Private Among the Ruins of Another Age

[Meri Vale]

The jungle never truly fell silent on Yavin 4. Even within these ancient stone corridors, where moss-thick walls should have shut the outside world away, life pressed inward from every direction. Insects sang in layered rhythms through the cracks, broad leaves brushed together in the humid wind, and water dripped with patient regularity deeper in the structure, each strike on stone sounding like the measured ticking of a forgotten clock.

Meri had always preferred the ruins to the jungle. To her, the jungle was movement without pattern, a tangled growth of sound and life that was difficult to predict. The temple, however, still remembered its own geometry. Walls met at deliberate angles, passageways followed an ancient intention, and symbols repeated because someone, centuries ago, had chosen them to.

That was a language she understood.

She stood beside a carved section of the interior wall where she had spent hours cutting back creeping vines to expose a column of worn glyphs. Her satchel lay open nearby, her datapad balanced precariously across a fallen block of stone while a stylus rested behind her ear. Dust stained the knees of her trousers, a testament to the hours spent kneeling to compare floor markings with the inscriptions stretching toward the ceiling.

Her fingers hovered just above the carvings, tracing the shapes without making contact, as if the oil from her skin might disrupt the history held within the stone.

"Sequential markers," she murmured, her eyes narrowing as the pattern began to resolve. "Not names. Directions… or perhaps a ritual order."

Stepping back to consult her datapad, she began recording her findings in quick, precise strokes.

Column Three repeats the crescent form every seventh character. Possible divider. Compare with the west chamber lintel. Erosion is inconsistent; damage may be deliberate.

She paused, her gaze flickering back to the wall as a new thought took root.

"Unless it is numerical."

She added the note immediately, her mind racing to keep up with the place's structural logic. The deeper she drifted into the ruin, the less random the environment became. Symbols she had initially dismissed as decorative re-emerged in load-bearing chambers, and floor mosaics aligned perfectly with the vaults above. It was becoming clear that whoever had built this place had written with architecture as much as language, using transitions between rooms to punctuate their thoughts.

The fascination was enough to make her forget, briefly, to be cautious.

Brushing loose grit aside with the edge of a cloth, she moved to a half-buried stone panel near the floor. Her pulse quickened at the sight of more glyphs—smaller, more cramped than the others.

"A different hand," she whispered, leaning in closer. "Compressed spacing. Someone came after the original builders."

The stylus flew across the screen as she worked to capture the discovery, but the rhythm of her work was suddenly severed. Behind her, somewhere beyond the corridor entrance, a branch snapped.

Meri froze.

The stylus stopped mid-stroke, the glowing screen of the datapad the only light in the dim corner. For a long moment, she did not turn, her expression tightening as she strained to listen. The ambient chorus of the jungle: the insects, the wind, the dripping water remained, but a new sound had surfaced beneath them.

Something heavier was disturbing the undergrowth. It was measured. It was closer.

Slowly, she set the datapad down on the stone and rose to her feet, every line of her posture going rigid.

"…hello?"

The word was soft, a fragile question that did nothing to slow the approach of whatever was moving through the green dark beyond the doorway.

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

The hum of a blaster rifle charging split the silence, the young Mandalorian cursing a stick that had been so buried that she had misjudged the dirt beneath her boots and a dry snap had exposed her presence. Knowing full well she had been spotted, she said quietly - projected by the voice emitter on her helmet; <bzzt> "Don't move... don't blink... just stay where you are." <bzzt> and she emerged, a long Imperial-era Blas-Tech model laser-rifle gripped steady in her hands. It had enough power to disintegrate a target on the spot, and the Mandalorian - if their reputation was anything to go by - would not be afraid to use it. She slunk forward, like a jungle leopard, her boots making little sound despite how heavy they were, and she kept her weapon trained on the young woman.

Her helmet tilted as she was looking through a heads-up display that was dumping informational text into her readouts. <bzzt> "This is a Massassi Temple, kid. What are you doing here?" <bzzt> She glanced about, as if hearing something that wasn't completely audible, but she trained her sights on Meri. She stood straight when she left the underbrush. Thing about forests people didn't realize was that the tall trees killed literally everything by stealing the light, so the real thick brush only existed at the fringes. Within a rainforest, one just had to deal with whatever was under the canopy, and Yavin was lightly populated. Mostly smugglers and scavengers. The Massassi were long dead, driven to extinction by Naga Sadow and the ancient Sith, so the wildlife was pretty tame in comparison to most places.

<bzzt> "You don't look like my target," she said after a second, but keeping her weapon trained on the young archeologist as if she were the most dangerous thing in the forest. Heck, she might be if Jett wasn't also here. "I must be off course..." She paused and then lifted her rifle to aim again. "Who are you? What's your name? What're you doing here?" <bzzt>

Odo Keth. That was the name of the target she'd been assigned to. Not much more information than that. Odo could be anyone. Could even be a girl. Whatever Odo was, this person didn't act like someone on the run.

Jett paused and looked down at the exposed markers. Her helmet flashed with numbers and aurebesh lettering, indicating something only she could see. <bzzt> "What am I looking at? What are those coordinates for? Is that a hiding spot or something?" Her helmet had clearly analyzed the markings and put them together, but hadn't made sense of them enough for her to figure out further "That's somewhere on the planet?" <bzzt>

Meri's face didn't immediately seem to register, so Jett took her hand off the rifle barrel and pointed. <bzzt> "The first one shows the start point. That's right here. The next two are directions. I can't read those though. Don't know the language. The last one is a probably triangulation point or maybe a time. For example; Start here. Go a set distance, then another set distance, and then be there at sunset. That's not what it says... but that's what it's probably for. It's a map of space and time, or three points directing to a location." <bzzt>

Jett tilted her head towards Meri. <bzzt> "So... what's it for?" <bzzt>

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri had remained kneeling where the sound first found her, one hand still near the half-buried panel and the other resting lightly beside the datapad she had set on the stone. The sudden hum of the charging rifle had drawn every line of her body into stillness, but she had not risen. There was nowhere useful to go, and abrupt movement in front of an armed stranger rarely improved any situation.

So she stayed exactly where she was.

Her eyes lifted first to the weapon, then to the figure carrying it as the young Mandalorian emerged from the green edge of the ruin. Meri took in details quickly and without obvious expression: the controlled way she moved, the confidence in her grip, the armor sized for someone not yet fully grown, the voice distorted through the helmet into something harsher than the speaker likely intended.

Young. Close to her own age. Still entirely capable of killing her.

Meri listened through the barrage of questions with the patient look of someone already deciding which ones deserved answers. Dust still marked her knees from kneeling in the ruins, and the stylus remained tucked behind one ear as though being threatened at rifle-point had not yet warranted rearranging it.

"Meri Vale," she said first, because names were efficient and often calmed people faster than silence.

Her gaze remained on the visor.

"What does your target look like?" The question was asked with complete seriousness, as if this were an orderly exchange of information rather than an interrogation conducted over iron sights.

Only then did she glance around herself, taking in the exposed glyphs, the notes on her datapad, the cloth she had used to clear moss, and the obvious state of the temple wall she had been studying.

"What does it look like I am doing?" There was no hostility in the reply, only dry logic sharpened by mild disbelief. "I am exploring. Taking notes. Translating." Her eyes drifted briefly toward the dark corridors beyond them. "And the Massassi are long dead." A faint pause followed, so slight it might have been missed. "I am not frightened of their ghosts."

When Jett pointed out the symbols and repeated what her helmet had interpreted, Meri's expression shifted for the first time into visible interest. She forgot, briefly, to be intimidated.

Slowly, carefully, she leaned closer to the carvings without standing, studying the marks from where she knelt. Her fingers traced the shapes in the air a few centimeters above the stone, never touching them, following patterns invisible to anyone who had not spent years teaching herself how forgotten systems thought. "You are not wrong," she said at last, her tone precise rather than generous. "Only incomplete."

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing as she examined the first cluster again. "This script borrows from older Massassi forms, but it has later additions layered over it. Someone reused an earlier language and expected the reader to understand both." Now she pointed, not with confidence for show, but with the quiet certainty of recognition. "This first mark does indicate a beginning, but not merely location. It means 'witness' or 'stand present." It implies intention. You begin here because you choose to."

Her finger moved to the next symbol. "These are movement markers, yes, though not measured in modern distance. They refer to travel by landmarks, likely trees, stones, or structures that may no longer exist. Whoever wrote this assumed the world around them would remain the same." Then she studied the final cluster, the longest of all. "And this is why your helmet struggled." A trace of quiet satisfaction entered her voice.

"It is not numerical time. It means when the red eye lowers." Her gaze lifted briefly through the broken ceiling toward the sky beyond the canopy.

"Probably sunset. Possibly a moonrise. Possibly a celestial event they named for color. Without companion texts, certainty is impossible." She looked back to the armored girl then, gray eyes calm and oddly unafraid despite the rifle still trained on her.

"So yes, it is a map." The slightest shift at the corner of her mouth suggested she knew that mattered. "But it is a map written by people who thought in ritual, memory, and sky signs rather than coordinates." Her hands settled once more beside her knees.

"You may keep pointing the rifle if it helps you think, but I am not likely to outrun armor from this position."

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

<bzzt> "Not like you," she answered, and then looked down at her rifle. "Oh... right." She slung her arm through the strap and let the rifle hang off her back. Among her weapons was a powerful-looking DL-44 blaster on her hip and a hatchet slung just above the hips that looked like it was made out of the same metal she was wearing. "So your some kind of scientist then?" <bzzt>

Satisfied that Meri was no threat to her, she pulled off her helmet and snapped it to her left hip where it stayed as if locked by a powerful magnet. Orange-red hair spilled down her back. Indeed she was a girl, barely seventeen cycles old, and rather average looking - at least in her own opinion - especially compared to the girl she had briefly had at gunpoint.

"I may have put my weapons down, but don't make any hasty moves," she cautioned. "I'm still a Mandalorian."

Jett approached now with more confidence and less like a murderous hunter. "You probably shouldn't be out her alone," she remarked, "This moon is pretty sparse on population, but there's scavengers and criminals around here looking for scrap."

Ritual, memory, and sky signs... sounds like home, she thought wistfully and wryly. Farmers and tradesmen, no ships or droids or tech. Where she came from, everyone did things the old-fashioned way. So far out towards the Galactic edge, they didn't know much but they knew enough. Namely, how to survive with nothing at all.

"They're from Moriband, right? They had to get here some way." She looked up at the Temple, which extended like a monolith into the sky. She imagined the peak could touch the clouds on the right kind of day. Under her breath she added, "Who needs a house this big?"

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri did not move even when the rifle lowered, watching the motion with the same analytical focus she had maintained while it was pointed at her. She noted the practiced ease with which the weapon was slung away, the secondary armaments revealed in the process, and the quiet confidence that remained even once the immediate threat had been withdrawn. It was only when the helmet was removed that her posture eased, just slightly, as the figure in front of her resolved into something more human and therefore more predictable: still dangerous, certainly, but far more understandable.

"I am not going to make any hasty moves," she promised, her voice matching the gravity of the warning she had been given with a simple, honest statement of intent. She studied the girl for a moment longer, taking in the shock of orange-red hair and the youthful features that stood in stark contrast to a carriage of certainty that Meri had never quite mastered herself.

"What is your name?" she asked, the question coming naturally as a necessary next step in their interaction. After a brief pause, a small shift in expression softened her features, and she added with the barest hint of a fleeting, genuine smile, "You are the first Mandalorian I have met."

Her attention drifted back toward the wall and the ancient symbols that had initially drawn her to this place, absorbing Jett's warnings about scavengers and criminals without argument. While the threat of violence didn't seem to alarm her as much as it perhaps should have, there was a new, quiet awareness in her stance, a recognition that she was no longer alone in this jungle in more ways than one.

The mention of Moriband, however, caused her focus to shift immediately. Slowly and deliberately, she reached for her datapad, ensuring her movements remained visible and unthreatening as she lifted it from the stone. The screen flickered to life under her touch while she navigated through stored notes and sketches, her fingers moving with practiced familiarity until she reached the specific archives she had compiled at Varin.

Turning the screen slightly so she could compare the digital images side by side with the carvings on the wall, she traced the similarities and differences in their structural intent. After a moment of intense study, she shook her head slowly.

"No," she said softly, her eyes moving between the two sources. "These are not the same. The ones I studied there were older, more rigid, and far less layered than what we see here." Her stylus tapped a rhythmic, thoughtful beat against the edge of the pad as she processed the discrepancy. "This is an adaptation; it seems someone took an earlier system and changed it to fit a different purpose entirely."

Her gaze lifted once more, her curiosity finally overtaking the lingering tension of their encounter as she looked back at the temple rising above them. "If they truly came from Moriband, they did not bring their traditions unchanged," she concluded, her mind already working through the implications. "They altered them the moment they arrived."

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

She circled the archeologist, no longer paying close attention to her, as the initial threat had diminished, and scanned the treeline. Jett quietly observed but looked in the direction where her ship was waiting several times. If proximity sensors went off, her ship would alert her with a sharp sound from her helmet. "Uh... oh, me? Jett. Meri, Jett. Jett, Meri," she absently faux introduced herself. "So if they've changed, maybe..." she turned around and slipped her own helmet over Meri's head and tapped the side of it. Immediately a heads-up display turned on and began analyzing the runes. An ultra-violet sensor turned the display purple and outlined the markings that lay beneath, revealing them to Miri in a way that typical sight could not.

Data sprang forth in the Mandalorian language, to which Jett tapped another part of the helmet, making it switch to basic Galactic aurebesh. Suddenly completely readable to Meri, streams of text and data filled the display. Pinpointing the differences between the old and the new one. "Try this," Jett said after the intrusive gesture. Clearly she didn't have much of a sense of 'personal space.'

"Any better?" She said as her toe struck a rock, kicking it into the bush where some small animal must have been hiding. The tall brush shuddered with the escaping animal and Jett's hand fell to the blaster on her hip. "Yeah," she finally relaxed and addressed Miri's earlier statement. "I hadn't met a Mandalorian either until about a cycle ago. It's usually not very pleasant. One star; I would not recommend." Her hand went away from her blaster pistol and she turned around again, staring up at the structure once more.

"I bet these woods are hiding more stuff. You don't build something this big without having a town spring up around it. Back home, the Town Elder had a barn built, extra big to house his Banthas and pretty soon he had a small village spring up around it. Nearby water, good land where green stuff grows. Yeah, this place probably had people... roads... whole communities around it. I don't care how evil an alien you are. Gotta have a place to sleep and food to eat."

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri did not have time to object before the helmet was placed over her head, and for a brief, disorienting instant, the world narrowed to the claustrophobic interior of someone else's sight.

Then the temple changed.

Where she had been working from fragments and inference, the ultraviolet overlay pulled hidden lines from the stone, revealing sharp cuts beneath centuries of erosion. Older markings, layered under later additions and inconsistencies she had only suspected before, suddenly snapped into focus. The carvings were no longer just surface detail; they became structure, depth, and intention laid bare in a way her eyes alone could not have achieved.

The text appeared shortly after, though it was not the temple's native tongue. Her gaze moved quickly across the display, catching the unfamiliar structure of the system language before it shifted again into Aurebesh. That first glimpse was brief, but even without understanding the vocabulary, she registered its shape, the ordering of its parts, and the clipped efficiency of its construction.

"Wait," she said softly, not in protest, but in recognition. "That first language... it prioritizes action before subject. Commands first, then identification, then context. It is designed to reduce ambiguity under pressure."

Her voice trailed off as she adjusted to the translation stabilizing across the display, her tone shifting from surprise to a quiet, scholarly certainty. Her attention moved back to the temple markings as the Aurebesh overlay clarified the underlying Massassi script, making the differences between the two layers far more obvious.

"The carvings themselves are Massassi," she noted, her voice steady and precise as she traced the air in front of the glyphs. "They are significantly older than the translation layer. The structure here is ritualistic, but not purely symbolic. This confirms what I suspected earlier. The 'red eye' is not metaphorical; it refers to a celestial body with a predictable cycle."

She leaned forward just a fraction, her focus narrowing as she compared the original symbols to the translated overlay. "But the translation is incomplete. Whoever added it understood portions of the language, but they simplified where they did not fully comprehend the structure."

Her gaze shifted briefly to the edges of the display where the system text still lingered. "That other language you used, Mando'a, I have not seen it before. But it is consistent. I could learn it."

There was no pride in the statement, only the flat certainty of a girl who saw the world as a series of solvable ciphers. Turning her attention back to the data, she moved more confidently between her own deductions and the confirmed results.

"You were correct that it is a map, but not to a hiding place," she said, her voice dropping into a thoughtful register. "It is a guided path, a sequence that must be followed at a specific time. And if these markings extend beyond this structure, then this was not an isolated site. Large structures require support systems for food, water, and labor. Your village example is correct."

She straightened slightly, still holding the helmet in place as she looked toward the deeper jungle beyond the temple walls. "There would have been people here, which means there may still be traces of how they lived, not just what they built."

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

"Innnnteresting," Jett lied, her boredom apparent. She was not infact that interested, but she knew that whatever was going on would probably lead her to her target. Odo Keth was an antiquities dealer and a scrap hauler. It was no coincidence that Jett was here in this place, during an archeological dig. Jett was beginning to realize this. It was likely that she had gotten here before her target. Tension rippled through her body when she realized this. "You should probably hurry this up, I have a distinct feeling we're about to have company." Just as she said so, alarms went off in her helmet, blaring and bringing up a secondary monitor which gave a perspective from her ship - a Ghtroc 580 light freighter with a very limited armament. Compared to the ship that was landing not too far away; a Corellian Broadhorn, Jett's ship was just as fast, but the Broadhorn was notorious for it's hidden armament and troop hauling capabilities.

"We've probably got about thirty minutes," she warned as she plucked her helmet off of Meri's head. With a fist curling her own hair, she stuffed it into the helmet and slid it back on. Through the camera, she could already see the ramp lowering and a group of mercenaries in various mottled armor and armaments offloading. One of them pointed. Right in the direction of Jett's ship. She had powered down completely, but somehow the freighter had been detected. At least it would buy them time, but then they would be stranded - except for Meri's ship if she even had one.

<bzzt> "Are you parked close? We may need to grab your ride to get out of here. Mine... might be occupied soon." <bzzt>

Jett made a show of powering her weapons on. Her powerful blasters were made for a middle-weight trooper, a sort of all-in-one sniper and ground trooper. Then she pointed at the DL-44 at her hip and looked at Meri. <bzzt> "Do you know how to use one of these?" <bzzt> The rifle she unslung from her shoulder powered on with a series of blip... blip... blip... DING! To indicate it's fully powered-up state, and she began by lifting it to look into the sight and scan the woods. There wasn't enough range for sniper fire, so she flipped it to semi-auto. The BlasTech DLT-20A Long Barrel Blaster Rifle was a notoriously powerful blaster rifle, but also notorious for it's kick. Most wouldn't regard Jett as having the strength to handle such a weapon, but she'd grown up doing heavy farm work.

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri did not resist when the helmet was removed, though the sudden loss of the overlay drew a faint tightening across her expression, as if something useful had been taken away before she had finished with it. The wall returned to its natural state, the deeper layers of meaning no longer illuminated, and for a brief moment her attention lingered there before Jett's tone shifted the focus sharply elsewhere.

Company. The word carried more weight than the translation she had been working through.

Her gaze lifted toward the direction Jett's attention had turned, not because she could see anything yet, but because the change in posture, the tension in her voice, and the urgency in her movements created a pattern that was impossible to ignore. This was no longer a controlled environment with variables she could isolate. This was movement, intention, and the approach to unknowns.

Thirty minutes. Her mind adjusted immediately.

"Yes," she answered, the response coming without delay. "My ship is on the west side of the temple."

She shifted slightly, orienting herself mentally against the structure they stood within, mapping their current position to the outer perimeter.

"We are on the north approach," she continued, her tone calm but precise. "It is not far. Around the outer wall, past the collapsed column. It is not visible from here."

Her eyes moved briefly toward the deeper jungle, then back to Jett as the question of weapons was raised.

The blaster.

Meri's attention dropped to it, studying it with the same careful distance she applied to anything unfamiliar and potentially dangerous. The activation tones alone had been enough to draw a subtle flinch from her, a tightening in her shoulders that she did not entirely conceal. Loud, sudden noise disrupted her focus, and the idea of producing that disruption herself introduced too many variables she could not control.

"I understand how it functions," she said after a moment, her voice steady but deliberate, as if choosing the most accurate phrasing. "Energy discharge, directional targeting, recoil compensation depending on model. But I have not used one in practice."

Her gaze lifted to meet Jett's visor again, not avoiding the question, but answering it with clarity.

"Under pressure, I would not be efficient with a sidearm," she continued, her tone remaining clinical rather than self-conscious. "The margin for error is too high, and the response time required is not something I have trained for."

She hesitated briefly, then shifted her focus back to the rifle slung across Jett's shoulder, studying its length, its structure, the way it would anchor against the body.

"A rifle would be more stable," she added thoughtfully, not as a request, but as an observation. "It allows for controlled alignment and reduces the number of adjustments required in the moment. If I were to attempt anything, that would be the more logical option."

Her attention moved away from the weapons again, returning to the problem that mattered more.

"If they have already detected your ship, then their approach will adjust quickly," she said, her voice settling back into its measured cadence. "We should move before they begin to account for additional variables."

A brief pause followed as she turned slightly toward the direction of her ship.

"I can guide us," she said, quiet but certain.

And despite the approaching threat, the weapons, and the uncertainty pressing in around them, there was no panic in her voice. Only focus, and the clear understanding that remaining still was no longer a viable option.

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

<bzzt> "Thinking with your head, and not your heart," Jett said and tossed Meri the blaster pistol. "You're not getting your hands on my rifle, and you're not trained for this. It's heavy and it'll take your arm off when you start firing. Worse, it'll burn your face off when it starts overheating." Jett warned with a smirk hidden by her helmet. "Best case scenario, you fire wildly and knock yourself out." <bzzt>

She noted the look on Meri's face when she had took the helmet off her. Yeah, being a Mandalorian was pretty cool. <bzzt> "Whatever you still have to do, I say do it now. If we're stuck in a firefight, we'll be slowed down a bit." <bzzt> Jett was watching in her helmet as the criminals disembarked and armed themselves. There was a tall Twi with a Blastmill Cannon, and a cadre of Ugnaughts - probably slaves - with heavy blaster rifles and particularly nasty looking melee polearms. Then she saw something that made her blood freeze. A Chistori mercenary. Taller than most species, and designated as reptilian, they were more likely saurian, and were largely unknown in the greater Galaxy... but Jett knew them all too well.

They were tough, strong, a match for any Mandalorian, and mean. What one was doing here was anyone's guess, but if Odo was a Chistori, then Jett had her hand's full. He barked orders Jett couldn't hear through her coms. Then as they armed up, they started towards Jett's ship. Armed to the teeth. Jett took the time to reach into her pouch, pulling long, thin cords which she strung low from tree-trunk to tree-trunk. She used the brush to hide the tripwires, and set mines between the spaces between trees. She ripped branches and cut scratches into the sides to make them look as though a clueless clumsy armored person had stumbled through, and left tracks where there had been none before, leading back to the site.

The whole thing took about twenty minutes, before she was back where she'd met Meri, and she wouldn't have been surprised if the girl had cut-and-run while she was distracted, but Jett also knew that she could catch up with relative ease. She had been training to run and gun in full armor, and her beskar was as close to pure as any Concord Dawn Mando had been. Also, there was a chance Meri was curious enough about Mando'a that she'd stayed. In the distance, automated defenses fired laser cannons from Jett's parked ship at the encroaching raiders. Heavy blaster-fire in the distance responded.

<bzzt> "Well that probably just bought a few seconds. Pack up, and let's get out of here." <bzzt> Said Jett as her boots crunched into the dirt near the ancient structure.

Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri caught the blaster awkwardly.

Not dangerously, but with the unmistakable hesitation of someone whose hands were far more accustomed to datapads, styluses, and fragile artifacts than weapons designed to burn through armor plating. The weight of it alone surprised her, heavier than she had anticipated for something carried at the hip, and her grip adjusted twice before it settled into something remotely stable.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she examined it.

"I was not planning to fire wildly," she said quietly, though the faint tension in her voice suggested she was now deeply aware that such an outcome was entirely possible.

Still, she listened carefully to every warning Jett gave, committing the information to memory with immediate seriousness. Weight distribution. Recoil. Heat buildup. Practical concerns mattered more to her than bravado ever could, and unlike many people, she possessed no illusion that simply holding a weapon translated into competence.

"Understood," she added after a moment. "I will attempt not to remove my own face."

The statement was delivered with complete sincerity, though there was the faintest trace of dry humor buried beneath it.

While Jett vanished into the jungle to prepare whatever it was Mandalorians prepared in situations like this, Meri remained near the ruin exactly where she had been told to stay. She did not run. The thought crossed her mind briefly, not from cowardice, but from pure probability calculation. Alone, however, she would almost certainly become lost or intercepted long before reaching orbit, and whatever was approaching had already demonstrated organization and resources far beyond anything she could reasonably counter herself.

So instead, she worked.

The datapad returned to her hands almost immediately, and while Jett moved through the jungle, setting traps and false trails, Meri committed herself to recording as much of the temple as possible before they were forced to leave. The sketch she had begun earlier expanded rapidly into annotated structural diagrams, with additional notes regarding the Massassi translation layer and the modified celestial references embedded within the glyphs.

Every so often, the distant sounds of movement or blaster fire caused her shoulders to tense, but she did not stop writing.

By the time Jett returned, Meri had already packed most of her things back into her satchel, though the datapad remained active in her hands. The distant exchange of heavy weapons fire echoed through the jungle now, low and violent enough that even she could feel the rhythm of it through the stone beneath her boots.

When Jett spoke again, Meri looked up immediately.

"I am ready," she said, slipping the datapad securely into her satchel before adjusting the strap across her shoulder.

Her gaze shifted briefly toward the direction of the fighting.

"Your traps delayed them longer than I expected," she observed quietly. "Which likely means they are either cautious or experienced."

That did not sound particularly reassuring.

The borrowed blaster still rested somewhat uncertainly in her hands, held with obvious care rather than familiarity, but at least now her finger remained correctly away from the trigger.

"The western route is faster," she continued as she moved closer to Jett. "There is less dense growth near the collapsed exterior wall, but we will be exposed for a short distance before reaching my ship."

A small pause followed before she glanced briefly toward Jett's helmet.

"And I would still like to learn Mando'a," she admitted softly, as though this remained an entirely reasonable priority despite the armed mercenaries currently descending on the ruins.

Then the distant crack of heavier weapons fire rolled through the jungle again, and the reality of the situation returned fully. Meri tightened her grip on the blaster, visibly steadied herself, and nodded once toward the western side of the temple. "This way."

Jett Vox