Private Dog Without a Leash

[Gavin Vel]

GAVIN VEL
DOG WITHOUT A LEASH
​

TAGS: Adonis Angelis IV

LOCATION: Taris

SHIP: The Hound

​

The Hound had not moved in four days. Gavin had buried the shuttle inside an old maintenance berth several levels beneath one of Taris's functioning freight terminals, far enough away from legitimate traffic that nobody had bothered asking questions about the large black vessel sitting in the dark. The hangar itself looked as though it had been forgotten years ago. Half the lights were dead, rainwater found its way down through cracks somewhere hundreds of feet overhead, and the outer blast doors had to be persuaded into closing with a combination of the control panel and Gavin physically forcing them the last few feet. It was uncomfortable, damp, and isolated. Gavin had slept in considerably worse places. More importantly, nobody knew he was there.

Four days on Taris had produced exactly one useful name. Gavin had started in the upper levels, following what remained of old Diarchy intelligence reports and financial records, before gradually working his way downward through freight offices, cheap hotels, docking yards, cantinas, and places where information was bought rather than volunteered. His black robes and hood helped him disappear to a point, although there was only so much anonymity available to a man who stood six feet eight inches tall. He had paid some people. Threatened others. A few recognized him, which usually made things easier. The Diarchy might have been dead, but Gavin Vel had spent years standing beside Reign as one of the most powerful men within it. Soldiers had known his name. Officers had known his face. There were still people who remembered what happened when Reign sent Gavin somewhere instead of an army.

The man he was looking for certainly would.

Legate Darius Keln. Gavin remembered him well enough. Keln had commanded a Legion during the final years of the Diarchy, thousands of soldiers whose lives had depended on the orders he gave. He had sat through briefings with Gavin, spoken confidently about duty and sacrifice, and expected men beneath him to hold their positions when doing so meant dying. Then the Diarchy had begun to collapse and Keln had vanished. Not fallen in battle. Not remained behind trying to extract his soldiers. Not even surrendered with the men still under his command. He had simply disappeared while others were still waiting for orders that never came. Gavin had spent months following men like him across the galaxy, although few had carried Keln's rank. A frightened trooper running when everything fell apart was something Gavin could almost understand. A Legate abandoning thousands of people who had trusted him was something else entirely.

The latest trail had brought Gavin to Freight Exchange Twelve, a mostly abandoned cargo facility buried deep enough beneath Taris's upper city that the neon glow barely reached it. The place was enormous. Rusting catwalks crossed an open loading floor at several different heights while old cargo containers remained stacked against the walls or suspended from overhead magnetic rails. A loading crane hung motionless over the center of the exchange, narrow maintenance bridges connected abandoned control rooms, and portions of the western wall had collapsed enough for polluted rain to blow inside whenever the wind shifted. Beyond those openings was nothing but the endless vertical city, towers disappearing into haze above and darkness below. Gavin had chosen a position on an upper platform where he could see most of the floor and every obvious entrance.

He stood there now with his hood pulled low, one shoulder resting against the railing while Keln's old identification image glowed on the datapad in his hand. Someone had seen him here. Gavin was nearly certain of that now. Whether Keln was using the exchange himself, meeting someone inside it, or merely passing through remained to be seen. Gavin shut the datapad off and slipped it beneath his robes. The lightsaber at his side remained concealed, though the familiar weight of it had been difficult to ignore ever since he entered the building.

A metallic sound echoed somewhere beyond the platform. Gavin's eyes lifted toward the darkened corridor behind him. He remained where he was for several seconds, listening as another noise followed the first. A door. Footsteps, perhaps. Freight Exchange Twelve was supposed to be empty tonight.

Gavin turned toward the sound.

He had spent four days looking for someone.

Maybe someone had finally decided to come looking for him.

◆

​

​

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

The city-planet had recovered considerably in the years since Harrow's invasion. Adonis had been little more than a foundling then, a pup learning beneath the Mand'alor before earning his blood in the campaign's final days. The scars remained if one knew where to look, but Taris stood as proof that even worlds broken by monsters could be rebuilt.

The Warden of Vaal was not on Taris to aid in the reconstruction, however, nor was he here to gloat. Adonis had come to Taris to hunt. The Empire had believed him dead. Years ago, the Diarchy's executioner had vanished alongside the regime he served, leaving behind a trail of Mandalorian dead and unfinished accounts. Intelligence now suggested otherwise, someone had seen Gavin Vel on Taris.

The details Adonis had been given were few, most of them involved precautions. The Warden suspected his talents were needed to bring down the behemoth of a man. Adonis himself was no giant, but ivory beskar had a way of making size irrelevant. Layered plates broadened his silhouette into something more akin to a walking fortress than a man.

Hours disappeared chasing leads through Taris, bribing-or otherwise extracting- information from reluctant sources. One trail belonged to Gavin Vel. The other belonged to the man Gavin himself was hunting.

All those hours led the Warden to the abandoned freight station he now walked through. It was dilapidated, rusted, and still carried the smell of exhaust baked into the steel decades ago. Every sign-thermal, infrared, and even the Force itself- pointed to someone waiting inside. The Dark Side lingered throughout the station like an old wound, brushing against his senses with quiet insistence. Adonis shoved it aside and continued forward.

He would see his mission through, as the Mand'alor had ordered.

His footsteps rang against the rusted catwalk without the slightest attempt to soften them. Stealth had never been the point. If Gavin Vel was here, then the former Diarch's hound deserved the courtesy of knowing exactly who had found him.

Ivory beskar emerged from the darkness at the end of the platform, fractured light glinting across layered plates trimmed in gold. The eight-pointed star emblazoned upon his chest stood in stark contrast against the dim industrial ruin. His helmet never wavered. Neither did the measured rise and fall of his breathing.

One gloved hand hung loosely at his side, fingers flexing once in quiet readiness. Not tense- prepared.

"You were harder to track down than I expected." The words came through the vocoder low and even, carrying effortlessly through the empty freight exchange.

"Gavin Vel."

​

 

[Gavin Vel]

GAVIN VEL
DOG WITHOUT A LEASH
​

TAGS: Adonis Angelis IV

LOCATION: Taris

SHIP: The Hound

​

Gavin did not move when the stranger spoke his name. For several seconds he simply stared across the platform, taking in the ivory armor, the man's stance, the placement of his hands, and the deliberate way he had approached without trying to conceal himself. There was something else beneath all of it too. Gavin could feel him through the Force, enough to know immediately that this was no ordinary Mandalorian patrolman. Whoever had been sent after him had power. Real power. The realization brought the faintest smile to Gavin's face.

So they had finally found him. He had always known somebody eventually would. The Hound could hide, Gavin could keep his head down and move through worlds without announcing himself, but he had left too much blood and too many enemies behind to disappear forever. What surprised him was that someone had managed to follow the trail all the way here without Gavin realizing it first.

That earned the Mandalorian a measure of respect. Taris was not an easy place to find one man, especially one deliberately burying himself in its lower levels. Gavin had spent four days tearing through the city just to find Keln, and this stranger had apparently been doing the same thing with him. More interesting still was that he knew Gavin's name. There had been a time when that name carried considerably more weight. Reign's apprentice. His right hand. The man sent when the Diarchy wanted a problem removed rather than negotiated with. Those titles were dead now, but apparently somebody still remembered them.

Gavin pushed away from the railing and straightened to his full height. Slowly, he reached up and pulled his hood back, letting it settle around his shoulders and revealing the bald head and hard features beneath it. He made no move toward the lightsaber hidden within his robes and took no step backward. If someone had gone through this much trouble to find Gavin Vel, they could at least have the satisfaction of seeing that they had the right man.

"I'm glad I'm worth someone with fancy armor." His eyes traveled openly over the beskar. It was nice. "Do you just get assigned armor or did you ask to look like a marshmallow?" He chuckled at his own joke.

Gavin had fought Mandalorians before. Dima had introduced herself to him on Ozzuk Thren in the middle of an already disastrous fight, and Gavin had stood against her with little more than a knife and enough stubbornness to make up for the difference. Years later he had charged her again at Yaga Minor, this time with an orange blade and years of Reign's training behind him. He had stood in the presence of Aether Verd himself that day as Mand'alor faced the Diarch. Gavin had not been afraid of Mandalorians then, and a suit of polished beskar was not going to change that now.

If anything, the smile on Gavin's face grew wider. He had spent months chasing frightened former officers through cantinas and starports, most of whom provided little more than excuses before the end. This felt different. The man across from him had knowingly walked into the room alone, and Gavin could feel the strength waiting beneath all that armor. An old excitement began to stir in his chest, something he had not felt in far too long. For a few moments even Keln slipped from the front of his mind.

Gavin rolled one shoulder, then the other, his hand remaining comfortably away from his saber. There was no reason to rush. He wanted to know exactly what had finally caught up with him.

"Tell me, do they want me dead or alive?"

For a brief moment Gavin actually found himself hoping for the first answer.

Alive would be insulting.

"Please don't tell me they sent you here to bring me in alive. My poor ego couldn't handle it."

◆

​

​

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

Measuring a warrior was not done in meters or pounds. There was no science that told you whether the person in front of you was a skilled warrior or just a mountain of muscle. Discernment like that came from decades of failing, time and time again going against something bigger than you and learning from them. Never backing down. Adonis had his fair share of wins and losses under his belt, and by now, he was able to tell a fierce opponent before they showed their cards.

Gavin was a fierce opponent. The file on him that Mandalorian Intelligence kept was large enough, intricate details about his past that even Adonis was impressed they knew, pictures of him from anonymous tips and surveillance, a web of connected killings of former Diarchy commanders. All of that, and Adonis could tell more from the few words the behemoth spoke that he was a fearsome warrior.

Mandalorian doctrine demanded they not flinch in the face of danger, and Adonis adhered to that. As Gavin pushed his full height from the railing and showed his face, it was the confirmation the Warden needed. The former Hand of the Diarch, the fugitive, Gavin Vel stood before him. There was a familiarity in his tone with Adonis that the Mandalorian found amusing. Poking the mynok nest as it were. A younger Adonis would have flown into a rage at the first words from his mouth. He would have left his guard open and would have been punished for it.

He would have been his own worst enemy.

Now, he didn't even chuckle at the man's comments. Instead, he shifted his weight to ready himself for what inevitably came next. Mirroring Gavin, Adonis didn't reach for his weapon yet, if there were any hope for a peaceful resolution it would not be the Warden who killed it. He also would not, however, get caught in a trap. Beneath his helm, his eyes were searching for something that he could use to his advantage if this did come to blows.

Old abandoned rafters above held empty steel containers, once home to parts for transport ships. There were wires that were exposed, though the power to them stopped running years prior. The station was in disarray, but nothing would be much help against his opponent. He settled his gaze back toward Gavin as he finished his questions.

"Dealer's choice." The fingers of his crushgaunt curled into a fist, still not reaching for the hilt of his broadsaber just yet. "Or you could just answer some questions and leave here with your life and your dignity." A smirk pulled at Adonis's lips beneath his helm. Even bureaucracy couldn't fully kill his spirit. He had to poke back.

"Once again- dealer's choice." He cracked his neck beneath his armor, readying his stance for whatever Gavin decided to open with.

​

 

[Gavin Vel]

GAVIN VEL
DOG WITHOUT A LEASH
​

TAGS: Adonis Angelis IV

LOCATION: Taris

SHIP: The Hound

He had seen enough Mandalorians by now to know that they were not easily baited into violence. Gavin respected that, even if he rolled his eyes when the man refused to indulge his curiosity about the armor. Truthfully, he did want to know how someone earned a suit like that. He doubted Mand'alor was handing beskar out to every nobody who swore allegiance and learned the right words. There had to be more to it than that, some trial or act that proved the person beneath the armor deserved to wear it. Gavin found himself wondering, briefly, what this particular man had done.

"Dignity," Gavin scoffed. The anger that followed had little to do with the Mandalorian standing across from him. It came from somewhere older, from things Gavin had once believed himself. Duty. Purpose. Loyalty to something larger. He had watched men stand beneath banners and speak about sacrifice as though the galaxy cared what any of them believed, only to watch those same banners fall and the men beneath them scatter. His jaw tightened as he looked across the walkway. "There is no dignity in this galaxy. You might've been convinced there is. I was too. But eventually you figure it out. You and me are just pieces men like our leaders move around so they can convince themselves they're important."

His arm moved suddenly, fast enough that it could have looked like the beginning of an attack, though his hand never went anywhere near the lightsaber. Instead, Gavin drove his closed fist hard into his opposite palm, the smack echoing across the walkway. "They sent you after me because I'm killing men in your territory. That's it. I'm not threatening Mandalore. I'm not raising an army. I'm bad publicity. Some bastard walks onto one of your worlds, starts killing people, and nobody stops him. Makes whoever's in charge look weak."

The anger faded almost as quickly as it had arrived. Gavin's breathing settled and his shoulders loosened as something far more familiar began to replace it. His eyes dropped briefly toward the weapon at his side before returning to the armored man standing across from him. The anticipation was already beginning to creep through his body, tightening muscles and stirring something that had been absent during months spent chasing frightened men through cantinas and spaceports. "I'll make you a deal," Gavin said, his voice noticeably calmer now as his hand moved slowly toward his lightsaber. There was no urgency in the movement and no attempt to surprise him. Gavin wanted the man to see exactly what he was doing. "You defeat me, and I'll answer any question you want before you kill me."

The saber cleared his robes and his thumb found the activator. Orange light burst to life between them, the low hum filling the space while its glow crawled across Gavin's face and caught the grin spreading there. Whatever anger had been present moments earlier was gone now, replaced by something almost disturbingly enthusiastic. Gavin had spent too long hunting men who had already decided they were beaten before he ever reached them. The Mandalorian standing across from him did not look beaten, and for the first time in quite a while, Gavin looked genuinely pleased about what might happen next.

◆

​

​

 

[Adonis Angelis IV]

Under the buy'ce, Adonis's smirk had yet to fade. It seemed he had hit a nerve, struck something in Gavin when he mentioned dignity. The Warden questioned if it came from the Diarchy crumbling, or if it came from hunting down his former brothers in arms? Dignity was something Mandalorians lived and died by, from the armor to the Creed, a Mandalorian was nothing without dignity. Perhaps that would be the way to lessen the other man's rage, give him a chance at dignity after all these years.

For now, it kept his enemy off balance, Adonis could feel the rage seeping from the behemoth's pores. The air grew sour with the taint of the Dark Side, a familiar tinge ran down Adonis's spine. It traced his back like a hot bolt of lightning, settling just above his tailbone. He hadn't felt it since his captivity on Crucival. It was something like adrenaline mixed with sulfur.

He blinked away the familiar heat, positioning himself in the present.

Then, he focused his attention fully on Gavin.

Adonis let the man finish his thoughts, without interrupting. It was clear that his anger was at something larger than Adonis, larger than Darius Keln. It was a hot and justified anger, but it wasn't placed with conviction. It felt to Adonis like it festered, boiled just under the surface, waiting for the right event- or person to bring it to surface. Adonis was that person. Even as the anger receded as easily as it came, the Dark Side left its remnants across the aged metal that confined the warriors like a rusted cage.

The Warden cleared his HUD, sending live updates and messages away in favor of a full view of Gavin. You didn't need Force Precognition to see where this was headed, and business updates and calendar pop-ups would take up vital visor space. For an enemy like Gavin Vel , he even cleared his vitals from view. You didn't need to know your heart rate when you had a lightsaber plunged in your side.

Vel was a type of enemy the Vaalan hadn't fought in a long time, another Juggernaut like himself. Through his now cleared helm, Adonis watched the orange light activate, stretching and filling the space between himself and the Dark Sider. There was a restraint in Gavin's actions that Adonis hadn't expected. Every report about the Right Hand had painted him as someone who didn't hold back in a fight. It was almost a guarantee that he would spring first, but this time he hadn't. Adonis considered what else the Mandalorian intelligence may have gotten wrong about his target.

Once the distance was established, and Gavin hadn't launched himself, Adonis finally responded. "Dealer's choice."

Adonis called his saber's hilt to his hand. Ivory and gold gave way to beautiful beskar, crowned with a crossguard made of phrik from his own mines. Gavin had mocked the color, but the ivory was deliberate. Adonis wore no camouflage, no muted colors meant to disappear into a battlefield. The eight-pointed star of House Angelis sat proudly against his armor; if an enemy was going to fight him, Adonis wanted them to know exactly who had come for them.

"Let's see if the stories are true."

Immediately, a wide, brilliant blue blade sprang to life, and as soon as it was ignited, the Warden took off. He poured the Force into his movement, driving himself forward as every armored step hammered against the aging steel beneath him.

If Gavin wouldn't make the first move, Adonis would.

His lightsaber came wide, both hands holding it low by his side. He then used the momentum of his charge to shift the weight and swing the broadsaber into Gavin's ribs. It was a loud opener, but Adonis wasn't one to be upstaged.

​