Private Raid on Ironbush

[Kaela Voss]

Raid on Ironbush​

Tags: Korda Veydran // Tekton Artez // Perseus

The day started off like most others for Kaela, waking up at the crack of dawn because of the Pit droids from Orrek's was ringing the intercom at her door.

"I'm coming D7," Kaela said, sounding almost like she was whining as she strapped her blaster pistol to her hip in case any wildlife wandered into town, poured a mug of caf and grabbed one of the condensed ration bars she kept around for mornings like this.

As she walked to her job at Orrek's Scrap & Service, the Pit droid did its best to fill her in. One of the local farmers had a power surge right in the middle of harvest season and damaged a lot of their equipment. Kaela was so tired that she barely noticed the ship flying in overhead. Ships were a rare sight on this part of Aargonar, but with the harvest they weren't too odd.

Kaela stopped to check on her speeder bike, hooked up to a diagnostic computer, before getting to work on a harvester droid that had seen a few dozen seasons past its replacement date before ol' farmer Brost got his hands on it.

A couple of hours later, her caf cold and hands covered in oil, Kaela stepped outside for a quick smoke break, before she could light up, Keala heard shouting as a ragtag crowd of armed beings entered town. Something felt like a vibroblade in her guts until she heard one of the shouts clearly.

"PIRATES!"​

The person who shouted it, an old man who had been working on a small garden, was promptly shot. It was an intimidation tactic that might have worked in other places, but Ironbush fought back, and rather than a quick raid for credits, the whole situation dissolved into a mess of running blasterfights.

The initial violent clash settled down quickly as bodies piled up while Kaela ducked back into Orrek's. Soon, it was small groups sniping at each other between buildings or as people ran to check on family and neighbours, the pirates, being more brutal, were slowly starting to win as they seemed intent on paying back every death of their own with five of the townsfolk.

 

[Korda Veydran]

Tags: Kaela Voss Perseus Tekton Artez

Aargonar.

Korda Veydran had passed through worse places and intended to keep passing through this one.
Ironbush was just another settlement pretending survival counted as stability. Mud, metal, tired people holding onto routines like they were armor. He had seen worlds like this before. They usually ended the same way.

His boots carried him through the outer road with heavy certainty. Seven feet of beskar and old war doctrine moving through a place that had not yet decided to hate him.

Helmet sealed. Crimson visor steady.
He was already leaving.
Urban fighting always ended the same way. Tight corridors. Blind angles. Civilians caught between panic and geometry. Yaga Minor had taught him what cities became when they broke, and he had no interest in repeating that lesson.

The Ashen Maw rested secured against his right shoulder in its reinforced holster.
It was not just a weapon.

It was a hand-welded slugthrower built from scorched alloy and layered ceramite, scarred by heat bloom and field repairs that never bothered hiding their history. A cylindrical drum sat tight against its frame, forty slugs locked behind biometric recognition tied directly to his pulse and bone signature.

Inside it lived four different forms of violence.
Combat. Sniper. Suppression. Incendiary.
Right now it slept in Combat geometry. Compact barrel aligned. Balanced for fast draw and controlled engagement. The holster kept it inert, but never harmless. The weapon did not rest. It waited.

His HUD pulsed faintly with its link. Wind. Range. Atmospheric drift. Idle awareness shared between man and machine.
Nothing engaged.

Nothing needed.
Korda turned slightly toward the road out of town.
That was when the bolt hit.

A sharp crack of energy and impact slammed into his thigh plate.
Beskar held.
The force did not.

He stopped mid-step.
Slowly, he looked down at the scorched mark.

Then toward the direction of the shot.
A pause.
"…Of course."

His voice came through external speakers, low and flat, carrying none of the surprise it should have.
The Ashen Maw came free.

The shoulder holster released with a mechanical lock-hiss as biometric seals confirmed identity. It did not feel like drawing a weapon so much as unsealing something that had been deliberately contained.

Close up, it was worse.

Weld seams ran along its frame like old injuries that refused to close. Heat-blued alloy marked where it had been pushed past safe limits and rebuilt anyway. The barrel assembly carried subtle asymmetry from repeated field reconfiguration, each adjustment permanently impressed into its structure. Nothing about it was polished. Nothing about it was clean.

It was not designed to impress.
It was designed to survive.
The HUD immediately synced. Combat geometry confirmed. Drum feed stable. Targeting link active.

Forty rounds.
Forty decisions.

He rotated it once in his grip. No rails. No attachments. Nothing external to fail. Everything was internal. Everything intentional.
A quiet mechanical click confirmed readiness.
The barrel settled forward.
Not raised yet.

Just present.
"…You picked the wrong direction to fire."
The first shot did not find a man.

It erased the ground in front of him, dirt and stone exploding upward in a violent punctuation mark. A warning written in impact rather than language.
A second round followed, punching into cover nearby and tearing it open into useless geometry.
Silence stretched after it.

Not peace.
Expectation.
Korda stepped forward through it.

Ashen Maw stayed low in Combat mode, tracking with him like an extension of intent rather than an object in hand. Each step was deliberate. Economical. Nothing wasted. Nothing hurried.

His helmet tilted slightly.
"Those were warning shots."
A beat.

The barrel shifted a few degrees.
"I do not repeat myself."
Another step.

Then, quieter. Not a threat. Something older.
"My clan did not fear me because I was strong."
A pause, just long enough for the words to settle into the dust.
"They feared me because I learned when to stop pretending I was still one of them."

The Ashen Maw lowered slightly.
Not less dangerous.
Just decided.
"Run."

 

[Tekton Artez]

Kaela Voss Korda Veydran Perseus

Tekton had been tracking the pirates ever since they hit one of the refugee reconstruction towns he and his Clan were hired to protect. You'd think pirates would hit more lucrative targets then people who had lost everything, but then perhaps they had just been expecting an easy mark. They had been dead wrong. The operative word of course being dead. The pirates had sustained heavy casualties when faced with the disciplined elite fire a Mandalorian Clan could defend against.

Still the Clan had been reluctant to pursue it would have left the camp vulnerable. That didn't mean they couldn't send half a dozen warriors in a single ship to track them. Fortunately one of Tektons fellow warriors had thought to fire a tracker onto their ship.

Tekton had been hoping to track them back to their base wherever it may be then rally some of the free elements of his Clan for a counter raid of their own. As far as Tekton was concerned pirates were scum and villainy , men who didn't so much as fight but slaughter easy pickings in order to steal their hard earned livelihoods.

Tekton like the rest of his clan believed in developing a skill in a hard earned trade to utilize in times of peace. For Tekton that was being an engineer, but he also dabbled well enough in metalwork, carpentry and construction. Point was they didn't just destroy lives, they built them, sometimes from the ground up. Someone coming along to steal all that hard work was a travesty. The fact that they had sought to do so to people under Clan Artez protection only highlighted the insult.

Unfortunately Tekton hadn't found them licking their wounds at whatever backberth base they scurried under when not preying on the helpless. The pirates had taken their rage at their losses and humiliating defeat, they had elected to target another township. No doubt this town without the benefit of Mandalorians to protect it would soon be rubble, it's citizens a pile of bodies.

A more Weasley person might look at the force of pirates, given it up as hopeless and moved on. For Tekton that was a scornful yet amusing thought. As if he would ever run from a fight worth having. No he had already decided on a plan of action. He would land his Ori'ramikad rescue as many people as possible, then organise a tactical withdrawal.

If fighting to the death had a chance of success in saving the town he would, but the priority was saving lives. It was hard cold fact of refugee work, you couldn't save everybody, but you saved who you could.

The pirates were already in amongst the buildings so there was no chance of using the Ori'ramikad's heavy fire power. Still the ship could squeeze fifty troops comfortably, Tekton was hoping to double that in refugees.

Landing on the opposite end of town from the pirates, where the town folk were being herded towards, Tekton hefted R.I.P., Whip It as well as his blades Akk'kad, Hund'kad, his Med Kit and six thermal detonators.

Exiting the ship he opened the ramp.

"All of you!" Tekton commanded the warriors from Clan Artez. "Set up a perimeter. Get as many people on board as can fit. I'm going to see about holding off the pirates. If the Pirates get through lock up and power up the shields, it'll hold off anything but another ships attack."

The warriors hid their disappointment that they wouldn't be just firing head long into the breach of the pirates.

Tekton grinned inside his helmets.

Like puppies being told they don't get a treat.

Sparing no further thought to them for the moment. Tekton did exactly what he told his men not to do and rushed headlong into the breach.

 

[Perseus]

| Tekton Artez | Korda Veydran | Kaela Voss |

The town had dissolved into chaos by the time I reached the center of it. Blaster fire cracked somewhere farther down the street while smoke drifted between buildings that looked as though they had stood there for decades. People shouted over one another, some running blindly while others remained where they were, unable to understand how an ordinary morning had turned into this. My eyes moved from face to face automatically, sorting through what was in front of me. An elderly couple struggled to keep pace with everyone else. A man sat against a wall clutching his arm where blood seeped through his sleeve. A mother carried one child while another stayed glued to her side. None of them belonged anywhere near a firefight.

My attention settled on a workshop near the edge of the road. It was built from stone and old duracrete with narrow windows and only a single entrance. The walls were thick enough to stop blasterfire from passing straight through them. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the open street. The pirates could wait. These people couldn't.

"There, Inside. Move."

I said, raising a hand toward the building. Most listened immediately. Fear had a way of making simple instructions easy to follow. Others didn't. An older man stopped halfway toward the entrance, one hand still wrapped around a satchel hanging from his shoulder while his eyes searched somewhere behind us.

"My wife—"

"She's coming with us."

A woman had already taken the older woman's arm and was guiding her toward the workshop. The man looked at me for another moment before finally moving again. Nearby, the mechanic remained slumped against the wall, his face pale and his breathing uneven.

"You can walk?"

He blinked once and nodded.

"Good."

I reached down, pulled him to his feet, and guided him toward the workshop. The mother hurried past carrying her child while the younger boy looked up at me through tears before immediately burying his face against her side. I didn't know what to say to him. I wasn't sure there was anything to say at all.

"Keep moving."

The old man had stopped again.

"My tools—"

"Leave them."

The words came out sharper than I intended. He flinched slightly, glanced toward whatever he had left behind, and then nodded before continuing toward the entrance.

Another blaster shot cracked through the street. The sound was close enough that every thought immediately narrowed around it. I turned toward the road and saw movement at the far end. A pirate rounded the corner at a run, his eyes finding the cluster of civilians before they found me. His gaze moved over the mother, the children, and the injured mechanic still struggling to stay upright.

Easy targets.

I knew immediately they weren't going to make it inside in time. The mother was still too far from the entrance and the mechanic was barely managing to walk. There wasn't enough distance left between them and the pirate. I didn't stop to think about it. I moved. I stepped directly in front of them just as the pirate raised his blaster and fired. The bolt struck my chest plate hard enough to rock me backward half a step. Heat spread through the beskar while the impact echoed loudly inside my helmet. Somewhere behind me, someone screamed.

I barely heard it. All I could think about was the fact that he had fired anyway. Not at another fighter. Not at someone carrying a weapon. He had aimed at people who couldn't even run.

My hand was already moving. The knife came free from its sheath as I closed the distance between us. The pirate barely had time to react. I struck his weapon first, knocking the blaster aside, and drove the knife upward beneath his arm before he could recover. Momentum carried both of us to the ground. He made a strangled noise as the air left him and I ripped the blade free before he had even stopped moving.

Another set of footsteps hit the street. I rose immediately and turned. A second pirate stood farther down the road with his blaster already half-raised. His eyes moved from the man bleeding in the dirt to the scorch mark still glowing faintly across my chest plate.

Neither of us moved.

I didn't advance toward him and I didn't raise the knife. Instead, I took a single step backward and placed myself directly in front of the workshop entrance. Behind me I could hear the child crying. I could hear the mechanic struggling to catch his breath and someone quietly praying. The old man was saying something softly to his wife. I heard all of it.

The pirate lifted his blaster a little higher.

I remained where I was.

The knife stayed low at my side while my body blocked the entrance to the workshop and the people sheltering behind me. At that moment, the fighting in the rest of the town seemed very far away. There was only the street in front of me and the frightened people behind me.

If he wanted them, he would have to come through me first.

 

[Kaela Voss]

Raid on Ironbush​

Tags: Korda Veydran // Tekton Artez // Perseus

The sounds of combat echoed around Ironbush, Kaela could hear what sounded like the fighting picking back up as she intuited, despite her lack of combat experience, that a third party had joined the fighting. She couldn't be sure whose side they were on, but that stopped mattering as a hail of laser bolts came through the front window of Orrek's.

Kaela ducked behind one of the shelving units containing spare parts and returned fire, the big HF-94 pistol kicking like a bantha as she sent a trio of bolts screaming towards the pirate that had been shooting into the shop. One of the shots found its mark, and the pirate, a Rodian, was sent stumbling back, dying. For a moment, Kaela considered herself lucky, thinking that the pirate missed her by such a wide mark, until she turned to find her boss, Orrek, missing half his face and sprawled over the counter.

"Feth! Feth! FETH!" She cursed, realizing that it wasn't luck that had saved her, just the pirate thinking the obese bald man with a scatterblaster was the bigger threat.

Realizing her hiding spot had been discovered, Kaela unplugged the diagnostic unit from her speederbike, intending to use it to get to the edge of town and started to open the big workbay door, only to see a Weequay getting ready to huck a thermal detonator in her direction. Running on pure adrenaline, she shot him, where on the primed thermal detonator rolled down hill a couple dozen meters before detonating against the tanks of the local filling station. The crack of the thermal detonator exploding was covered by the loud FWOOM of thousands of litres of fuel igniting. What looked like hell made manifest engulfed a portion of Ironbush as thick black smoke and globs of burning fuel filled the air.

Kaela slammed the accelerator of her speeder, trying to get away, only for the machine to lock up a couple of buildings farther, and she was forced to dump the bike to try and find cover between a couple of buildings to plan her next move as the fire spread away from her, the burning liquid running downhill.

 

[Korda Veydran]

Tags: Kaela Voss Perseus Tekton Artez

The explosion reached Korda before the heat did.
A thunderous FWOOM rolled across Ironbush as a pillar of black smoke clawed its way into the sky. His helmet automatically compensated against the sudden bloom of light, feeding him atmospheric data, heat signatures, and the rapidly changing battlefield.

Fuel.

A lot of it.
His head turned toward the inferno.
"So much for a quiet departure."
Korda tapped the side of his helmet.

"Unknown friendlies engaged with hostile forces in Ironbush, identify yourselves."
His voice cut through every open local channel his systems could access.
"This is Korda Veydran. I am offering assistance. Respond with your location and situation."
The silence lasted only a moment before the battlefield answered for him.

A thermal detonator landed nearby.
His visor marked it instantly.
Too close.
Korda moved.

The massive Mandalorian threw himself forward as the explosion shattered the street behind him, chunks of duracrete and metal raining through the air. He hit the ground in a controlled roll that looked almost unnatural for a man of his size, the Ashen Maw already coming up into his hands.
A pirate appeared through the smoke.

The weapon tracked.
His finger tightened.
CLICK.

Nothing.
Korda froze.
Another CLICK.

Still nothing.
The giant slowly looked down at the Ashen Maw.
A spent casing was wedged inside the ejection port.
For a long second, there was only the sound of blaster fire around him.

"...You choose today."
A bolt snapped past his helmet.
He turned his head just enough to watch the red plasma streak by.
"Excellent timing."

Without another word, Korda broke into a sprint through the alley, one hand holding the Ashen Maw against his chest as the other worked the weapon's mechanisms. He vaulted over a collapsed wall, the enormous suit of beskar somehow moving with practiced efficiency despite its weight.
He landed with a heavy impact beside a figure crouched between two buildings.

A woman.
Oil-stained clothes.
A blaster.
Terrified eyes trying very hard not to look terrified.

Another bolt hissed past overhead.
Korda didn't even look up.
"Good news."
He forced the jammed casing loose with a sharp metallic clink.

"The pirates are having a worse morning than you."
The casing finally flew free.
The Ashen Maw's internal systems immediately flashed green across his HUD.

Combat geometry confirmed. Drum feed stable.
The massive Mandalorian rolled his shoulder and brought the weapon around.
The barrel settled toward the alley entrance.

"Bad news."
A pirate's shadow moved through the smoke.
"I am about to make it much louder."

 

[Tekton Artez]

Tekton launched his jetpack to get through town looking for civilians to save. He stopped twice to deal with two separate groups of pirates attacking innocents. Tekton showed no mercy. The blaster rifle sung out in it's high pitched whine, precision shots, taking the pirates in vital organs, the few who were wearing armour over those organs got limbs with holes in them. Tekton stopped briefly to tell the clusters of villagers to keep heading to the south side of town where his men had set up the evacuation zone.

Then before they could respond or pester him about escorting them Tekton was gone. It was a cruel, harsh reality of war that you couldn't spend the time to save everyone, you saved as many as you could, Tekton didn't have time to carefully escort each group to safety. He had too many to save, far too many to save, always too many to save. No matter how much he told himself the maxim that he couldn't save them all each one still hurt.

Having these thoughts actually helped Tekton focus, focus his conviction, his determination, his strength in his mission. He was once again grateful to have been raised a Mandalorian. With the skills and training of a lifetime, several lifetimes counting the knowledge and experience of his clan passed down through the generations, with those skills Tekton was able to help people.

Tekton didn't always like everything done by Mandalorians or the Mandalorian Empire or in Mandalores name, but this wasn't one of those times. This was a worthy mission.

Tekton took a hit, a blaster to the helmet, it knocked him out of the air. Crashing to the dirt he ground as much from the impact as the ringing in his head from the blaster bolt. He coughed as he rolled to his knees, another ahot rang out missing him by inches. Tekton scrambled into an alley way.

"Sniper." Tekton snarled.

The armor could take the hits of course, but each shot was a risk, too many headshots and his head would keep ringing, the shots could throw him off balance make him vulnerable. Tekton armed hi right vambrance. He ducked his head out into the street then back into cover. A Shot rang out, itting the corner wall where his head had been. Tekton pivoted out of cover onto one knee identified where the shot came from and fired his mini concussion rocket launcher.

Tekton shook his head. The pirate had been a good shot, but lacked all fire discipline. There wasn't time to analyse his mistakes, but Tekton knew that if the shot had pierced his neck he'd be dead.

As he continued forward, Tekton saw pirates corner a building, a workshop by the looks of it. Tekton didn't waste any time started firing his rifle. As he approached he saw a Mandalorian Perseus standing in front of the civilians.

Good to know he and his clan weren't the only Mando's who looked out for others. Tekton called out a greeting as he laid down fire.

"Oya! I'll cover you, get the civilians out of here, there's an evac point on the south end of town!"

Tekton heard the offer of aid over his radio.

"Roger Korda, we're retrieving civilians sending you my location, there's an evac point at the south end of town. Rendezvous at my location or head there with any civilians you find."

Kaela Voss Perseus Korda Veydran

 

[Perseus]

| Kaela Voss | Korda Veydran | Tekton Artez |

The pirate at the end of the street never got the chance to make a decision. Blaster fire ripped across the road from somewhere farther down the block and caught him before he could pull the trigger. The impact threw him backward into the wall behind him, and by the time he hit the ground he wasn't getting back up. My eyes tracked toward the source of the shots and found another Mandalorian moving through the smoke. A moment later his voice came through the chaos, carrying news of an evacuation point on the south side of town and an offer to cover our withdrawal.

Good.

That gave me somewhere to take them.

I lowered the knife slightly and turned back toward the workshop. The civilians were still gathered where I had left them. Some looked frightened. Others looked exhausted. A few simply looked numb. The mechanic was leaning heavily against a workbench while the older couple remained close together near the wall. The mother still held her child tightly while the younger boy refused to leave her side. My gaze moved through the room automatically, counting heads and checking faces. Everyone who had entered was still there. Nobody was missing. Nobody had been hit.

A small part of me relaxed.

"We're moving,"

I said, drawing their attention toward me.

"There's an evacuation point on the south side of town. Stay together and do exactly what I tell you."

Nobody argued. Fear had a way of making people listen. As they started gathering themselves, I moved toward the rear entrance and reached down toward one of the pouches hanging from my belt. My fingers brushed against the shape hidden inside before stopping. The stuffed falcon was still there. For a moment my hand remained resting against the pouch while my thoughts drifted back to the checkpoint. I remembered the child handing it to me without hesitation. I remembered the confusion I had felt afterward and the way I had spent days trying to understand why something so small had stayed in my thoughts.

The answer still wasn't entirely clear.

What was clear was what mattered right now.

The people standing behind me weren't fighters. They weren't soldiers. They were frightened civilians caught in the middle of someone else's war, and they were depending on me whether they realized it or not. Protect them. The thought settled quietly into place. Not survive. Not win. Protect them.

My hand dropped away from the pouch as my breathing slowed and my pulse steadied. The uncertainty that had followed me through so many recent conversations seemed to retreat into the background. It wasn't gone, but it wasn't important right now. The sounds of the town sharpened around me as my focus narrowed. Distant blaster fire echoed through the streets. Somewhere farther away people were shouting. Flames crackled as the fire spread through nearby buildings. Footsteps. Voices. Movement. Every sound found its place.

"Stay close,"

I told them before pushing the rear door open.

I stepped outside first and immediately drew the Dral Gaan into my right hand while keeping the knife in my left. Neither weapon felt particularly heavy. They were tools. One was for threats at a distance. The other was for anything that managed to get too close. The civilians followed behind me as we moved between buildings toward the evacuation point, sticking close enough that I could hear their breathing over the sounds of the battle.

We hadn't made it half a block before movement caught my attention. Two pirates emerged ahead of us through the smoke. One spotted us immediately and his blaster started coming up. Mine was already there.

The Dral Gaan barked once.

The heavy pulse round struck him squarely in the chest and threw him backward hard enough to send him crashing into the wall behind him. He slid to the ground and stayed there. The second pirate reacted differently. Instead of stopping to fire, he lowered his head and charged straight toward us with a vibroknife in hand.

Toward the civilians.

Toward the people behind me.

I stepped forward before he could close the distance. The pulse cannon lowered while the knife came up. The pirate slashed first, desperation and momentum carrying the strike. I caught his wrist, redirected the blade wide, and drove my own knife beneath his guard before he could recover. The force of his charge carried him forward another step before his legs finally gave out beneath him.

I let him fall and immediately looked past him. Not at the bodies. At the civilians.

One of them had fallen.

The younger boy had tripped while trying to keep pace and now sat frozen in the middle of the street. Fear had rooted him in place. His eyes were wide and fixed somewhere beyond me as though he expected another pirate to appear at any second.

I crossed the distance immediately and crouched beside him.

"You're alright."

My voice sounded calmer than I felt. I slid the pulse cannon back into its holster, lifted him into my arms, and rose again before looking over the rest of the group. They were scared. Tired. Struggling. But they were still moving.

"Keep going."

The town continued burning around us as we started forward once more. Smoke rolled through the streets while blasterfire echoed in the distance and the glow of spreading flames painted the clouds overhead. None of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting these people to the evacuation point alive.

 

[Kaela Voss]

Raid on Ironbush​

Tags: Korda Veydran (Directly Interacting) // Tekton Artez // Perseus


Kaela was planning her next move, or maybe the shock was starting to catch up with her, but she couldn't bring herself to move quite yet. She could hear shouts and see that people were generally moving in one direction, so someone had started organizing some sort of defence or evacuation.

As Kaela turned, she was suddenly face-to-face, or rather face-to-chest, with seven feet of baskar armoured Mandalorian. Kaela had never seen one before she knew of them, sure, but the only people she knew who had seen them in person were some of the old timers. They'd been described as conquerors who'd roll in and take over as the various governments rose and fell, and then leave so long as the taxes were paid and no one tried to revolt. Not the most flattering of descriptions, and it also did not prepare her for coming face to face with one of their warriors.

Taking a moment to pull her jaw out of the dirt and shake off her shock, Kaela didn't really respond to his comments as she had her own questions, "How many of you are there? Where did you come from? What's happening to the rest of the people?"

Kaela saw, or maybe something else helped her notice, one of the pirates moving through the smoke. She shot at them, her aim not as good as it had been before, but she did catch the pirate in the arm, forcing them to drop their weapon from pain.

 

[Korda Veydran]

Tags: Kaela Voss (directly interacting) Tekton Artez Perseus


The comm chirped inside Korda's helmet.
"Roger Korda... we're retrieving civilians. Sending you my location. There's an evac point on the south end of town."

A waypoint immediately appeared across his visor.
Korda gave a single nod.
"Copy that, Tekton. I'll work my way to you. Any civilians I find are coming with me."

The channel closed.
Ashen Maw rested easily in his hands now, the earlier jam nothing more than an annoyance already forgotten.
Beside him, the woman finally found her voice.

"How many of you are there? Where did you come from? What's happening to the rest of the people?"
Korda scanned the street beyond the smoke.
"I know of at least three Mandalorians in town, myself included."

Movement.
A pirate stumbled from the haze, still clutching the arm she'd shot.
Ashen Maw rose to his shoulder.

BOOM.

The heavy slug struck center mass, throwing the pirate backward in a spray of dust.
The weapon lowered again.
"There may be more. We are not one army marching beneath a single banner."
His crimson visor settled on her.

"We are people of many clans. Some serve the Mand'alor. Others forge their own path."
A brief pause.
"Today, none of that matters. Today, we're here because people need protecting."

He inclined his helmet in a formal nod.
"I am Korda Veydran."
"The Unyielding."
"Leader of Clan Veydran."
Another heartbeat passed.
"A clan I am rebuilding, one warrior at a time."

His gaze swept over her quickly, checking for injuries.
"You don't appear badly hurt."
"Can you walk?"

Before she could answer for long, he gestured toward the civilians moving through the streets.
"Good."
"Round up anyone you can find and keep them behind me. There's an evacuation point to the south. Other Mandalorians are already leading civilians there."

He stepped around the corner.
Ashen Maw barked.
BOOM.
A slug smashed through a pirate barricade, showering the raiders with shattered duracrete.
BOOM.

The second forced the survivors back behind burning wreckage.
Korda thumbed the selector.
The weapon's internals shifted with a series of deep mechanical clacks as the muzzle unfolded into its incendiary projector.
FLAME GEOMETRY CONFIRMED.

A controlled stream of burning slurry roared down the alley, engulfing the pirates' cover in fire. Crates ignited, smoke billowed upward, and the raiders scattered from the growing wall of flames.
He released the trigger after only a short burst.
The fire continued to burn, sealing the approach.

Without looking back, his voice carried over the roar.
"Move."
"I'll give them something else to worry about."

 

[Tekton Artez]

Kaela Voss Perseus Korda Veydran

Tekton searched for as long as he could He found no other civilians. None alive at any rate. The pirates had been merciless, they weren't after captives. Often pirates might make more of an effort to capture people alive for slaves to sell. This time pirates were lashing out, having been thwarted by Mandalorians once, and now it was happening again.

They had the sort of bloodlust rage that ancients attributed to the god of war, slaughter and battle rage. A state of being where only the kill mattered. Fortunately much like said god of war, it was a fickle state of mind, easily broken, showing those who bore it to be the cowards they were. Tekton came across small parties of pirates, they were haphazard spreadout in clumps backing each other up for support, gloating, encouragement. Barely a threat so long as he kept composure. No easy feat given the rage swelling inside him.

Unfortunately if you didn't have the means to defend yourself you were as much a victim to such a rage as the bantha to the butcher.

Tekton searched for as long as he should, in all honestly longer, but the pirates were regrouping. They had acknowledged the threat posed by the Mandalorians. They would no doubt bunch up and charge the evac point.

Tekton headed back to it on his way back he saw the other Mandalorian he'd spoken to on comms. Tekton landed seeing the civilian with him that he himself had missed.

"Tekton Artez, we spoke earlier. I suggest we leap frog back to the Evac point." Tekton called out calmly.

"Evac. Power up the ship, we're headed to you be prepared for take off." Tekton instructed through his comms

 

[Perseus]

As the withdrawal settled into a rhythm, I found myself relying on it more than I expected. Tekton laid down covering fire while the civilians moved. Once they reached the next stretch of cover, I turned back to watch the approaches while he advanced past us. The pattern repeated itself again and again, each movement carrying us a little closer to the evacuation point. It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't the kind of fighting people remembered. It was deliberate, methodical, and built around keeping frightened people alive instead of chasing the enemy.

Keeping everyone alive demanded more attention than I could give on my own.

Every time I looked toward the rooftops, I lost sight of the alleyways. Every time I checked the civilians, another window disappeared from my vision. I couldn't watch every angle at once, and for the first time since putting on the armor, I stopped treating the systems inside my helmet as conveniences and started trusting them as another set of eyes. Motion indicators flickered at the edge of my visor. Thermal contacts briefly appeared through the smoke before disappearing behind walls. Audio sensors filtered through the chaos, separating distant gunfire from footsteps that were far too close for comfort.

The armor wasn't making decisions for me.

It was seeing what I couldn't.

I found myself using the information almost without thinking, my attention moving naturally between what my own eyes could confirm and what the HUD quietly highlighted before I noticed it myself. The realization settled somewhere in the back of my mind that this was why Mandalorians embraced their technology so completely. One person couldn't watch every rooftop, every alley, every frightened civilian all at the same time. The armor wasn't replacing the warrior. It was extending them.

A warning flashed across my visor.

One of the friendly markers had slowed.

My head snapped toward the civilian column just as I saw an older man beginning to fall behind. Whether it was exhaustion, age, or the uneven street beneath his feet didn't matter. He had become separated from the rest of the group, and that was all the opening the pirates needed.

Movement registered above. My visor painted the source before my eyes found it. A pirate leaned out from a second-story window, blaster already coming level with the street. I was moving before I had fully processed the warning. My boots hammered against the duracrete as I exploded into a sprint, covering the distance between us in only a few strides. There wasn't enough time to pull the man clear. There wasn't enough time to drag him behind cover.

So I became the cover.

I threw myself over him just as the first bolts came screaming down the street. My shoulder struck the ground hard enough to drive the air from my lungs while my back arched over the older man beneath me. The impacts landed almost immediately afterward. Blaster bolts hammered into the beskar across my back and shoulders with enough force to rattle my entire frame. The armor held, but the kinetic force drove through the plating and into muscle and bone, sending a dull ache across my spine as warning indicators bloomed across the inside of my visor.

I barely registered them.

My head turned toward the window almost instinctively. The pirate was already trying to duck back behind the frame, but the HUD had never lost him. A red threat marker hovered exactly where my eyes needed to go. My right hand came up, the Dral Gaan already aligned with the highlighted target.

The hand cannon barked once. The heavy pulse round struck the pirate before he disappeared behind cover, throwing him backward out of sight as the red marker vanished from my visor. Only then did I look down. The older man beneath me was shaken, his breathing ragged, but alive. Good.

I pushed myself back onto one knee and offered him a hand, waiting only long enough to make sure he could stand before turning my attention back toward the rest of the civilians. My eyes counted them again almost automatically while the HUD confirmed the friendly markers still moving ahead of us.

"Stay together,"

I called, my voice steady despite the lingering ache spreading across my back.

"Nobody falls behind."

Tekton Artez [Interacting] | Korda Veydran | Kaela Voss