Memories.

[Alkor Centaris]

It was a cold night. The Sasi family had only just settled in for the night as the wind picked up, and Asha huddled closer to the fire for warmth. "You never decided to install a heating unit," she observed in a half bitter voice, offset by the chattering of her teeth. "It's nearing winter, buir."

"I can't remember a time when your mother ever complained about it," the grizzled man replied tersely. Their relationship was strained at best after she decided to strike off on her own, but there was still a healthy familial love between them. You could take the girl out of Mandalore, but you can't take Mandalore out of the girl. "She would have shot me dead for letting you take off like you did, Ash'ika."

"I don't think so," Asha spoke quietly. "She knew I would have done it even if you had told me not to. We're Mandos, dad. Fighting's in our blood." He chuckled at that, but never really contended the point. "If anything, she might have tried to calm you down after you realized I'd run off. After about two weeks, everything would have gone back to normal and you'd be tending the fields again."

"That's about how it happened," her replied with a wide smile. "The fields weren't gonna harvest themselves."

"No, you always did say that." Her smile was sad as she recalled that point. Those had been very different times. "I remember groaning every time I had to go out and pick the vegetables for selling."

"But you always did it." Her father seemed to swell with pride at that. "I remember thinking that if we ever did get called to war, you'd make me proud. Then... the war came, and I didn't want to see you go."

"You were too old," she replied. "I answered for our family so that Mand'alor would not lack for able bodies. And I did bring honor back to you."

"I heard stories," he confirmed. "But I didn't see my daughter. You'll have to forgive me for not being as enthusiastic as I could have been."

"How did she die?" Asha asked suddenly. Yaro sighed when she asked. He took a sip from his drink and made a face at how bitter it tasted in that moment.

"Why didn't you come home when I told you?" he countered.

He had since migrated to Echoy'la to find her again, but she had given him a wide berth. Whether from guilt or due to ignorance of his residence there, it had been resolved by a sudden meeting in one of the cities in the clouds.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"It was an easy job. That's what she was told." Asha settled into her spot and listened intently as her father recounted the tale. "Took her out to the other side of the galaxy. Bakura. The Hutts wanted her to rip off a Namana trader and bring back some of the product to make medicine. There was talk that it could cut into Bacta profits at that point, so the job paid well. She wasn't about to say no."

He let out a sigh. "I told her not to. I practically begged her not to involve herself with the Hutts. There were better jobs, safer jobs. Things that wouldn't get her caught up in the criminal underworld. She insisted. If we pulled in the kind of money it was paying, she'd be able to pay for... your verd'goten present." Asha gulped down. They wanted something that expensive? Kriff, I... I...

"I didn't need anything extravagant," she protested. "Osik, buir, N'eparavu-"

"No," he hissed. "Your mother made her decision. It wasn't your fault. I never blamed you, and she didn't, either. We wanted you to have something nice to commemorate your coming of age. Our only child, our beloved Asha- it was worth it, to her. It was... she's in our hearts forever, Ash'ika."

"What happened?" she asked in a hollow voice. "You need to tell me how it happened." She wanted to cry, but the warrior in her refused. Not yet. She would honor the memory of her mother by hearing her tale, not with waterworks. "I have to know."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"She made it to Bakura and met with the contact," Yaro recalled. "I got a transmission several hours after that, she had agreed on an ambush and planned to steal the Namana while it was in transit. It should have gone off without a hitch. By all accounts, it did."

Asha sucked in a breath. "Sounds too good to be true," she muttered. Her experience with that kind of thing said it all. When things were running smoothly, a wrench usually got thrown into the mix.

"It was," he agreed sadly. "An opposing Crime Lord heard about the plan, and another Bounty Hunter was sent to ensure the profits went to his boss. Turf war. The same shabla garbage I tried to warn her about to begin with." He seethed and shook his head, and his fist slammed into the table. That he had warned her made him feel worse. He still tormented himself about the tragedy, all these years later. "He was a Gunslinger, they told me. Crack shot. Sick bastard. Shot her clean in the head while her helmet was off. I didn't hear about it for a week after."

The blonde let out a ragged breath. Her mother had died like that? "What was his name?" she asked quietly. "Who was he?"

"Revette, I heard the name was. Dini'la shabuir. He comes up every now and then in cross talk with the mercs in Keldabe, but he's a ghost. Can't pinpoint him anyplace in the galaxy. Not for any length of time."

"I've never heard of him," Asha protested. "Mom couldn't have gotten killed by some no-name. I won't believe she went out like that."

"He killed her," Yaro said flatly. "You know that means he's formidable. Don't go downplaying her death by belittling him. Consider him an enemy worth putting ammo in."

Asha reeled from her father's quick and harsh words.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"And the payout?" she asked weakly. "Did the Hutts at least compensate you?"

"What do you think?" he asked. "There's no payable-on-death with the Hutts. Her take died with her." The bitterness about his wife's fall was far deeper than his displeasure with the people who hired her. Asha had only hoped that there was something positive in all of this. Had her mother truly died for nothing? "I went to Bakura the moment I learned of it. I couldn't believe them just telling me, you know? Showed up in full kit, ready to off the hu'tuun. Nowhere to be found."

"Of course not," Asha resigned herself to the knowledge that she might never find her mother's murderer. It was a fact of life; sometimes when a Mando went out on a job, bad things happened. Sometimes Jedi, even. Asha had killed at least two of the lightsaber jockeys, but her luck would probably not last forever. Especially not without the proper tools of the trade.

"What did you want to buy with that money?" she asked quietly. "What was worth my mothers life to those space slugs?" Her body wracked with angered shivers. She was no force user, so the power was not intoxicating, nor was it poisonous. It was simply a fact of life. This loss drove her nearly to tears, and the vicious truths attached to it caused her body to burn like fire.

"We... wanted to buy you armor," he replied quietly. "Not just scraps and durasteel. Proper beskar."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

He stood slowly as Asha stared blankly at the floor. She feared that if she looked up, she might lose her mind. The only thing that rooted her to that spot was the knowledge that, if she regained her composure, she might one day find the man named Revette and put a slug through his brain just like he'd done to her mother. That rage would have driven her forever if she let it. "Asha," her father said in a ravaged voice as he hobbled over to a lockbox near the kitchen. "I hoped that you would come home for years. And you found me, but you came to tell me that you had sold your soul to these savages. Mercs. You didn't marry some farmer boy, you sold yourself for credits. Just like your mother."

His words were like a slap to her face. "The Crusaders are my friends," she protested weakly. "They are my aliit."

"I am your family," he sobbed. "You left me, Ash'ika. I lost your mother, and I lost you. I have been empty for so damned long. I thought about flying into a black hole more than once. Just disappearing."

"Dad," she rasped. "You'll always be my family, but you taught me aliit ori'shya tal'din. These people are my family now, the same as you."

He broke down. On his knees before the strongbox, the man cried into his hands. "Osik," he managed, "I've wanted to die every day since I lost her, Asha."

The woman dropped to her knees next to her father and wrapped her arms around him. "I know," she murmured, her cheeks stained with the same salty tears that plagued him. "I know."

"She's gone," he wailed. "And you're a Merc. Dammit, Asha..."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"Not gone," Asha corrected. "They're never truly gone. Just marching away." She held him and smiled sadly as her chin perched on his back. "One day, we'll all be together again. It's just a short interruption before Manda, 'lek?" Her words were hardly consolation for the man, but he took heart in them. A Mandalorian understood the importance of their people being one, both in life and death. They had a reason to continue, but they also had a reason if they could not. Both of them found some peace in that- understanding like that was the only real peace in the galaxy worth having. War was a fact of life, and one that their people found purpose in. It was something not to be feared or hated, but faced head on.

"She died a warrior's death," she crooned. "Even if her enemy was not honorable, she knew the risks. We can't cry for her," she stated quietly, though she was in tears herself. "She would want us to move forward, dad." Her hands rubbed at his back in an attempt to soothe him. He shook in her embrace.

"What is there in that life that you can't get working the Beskar mines here?" he asked weakly. "Why can't you come back to live with your father?"

"I pledged myself to a cause," she replied in a soft voice. "I made an oath. My word is my bond. You taught me that."

"The code of a proper Mando," he agreed sadly. "I understand that. I hate it, but I understand." Asha pulled away from her father and sat back on her haunches. "I waited for this day, and it might have been the only thing that kept me alive. Still, now that it's come, I don't know what I'll do with my life. I'm too old for fighting anymore, with all the injuries I've racked up over the years. I can't hunt, even. Manual labor is the best I can do for the Mando'ade."

"You could marry again," she suggested. She knew it was a pointless notion, since his grief had never ended. He would love her mother until the day he died. "A little brother would be nice. Maybe two,"

"Brother?" he laughed at that. "You're old enough now to have sons of your own. Don't bother this old man with that kind of request."

Asha smirked. "Be careful, old man," she jeered. "I might just go and do it."

"If he's no good, I'll kill him," he spoke seriously this time, as if her words had triggered a fatherly response. Asha just laughed out loud.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"So, what's in the box?" she asked when he seemed to recover his wits. Her father sat upright and fumbled with the lock. "I assume if you've kept it under lock and key, it's something valuable."

"You'd be right," he agreed. "This here, I went and worked for years on. I wasn't the merc your mother was, and I was disinclined to risk my life for money- but my savings went a long way when it was just me. Food cost me nothing, I'm a farmer after all. I only spent credits on things I absolutely needed. When I collected her armor, I held on to it, and I took it into Keldabe to see if a Smith could rework the plates and make it sturdier. I was obsessed with the idea- my darling daughter, at the very least as safe as my money could make her."

Asha felt her jaw drop. "Dad-" she began to protest.

"I had her armor reforged with proper Mandalorian Steel, the highest grade money can buy." He raised the parts up for inspection, and the woman immediately noticed they were well kept. Polished, cleaned regularly, and kept away from particulates. He had slaved at this armor for years, waiting for the day he could pass her mother's legacy on to her. "I want to make sure that if you're going to play at Beroya, you will at least live longer at it than she did. I don't want to lose you, too."

Words failed Asha. She threw her arms around him again, holding the buy'ce in hand as she held him tightly. "Dad," she whispered. "I'm so sorry I took this long to come back."

The blonde bit her lip quietly as her father returned her embrace. "I love you, Ash'ika," he told her. "I'm so glad you're safe."

"I love you too, dad," she said. "I love you too."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"The HUD suite is more advanced than the basic op most vode employ," he explained to her. "High grade targeting assist systems, optimized motion scanners, proximity alerts, and a 360 degree field of vision that you can toggle on or off at will." He recalled the systems her mother had used in combat, the same technology that had made her a hunter worthy to be feared. "While it's nothing so advanced that no one else in the galaxy uses it, once you've gotten used to it, you'll be one up on most fighters in the galaxy. It's her legacy, you know? The only gift we had worth giving you."

"That's not true," Asha shook her head. "You guys gave me life, and you helped me become the person I am. Without your guidance, I might never have gotten strong enough to call myself a real Mando."

"The plates are thick and heavy. Good, strong beskar'gam." He forced himself to continue telling her about the armor and fought the strong urge to cry again. "The bodyglove isn't too special, but you can take a ton of shots without ever worrying. One good stab from a jetiikad in the wrong spot, though, and you might be in real trouble." He patted the buy'ce in her hand and reminded her, "but you ought to have no problem. They shouldn't get close enough, if you grew up a decent shot."

"Thanks, dad," she muttered at his inference that her skills were questionable. "I missed you, too."

"What kind of blaster are you using?" he asked. "Are you carrying good knives? Do you carry ordinance?"

"Well, so much for being sad." Asha pulled away from him and stood, pulling the helmet over her head and blinking the HUD active. When it flickered to life, the systems went green and preliminary scans swept the room. A view of the room behind her appeared in the upper left corner and followed as she turned a full circle in place. "Woah," she muttered as the sheer sensory overload of it threatened to give her a headache. "There's so much at once."

"Go easy for now," he told her. "Blink twice to bring down the 360 degree view. You should be used to a normal HUD, yeah?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she confirmed. After two blinks, she found a setting more like what she was accustomed to. With some training, she'd be able to use this armor to its full effect. I would be a good challenge.

 

[Alkor Centaris]

Asha fitted the armor almost too perfectly. It was like something from a dream. The weight felt different from anything she had worn previously. It was heavier, but denser as well. When she tapped on one of the gauntlets, it resonated with a deep, low pitched sound that only Mandalorian Iron could produce. She had always wondered how it would feel, if only she could get some of her own. The people of Echoy'la had a profound love for Beskar, perhaps moreso than normal Mando'ade who had regular access to the forges of Keldabe. With that cultural difference ingrained in her mind, the idea of true Keldabe masterwork seemed unreal.

Yet here she was, standing before her father clad in full armor and feeling it weigh her down. It wasn't too much, though. She was used to armor, and with some time, this would be just like the suit she wore prior. When she got back, she could show it off and even talk to Keira about new tricks and gadgets that she might be able to integrate. So much excitement welled up in her chest as she thought about all of it, she might have cried out from joy.

Her father patted her on the shoulder. "There now," he said. "That's what I waited all these years for. Your mother would be proud."

Asha sighed happily at those words. If her mother found some measure of peace in Oversoul, it would have been from knowing that her armor was now safely in her daughter's hands. All was right with the world. Or at least, for now, her world was perfect. "I'll bet Alk'ika will be stupid jealous," she chuckled.

"Alk'ika?" her father repeated. "Who's that?"

"No one," she shook her head. "It's not important."

 

[Alkor Centaris]

"It is important," he told her as she headed out the door. He stepped into her path and intended to bar her way. Daylight was still hours away, but she hated long goodbyes. They were waiting back at Little Keldabe, and there were new campaigns to plan. She couldn't leave her people to start land grabbing on their own, not without all hands on deck.

"Dad," she protested as she peeled the helmet off. Her blonde hair cascaded out and flowed over her shoulders. "Please. I'll be fine."

"I can't just let you leave," he protested. "Not like this. I want you to make me a promise before you get that armor. You've got to come back and live with me, and you have to swear never to take any jobs that might risk life or limb."

"Don't hold your breath," she replied with a grin. "Merc business is good, and I really enjoy it," she explained. "And I've made some great friends. I think you'd really like them." He did not seem interested, but Yaro still managed a smile. "One day, you'll have to come and visit us in Little Keldabe."

"Little Keldabe," he snorted. "No chance. I'm not going to meet those Mercs. I can't even

"I'd love you to meet Keira, and Isley, and Alkor-" she blushed when she said his name. Her father narrowed his eyes.

"Alkor, is it?" he frowned. "Tell him that your father's got a bullet with his name on it."

"It's not like that," she protested. "I don't think it is, anyway. If he likes me at all, I can't tell."

"Is he an idiot?" the farmer asked with a confused look.

"I think so, sometimes," she admitted. "Still, he's not a bad guy. A little rough, sure, but..."

"Osik, you have your mother's talent for taking in strays." Yaro shook his head. "I'm not going to let you end up married to some-."

"Alright, dad," she called back over her shoulder and she turned and hurried away. "I'll see you later."

"I'm not done!" he called as she started jogging.

Asha waved as she picked up her pace. With a smile and a laugh, she was on her way back to rejoin the others. "Hey!" he called after her. "Get your shebs back here, Asha! You had better be back when you're done telling them you're not doing anything reckless anymore!"

"Sorry buir," she spoke quietly as she shook her head. He grew ever smaller behind her. The frown that stretched across her features matched the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Again, she had to run away from her family. She just hoped that this time, he would be able to forgive her. "I've got a duty to my people."

"Asha!" his voice strained as he hobbled after her, then slumped to his knees. "No," he held out a hand toward her. "Not again. Why, Asha?"

Why.