Private To the Grave

[Shade]

Night on Kreig was heavy with metal and fire. The industrial district hummed with the rhythm of machinery, the smell of ozone and molten alloys clinging to the air. Shadows pooled in the corners of towering furnaces, offering refuge to those who moved without permission.

Shade moved like a whisper along the catwalks, her matte-black Charric alloy armor absorbing the dim light. Crimson eyes scanned the patterns of patrols, noting every rotation, every blind spot. The hum of machines masked her presence, but she also relied on her Force-enhanced senses: Shadow Veil suppressing her signature, Force Cloak blending her form into the night, Suppression Field ready to disrupt any precognition that might betray her approach.

Below, in a raised office overlooking the furnaces, Overseer Jarek Korr worked amidst his guards, unaware that death had already slipped into their midst.

Shade paused, fingers brushing the collapsible hilt of her dual amethyst phase-blades. Precision was everything. One misstep, and the mission would fail; one misjudgment, and she could be the one left to bleed in the shadows.

A patrol drifted past, boots ringing against metal. She melted further into darkness, timing her descent through maintenance shafts and service conduits, each movement deliberate, rehearsed. The city's pulse—the grinding belts, the hiss of steam, the faint clatter of tools—became her metronome.

No theatrics. No hesitation.

Shade's eyes met the faint glow of Jarek Korr's office lights. Tonight, the Mandalorian Empire would wake to silence. The overseer's orders would end before they were executed.

And in the shadows, she waited, a living echo of Csilla—patient, lethal, unseen.

Laphisto

 

[Laphisto]

Laphisto was on Krieg to establish it as an official world under the Lilaste Order. After the Royal Naboo Republic, now calling themselves the High Republic, seized the Order's old base of operations in the Kalinda System, the Order had become nomadic. Recruitment still trickled in from the occasional volunteer within the Diarchy Armed Forces, but the Order needed more manpower a true foundation.

So when an ex-Mandalorian world fell into Diarchy space, Laphisto seized the opportunity. He leveraged the favor Diarch Reign and Diarch Rellik owed him from the days they first recruited the Order into their ranks. In return, Krieg would become the Lilaste Order's new house of operations.

Laphisto had spent much of his time on Krieg working to unify the fractured world beneath the Lilaste Order's banner. His Mandalorian heritage opened a few doors the clans respected a warrior who had earned his scars but it was his discipline, structure, and the promise of prosperity that began to sway the planet's divided powers.

The remnants of the New Imperial Order were the first to fall in line. Veterans, labor guilds, and engineers who had survived the NIO's occupation saw in the Lilaste Order a familiar order of command a chance to rebuild something stable amidst the chaos. They offered their allegiance in exchange for protection and purpose, finding both in Laphisto's vision of a world reforged through unity.

The Mandalorians, however, were another matter entirely.They respected strength, but not authority. To them, the Lilaste Order was foreign soldiers who fought like Mandalorians but did not follow the Creed, warriors without the same oaths of blood and iron. Where the NIO remnants offered allegiance through pragmatism, the clans demanded it through combat.

More than once, Laphisto found himself standing in the heat of a forge-ring or the dust of a dueling pit, facing armored challengers beneath the crimson sky. Some came with honor, others with hatred. He gave each the same answer a measured silence, followed by decisive motion.When diplomacy failed, he forged unity through duel and conquest. Every victory added another banner to the growing ranks of the Order. Every defeat though rare reminded the locals that he sought unity, not domination. Slowly, through fire and discipline, Krieg began to bend toward purpose.

This meeting, however, was different. It was not a battle, nor a duel for dominance, but a diplomatic effort one that could determine the future of Krieg itself. Laphisto had arranged to meet with one of the largest Mandalorian contingents still active on the planet, a force numbering in the hundreds. Unlike the others he'd faced in combat, this group had grown disillusioned with the Mandalorian title weary of endless wars fought in the name of dead empires and forgotten creeds.

They were soldiers without a banner, warriors searching for purpose. And in the Lilaste Order, they saw something familiar structure, honor, discipline but without the dogma that had divided them for generations. They respected power, and Laphisto's had been proven in both word and deed. All that remained was to speak to them face-to-face, to offer not subjugation, but brotherhood.

The meeting would take place in the heart of the Heimskringla Foundries, a neutral ground between Diarchy envoys and Mandalorian warlords. It was a place of fire and iron fitting for a world that would either forge peace or fall back into flame. If this went well, Krieg would no longer be a fractured world of clans and remnants. It would stand united not under a Mandalorian sigil, but beneath the banner of the Lilaste Order.

Shade