Laphisto's declaration to stand as Alor of Clan Ordo hadn't landed the way he'd intended. He'd made the claim as a signal, not a coronation something Mandalorians couldn't ignore in any age. On a station already groaning under klaxons and stray blasterfire, he wanted to pull helmets toward him, carve ten clear seconds out of the chaos, and force a channel to parley. He'd banked on the pride he'd come to admire since his induction during the era of the Protectors banked on that reflex that when a claim was made in the open, someone answered it. In his head the path was simple, draw on eof his clan mates to him, some one he could reason with and explain whats really goign on here. and then let them carry through there channels to stop this mindless killing and mindless fighting
Instead, the moment stalled under the shadow of a dark-side interloper. The air went a degree colder; attention bled from his words to the newcomer. Sith? Maybe. He wasn't about to be impolite enough to assume only that the presence stepped between his claim and its purpose, cutting across the corridor like a cold knife and stealing the chance he needed. The clean line from claim to ceasefire bent toward trouble, and the station's gunfire kept coughing in the distance.
The Force flared behind his eyes as he listened, and the scene tilted into that stark clarity his Sight always brought. The figure's outline burned in orange-red, a furnace glow that leaked into the air as threadlike tendrils. They uncoiled and tasted the corridor skimming helm crests, brushing plates, hunting seams in the crowd's attention. Heat off a forge was the closest thing in the waking world. not flames, but waves you felt before you understood why your skin had gone tight. He didn't know the trick firsthand, but he knew the pattern pressure first, then the slip one of those pushes that rode on reflex and stole judgment a breath at a time.
He tracked the cadence like a soldier checks fields of fire. Breathing rate: steady. Center of mass: rooted. The tendrils pulsed on a slow count, circling, looking for grips in fear and anger. Static crept along his teeth. In his core, the twin souls tightened their orbit on instinct Dark met Light, edging him toward balance while he marked every place the threads tried to settle. He let the information stack, kept his voice leashed, and waited for the moment the push turned into a shove.
The first wave hit and confusion shaved a thin line through his thoughts sharp, cold like a scalpel nicking nerve. Sound warped; the station's klaxons seemed to dip a fraction of a tone and the deck under his boots felt a half-step off true. For a breath he was back in that memory of Saurav'ix trying to wear him like a vessel: heat under the skin, a will pressing down, the sense of being fitted to a shape that wasn't his. A low growl rolled up his throat. He bit down on it, set his stance, and let the co-orbit spin.
Dark met Light Saurav'ix's razor caught by Dra'ko's center and what had started as churn tightened into a steady hum at his core, a counter-oscillation that ate the panic and left only focus. He chose, and the choice was clean. White-gold radiance pushed out from his sternum in a solar flare, bending the air with a shimmer; the Waves of Darkness broke on it and fell away into ripples and heat-haze. Tendrils recoiled, frayed thin as smoke. He held the flare just long enough to burn the residue out of the corridor, around him and there it stayed. before dulling to a contained glow, his mind was clear and now protected and the line to parley was back within reach.
When the man dropped a clan name, surprise flickered dark-sider in the clans wasn't what he expected. The word carried weight; it meant blood, oaths, lines that ran deeper than armor paint. For a heartbeat relief loosened his shoulders. Not a drifter, then. Not some scavenger playing dress-up. Maybe there was a path back to parley through him. The hope died as quickly as it sparked when the sarcasm slid in thin, practiced, meant to hook pride and drag it sideways. Laphisto exhaled through his nose.
He angled a half step forward so his voice would carry, saber still low and quiet. "
Anyone with half a mynock's brain could see this is a manipulation. I am blind, and I still saw it two systems out. If you're only after a ship, I'll get you a new one up to a corvette in size. Otherwise, step aside so I can find a real Mandalorian to reason with." The words landed flat and even, made to cut without shouting.
Isley Verd
Meanwhile on the Dragons Fang
The company left aboard the Star Destroyer had been slated to help offload civilians. Owen Gisk had other plans. An hour before docking he pushed new orders through the bay chiefs: no armor on deck, no rifles on display, keep the sightlines clean. Soldiers were told to be on alert but to remain away from the hanger. owin wanted the hangar to read as safe passage, not a battlefield, so Diarchy and Mandalorian civilians wouldn't panic or posture. He didn't strip the deck of arms entirely; Lilaste Order doctrine meant every crewman carried a sidearm. Pistols stayed holstered, lanyarded to thighs and hips, safeties on. Crew chiefs marked lanes in glow paint, crash barriers rolled into place, volatiles were sealed, mag-clamps verified, and the standing order was simple: move the people first.
So when
Manti Wyrvhor
and her Mandalorians pushed the hangar, they met deckhands and mechanics in padded coveralls orange vests, ear caps, tool belts and the unmistakable line of holstered pistols on every hip. No infantry plates, no slung rifles just the ship's working spine braced across pallet jacks and service crates, funneling civilians through numbered bays under floodlights and hazard strobes. For a heartbeat it looked like any high-tempo offload until helmets turned their way and the Mandalorians realized that wall in front of them wasn't a security detachment. It was techs and engineers, armed by culture if not by kit, holding the lane long enough to keep a station's worth of people moving before the storm fully arrived.
The first shots from the Lilaste order answered in a different language. No colorful streaks, no tibanna whine just the bark and crack of slugthrowers snapping down the bay.
LO-12S pis cleared holsters on lanyards and came up in tight stances, sights level with visor slits. Two-round pairs stitched the approach lanes, impacts skittering off beskar with a harsh scrape and a hard, knuckled shove. .45 ACP wasn't going to punch through Mandalorian plate, Hits landed like baton strikes, ringing shoulder bells and elbow cops, stealing a step here and there. leaving small impact craters and gouges carved int he armor before Ricochets chewed sparks out of deck grates; warning strobes threw the fire into staccato flashes.
The techs used that half-step. They fell back in short bounds, one row firing while the next row dragged families into auxiliary bays and slammed the manual safeties. A med tech slid under a wing root to hook a kid's arm and haul him behind a maintenance cradle; a loader jammed a pallet jack across a gap to make a low wall. Pistols kept snapping in measured rhythm, careful to avoid the evacuation lanes, buying seconds at a time while the big doors ground toward shut.
The boarders had a narrow window before escape routes sealed and reinforcements became a memory. A side hatch blew open and fifteen more crew stormed in. A few went down immediately; the rest slid to cover behind fuel caddies and cargo struts. When their
LO-18D rifles came up, the report was louder, sharper, and the hits were harder as
LO-R6 [APCBC] rounds tore through the air and hammered into beskar like mace blows less heat, more transfer jolting shoulders, ringing helmets, forcing a step back. what didnt hit solid beskar tore through cloth and armor weave with ease sending blood splattering an dleaving teh wounded to bleed out if they didnt recieve medical attention quickly. while these were not armored soldiers. it would seem even the lowest enlisted got the best training.
Riflemen soon set a base of fire along the deck tractors and gantry legs, working semi-auto to keep a constant hammer on visor lines and joints. They weren't trying to drop beskar; they were stealing seconds making the Mandalorians blink, forcing a lean into cover, turning every advance into a flinch. The lighter-armed hands moved behind that noise, pistols low and disciplined, shepherding knots of civilians down the center lane toward the nose. Crew chiefs flagged routes with chemsticks and glow-paddles, counted heads, and kicked stragglers back into the flow.
The hangar turned into a machine of retreat. Sections peeled in bounds: one file firing, the next dragging people, then swapping places at the whistle. Brass salted the deck; boots skated on it; casings rattled in the grates and chimed off landing struts. The rifle cracks were deliberate and punishing, timed to drown jetpack startups and keep anyone from gambiting over the crowd. Fuel lines and ordnance signs made the risk obvious; even Mandalorians had to weigh ignition inside a refuel bay.
By the time the outer doors were three-quarters shut, the pattern was plain. The rifles took the heat; the pistols kept the corridor honest; and the civilians moved shoulders pressed, heads down through bulkheads that slammed and locked behind them. Crew chiefs pushed them past tool cages and into fore compartments, The boarding rush had to plow through a storm of sound and spent shells to reach anything worth taking, and every meter they gained cost them time as more and more crewmen started to poor into the hanger. and the soldiers were not far behind
