Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

CW: Violence and mild gore; non-consensual helmet removal; mentions of blood

Chapter 1: A Tiny Spark

The first thing Paz Vizsla noticed upon waking was a bone-deep chill like a thousand liquid shards roiling in his blood.

He tasted bile at the back of his throat and a coppery tang in the roof of his mouth, pooling there, and he shuddered in the inky gloom.

He dared to move; he was bound securely in shackles which he surmised were forged from titanium. Any further range of movement and he would be met with a brief, excruciating shock of electricity. Paz tested his extremities with the subtle care of a gravely injured man and realized that he may as well be paralyzed. He swore under his breath: a shock collar had been fastened around his beefy neck to go with the binders. The collar had bit cruelly into his skin beneath his flight suit, a trace too small for the likes of him. He felt the hot trickle of blood brimming through the metal, but there was no pain. Not yet. Adrenaline continued to scorch his veins.

Paz lay there for a moment, gathering his wits. His heart froze for a beat as he assessed his condition enough to realize that he still had his helmet on, but it had powered down considerably that the HUD only displayed the faintest of data. His night vision was obscured, his life support systems were drifting worryingly low. Was he alone? It appeared that he was in a containment area which smelled pungently of weak disinfectant.

“Where am I?” Paz wasn’t sure whether he spoke it aloud or in the depths of his drugged mind. For certain, he had been subdued by a toxin to render him unconscious for hours. And how long was he out? He forced the panic out of his mind and spirit. Slowly, he began to remember what befell him before his current fate in this dark place.

The Covert’s subterranean base which had bitterly been their home in the seeming wasteland of Nevarro fell under attack. The Armorer, himself, and a few others had devised an evacuation plan long before the need to execute it, as discovery was inevitable. They had already relocated twice before Nevarro, but they had stayed the longest on that barren planet laden by lava flats. Had their Covert become complacent over the long years of stagnancy and dwindling spirits? Perhaps. They barely held their own in an ambush led by platoons of Imperial Remnant troopers.

Paz had seen to it, first and foremost, that the foundlings escaped. He counted the little screaming, sobbing, and bobbing heads and made sure no child was left behind. His bulk swept through every nook and cranny when a couple were not among the headcount, but soon they ran into his arms, frantic, frightened, and shaking fiercely from the gruesome ordeal. Paz had held unto them, saw them through to his surviving brethren who took the little ones to the freighters but Paz—he was all they had to fully cover their escape. Towering well over six feet and emblazoned in the colors of Clan Vizsla—the reliant, vibrant blue of his beskar’gam, he was the only one monstrous and skilled enough to wield the blaster canon… He stayed. He left himself behind, knowing that the Armorer would be guarding the Forge with her very soul just as he had guarded the Covert’s exit.

The enemy came for him all at once, and Paz couldn’t fathom why he had willingly let his guard down the second he received word that the freighters carrying their precious cargo had jumped to hyperspace. Signals were scrambled and jammed and he can no longer make out the words. The Remnant had intercepted in a flash, giving away his location far quicker than he could dodge them all.

Paz, in a state of strange delirium, thought he saw droves upon droves of demons fall upon him. Grappling wires, stun flares, limbs dark and unbreakable almost as though he were clamped over by beskar arms. He saw red slits on black helmets in armored bodies almost as tall as he was, only they were not alive.

They never were. Paz had felt the chill of wild disgust eat at him like a fever. They were droids verily in the shape of men—so much like Mandalorians themselves, that in a more macabre reality, these abominations were virtually identical. They clearly mocked and mimicked the semblance of legendary warriors.

There were faces twisted and covered, indistinguishable whether they were human or not, sentient or inorganic, and there were voices, a million voices. They had struck him with vials of tranquilizer yet he fought back, fell over, and he crawled away. Grappling wires snapped as he tugged at them with his remaining strength, only to be replaced with more, surrounding him painfully like a grotesque cocoon.

He sent a signal to warn the Armorer. It had cost him his last ounce of agency; he dropped the comlink and it was immediately crushed underneath a dark metallic boot. The poison had overtaken his system, rendering muscle immovable as his heartbeat slowed down. He held on to a thread of consciousness; the sharp tendril of an electro-whip rendered the final blow when he heard the words spill from a disembodied source:

“He’s exactly what they need. He’ll fetch a price.”

And the world dissipated all around him.

Paz had witnessed how great savage beasts were downed and transported. He’d seen the cruelty, the recklessness, the foolhardy disregard of how the creature was handled, and even in his mind’s eye, a memory haunted him from his youth when a two-thousand pound Varactyl had been prodded to submission, until Paz was sure the creature was as good as dead as it was broken. The Varactyl took slow, painful breaths as it was lifted up and caged, but Paz saw the helpless glint in its haze-filled eyes. For a moment, Paz had thought this non-sentient monster had a soul, and it had reached out to him.

That was, of course, quite the delusion. Paz had not thought about it again, and dismissed it as part and parcel of the hunt—but now, in his capture, in his utmost helpless state, he understood. And he was only at the precipice of it… a free-fall should come soon after, into an abyss where he may no longer recognize himself…

And it began with no delay when harsh sounds and sharp movements activated the sensors; bright lights of the cell turned on. It flooded his HUD, blinding him for a moment. He shut his eyes tight and before he knew it, he felt pairs of hands grip him so he abruptly stood up. The manhandling sent a jolt of pain through his spine, and that’s when the adrenaline began to fade. His breath came in ragged gasps; he was hot and cold, weakened yet tense like a tightly-wound spring. It had taken four tall and brazen troopers to hold him in place—him, bound and drugged, and yet they took full measure to ascertain that he was powerless. Behind him was another trooper, hands free but blaster at the ready should Paz do anything unwise.

He still swam in the murk of his mind when a plainly adorned human male of about thirty-five standard years and a head shorter noisily thumped his way into the cell. A sliver of the dull world outside shone before the doors swished closed again. Paz clenched his jaw. It was an Imperial officer, but the apparent harder times seemed to befell the man. He was not in full uniform, although his rank was flamboyantly pinned upon his chest for all to acknowledge.

Paz refused to budge. Two more Stormtroopers towered at either side of the officer, bodyguards no doubt, as they were more heavily decked than the average fodder.

The Imp smiled. It was a boyish face, but there was a definite glow of malice in his eyes. When he spoke, his teeth were uneven, and a dent snaked across his chin. In another time and place, this man would seem quite harmless. But at the moment, he held authority here.

The man whipped out a datapad from the crook of his arm whereupon he gazed from time to time. “My name is Lieutenant Jovan. You are Paz Vizsla—am I correct?”

Paz stood as still as stone. The only indication of life was his chest heaving erratically.

“You’d sooner forget about that old identity of yours. Anyway, perhaps I’d list down small reminders of who you once were—a little memento before the Imperial Remnant owns you forever. Born on the moon of Concordia, hailing from a noble bloodline. Both parents deceased by the age of twelve, raised and trained by some fiendish Mandalorian cult—quite interesting. But no more. All is gone and you are our property now.”

Paz felt his insides tremble, both from the subsiding adrenaline rush and shock about where this… this runt had taken all his information. All they needed was a chain code, perhaps… but his parents, his lineage… and the fact that… He then paused in thought, and his blood ran cold—

This officer knew of his Creed. He knew that Paz was of the Tribe that followed the Way, where the wearing of one’s helmet cemented the pact of their unwavering faith which tethered them to the Oversoul.

He began a slight struggle. This caught Lt. Jovan’s eye, and the imp bestowed upon him an amused look.

“We already stripped you of your armor. How lucky—now the beskar belongs to us as well, as it should have when the Empire destroyed Mandalore.” Lt. Jovan motioned snappily at the troopers that held Paz fast. His smile had faded and there was only an unreadable mask.

“Strip him of everything else and clothe him with the raiment of Samovar’s slaves.”

Everything. Strip the Mandalorian of everything.

Overcome with desperation, Paz strained against his bonds, so much so he thought his body would snap in two. If bones broke and blood was shed—his or his captors’—that would be nothing compared to the indignity they were about to impose upon him…

In the end, he had managed to fell two men—he had first came after the one behind him with the blaster, and Paz miraculously disarmed him. They shocked him through the collar and the useless binders once, twice—Paz’s body seemed to move at its own accord as a man possessed. It was chaos for an instant until they called in droids to finally hold him in place, and left it up to the mechanical monsters to tear him of his flight suit and patch upon him the threadbare jumpsuit of a slave. It was a greasy canvas shift, coarse and foul against his skin.

All the while, the Imperial officer watched on, vaguely disturbed but enshrined within the safety of his entourage.

Then they came for his helmet.

At that point, Paz had completely lost faculty of the world around him. The assaults had piled on him and he had caved in, very much against his will.

Everything moved so swiftly that Paz reeled with the pace. A droid’s hand perfunctorily reached under the lip of his buy’ce and lifted it off his head—it happened so inconsequentially, like merely ripping tags off a purchase. Perhaps that’s what it was. He had been sold and paid for, after all.

For the first time in a lifetime, his face was bared for living beings—and aruetiise at that—to see.

He couldn’t even lift his gaze up to behold the stillness of the men around him. Their faces may be covered but the bewilderment, the cold surprise was there.

“Why… he’s just another human,” he heard one of them whisper. It was laced with contempt and awe.

“Did you think the surviving ones were gods?” another remarked with a sneer.

Haphazard laughter filled the cell. Paz’s limbs grew slack. He couldn’t think. His mind refused to process all this. His vision blurred as he stared into an oblivion that seemed to stare back at him, and yet he looked away.

From this day on, he wouldn’t be able to face himself.

The Tribe would have to forget he ever existed. His world had shrunken into the palm of an imperial officer’s hand.

Dar’manda. No longer Mandalorian.

Something had afflicted Paz so suddenly, he had acted on it before he could control himself. It was all he could do but by the Maker—he would do it. He felt his eyes blaze in their sockets, hot from unshed tears as his restrained upper body lurched forward at Lt. Jovan and he spat at the feet of the imp.

“What in the kriffing hells—?!” the wretch cried out, aghast and disgusted. In his line of vision, Paz saw his spit mixed with large streaks of crimson on the metal floor. He may have sustained internal damage, but that was nothing. He was nothing.

Lt. Jovan grit his teeth as he reflexively struck Paz with the datapad with such ferocity that the device broke entirely in half. The man gained no satisfaction from it as Paz made neither grunt nor whimper.

“You… stinking animal,” growled the imp. Paz felt a hot bruise blooming at the side of his face, trailing from the corner of a temple to the protrusion of his left cheek. Blood dripped from his mouth. He was numb from the pain yet again.

“Take that filth into the processing line,” the lieutenant roared in a thin, enraged voice. “Make him useful! Have him join the dig at once!”

A final wave of encompassing humiliation followed suit. The droids suppressed him again, and a trooper slightly bent his neck at an angle. Right underneath the shock collar, they injected something deep into the tissue. It had lodged in right away.

The slaver’s chip.

Any escape attempts from the perimeter of the slave camp, and the chip would explode and instantly kill him.

Paz let himself be led out as he made no attempt to further resist. His feet dragged out into the open and upon the dirt, heavily marking the path of his defeat on the barren sands of Samovar.

***

Samovar was once a lush planet of wild green and rich earth. As it had been with worlds that the Empire managed to squeeze dry of resources, Samovar was no different.

Paz felt every grain of hot dirt sift beneath his tattered work sandals. There were not even proper boots to shield skin from the elements. All the finer things, of course, belonged to the Imperial Remnant stationed here. It also appeared that they took anything of value with underlying spite and greed, enough to deprive slaves of basic needs to keep the labor lines afloat.

The slaves were digging up doonium ore from a chasm when the imps hauled Paz to the processing line.

They were situated on fishbowl terrain. The center of labor was enclosed by a circumference of higher ground, generously interspersed with guard watchtowers. Weapons were perpetually trained at the slaves, every eye a seeming all-seeing one. Human stormtroopers lined the watchtowers. Droids were placed within proximity of the slaves to closely oversee the work.

Paz still had muscle memory in spite of everything. Like an automaton himself, as he had been conditioned in his days at the Fighting Corps, he took stock of the slave camp’s details.

Gonk droids lumbered their way into tents at the outskirts. These were the slaves quarters—they ate and slept there. The ‘freshers were not far behind and were as heavily guarded as though men worked there. Paz figured that escape attempts had been made within that vicinity, to an unfortunate end.

To no surprise, this was a male-only labor camp. Doonium ore was infernally heavy and only the dignity of men of able species could be spared for the task. Droids had shattered under the weight of doonium, and droids cost a hefty price—at least, in this reality’s twisted perception. Slaves cost nothing, and perhaps only small trouble here and there.

Slave lives were expendable one way or another.

However, it seemed that Paz was brought here for a distinct purpose.

His height, his size, his strength—he was a formidable human. From his periphery, he saw a slew of different species hunched over the chasm, dipping bare and brawny arms to lift up nets aided by tower cranes, already creaking at breaking point.

There were Nikto, Weequay, and Devaronian slaves, but most of all, Paz noted the abundance of human slaves as well. Not all were as large as he was, but they were well-muscled and firm, but in a manner which seemed artificially forced into them. Under the suns, the men still had a sickly pallor. The hair on some uncovered heads were bleached or discolored from the chemical heat, and he was surrounded by a drove of vacant stares, all bent on a one-track mind to their tasks.

Paz, for all it was worth, appeared to be the burliest among the humans. These conditions sorely disallowed Paz a moment of mourning for his Mandalorian identity, for his very humanity, A rough shove sent him to work right away. His mind was still partially fogged from the trauma of being stripped of his helmet and armor, but as he had also been conditioned to follow orders when it mattered, he began joining the ore processing line without skipping a beat.

He felt a score of gazes bear down on him. There were haunted gazes, curious gazes, detached gazes which saw through him as though he were a ghost.

Paz paid it all no heed. He felt no fear for the electro-whips or the shock collars (as they freed his hands of the binders, but his ankles were loosely bound in turn). He had lost all sense of fight or flight. He grappled for the tower crane nets and with a silent huff, he lifted the encased boulders—he felt his core tense, his strength flow. He had made it look easy. Sweat poured down his brow, his back, his arms. He breathed hollow, soulless breaths.

The stares grew more intent. He heard mutterings, murmurs. The voices spoke in Basic, so he had no problem deciphering them. Then again, they spoke as though he were a deaf man oblivious to their collective presence.

“New guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’d they find him? He’s a damn tank.”

“Some ambush attack on a stale backwater planet, I heard.”

“Which planet?”

“No idea.”

“Had they broken him enough?”

“Looks like it. There’s no light in those eyes, Dargo.”

Paz noted the first name he’d heard, and that it belonged to a large Nikto.

No light in those eyes.

Paz continued to ignore the attention and he moved on, worked on.

He unzipped the nets and the boulders poured out, tumbling into scattered piles among smoke and ash.

A human man had gingerly approached him, yet Paz did not look up to meet the stranger in the eye.

“Are you able to distinguish doonium ore form barren rock?”

Paz didn’t respond. He proceeded to unzip another net; more rocks rolled out in a near-deafening rush of sound.

The other man seemed patient and determined to teach Paz, for all good a mistake would do if the latter remained unschooled in the culture among Samovarian slaves.

“Here,” the man continued, his voice scratched but deep. Through the veil of his lashes, Paz saw a brown, calloused hand carefully land itself on a particular rock. “You see the small pale flecks? They look like lines of liquid glass thrust deep into stone. That’s doonium ore right there. As you can see… it’s the only one among fifty other rocks with such a texture. One out of fifty… that’s why the work is tediously long.”

Paz had become too unused in hearing another human voice spout out too many words at once. In the Covert, even his brethren spoke sparingly. A deep sigh fought its way out of him.

How did they fare? And the children, the foundlings… Did they make it and are all right?

“My name’s Sten,” the man went on. He was wary as he spoke. Droid heads turned here and there, their mechanical eyes blinking with lifeless glares.

Paz paused for a moment. His lip trembled before he finally acknowledged the man with a small nod, then resumed his work with a fervor that was purposeful yet meaningless. With Sten’s newly provided knowledge, he could distinguish the ore now.

The man named Sten hadn’t left his side, and for an instant, Paz felt peeved. Sten’s presence had become more tangible, something he couldn’t simply ignore, dragging at him like a steel comb. He heard the other man’s tired breathing, and yet he never ceased the rhythm of the processing line.

Slowly, Paz heard Sten’s breaths fall a bit easier as Paz was now doing most of the work.

This was all the use his soulless self could have, in this moment in time. Mining doonium as a slave on an Imp-infested planet.

A sob nearly broke out of him.

It had only been some cycles past since he had rebuked Din Djarin about working for the Empire. Did his brother redeem himself of the sin, then, when he saved a child, so Paz and the Covert found reason grave and worthy enough to expose their existence and come to Djarin’s rescue?

One thing led to another.

Now he was here, and Sten was speaking to him again.

“It’ll be dinner in five minutes. You can slowly take it easy now.”

Still, Paz pretended he hadn’t heard. His hands which had recently been devoid of gloves after years of wearing them consistently had begun to bleed. Red fingerprints made their way upon barren rock. The ore he had kept pristine.

A solemn clang of a massive bell filled the fishbowl expanse, the sound amplified.

Work immediately halted. Some slaves fell to their knees, exhausted to the bone, and were promptly issued with mild electric shocks. The reactionary yells were weak and reluctant.

“Get to dinner!!!” hollered the Stormtrooper sergeants by the watchtowers. “Wash yourselves, you dung-filled kriffers, then it’s lights out!”

***

When a droid reinstalled the shackles around his wrists, Paz made nary a protest. Was it a small mercy that they were all still able to move their hands well enough to bring food into their mouths?

A faint, chronic ache had begun to overtake him as Paz limped his way to a bench, sat upon by a dozen other famished slaves. There were no tables to rest elbows upon. There was no time to mind any of this. Every soul was driven to eat their fill before lights out—and there wasn’t even much to begin with.

He took his seat; he was still for long moments, dazed and disbelieving. This nightmare couldn’t possibly be real, and yet the Great Purge had happened, and nightmares truly existed in this waking galaxy. This was but the residue of a great undoing of his spirit.

“You have to eat,” came that familiar voice again. Paz brushed off the fact that Sten’s persistence was grating at him. He couldn’t care less. Sten may as well speak to thin air or the very durasteel walls.

Paz had absolutely no idea what his expression held. He, for certain, knew that it was blank, and yet he caught Sten staring at him with an unhinged look of pity.

Sten only bent for a second to shove watery gruel into his belly.

“You need the medic to have a look at that cheek. It’s raw and bleeding. It could get infected and it’ll slow you down… slow us all down.”

Paz’s lips were dry. The sting of the open bruise where Lt. Jovan’s datapad struck him was but an afterthought. He felt a wetness dribble to his shift collar, however. He couldn’t even reach out to determine by touch if the wound looked as bad as Sten made it out to be.

The burly man remained silent, unmoving.

“You aren’t much of a talker, are you?”

There was no hostility or derision in Sten’s tone. There was an odd sadness which lingered, and Paz nearly felt the effect of it. Nearly.

Paz found his voice after a full minute had passed. Huge gaps on the benches formed as slaves hurried for seconds or for the ‘freshers. It seemed that as soon lights out commenced, every slave was strictly confined to their sleeping quarters, and any defiance would be met with brutality.

“You can have my ration.” Paz unceremoniously handed Sten his gruel bowl. “I have no desire to eat.”

“I—“ Sten’s eyes grew wide. Paz could only see a shadow of the man’s reaction, as he remained averse to eye contact. “Well.. at least I know that you speak, my friend.”

“I am not your friend.”

Sten nodded absently, but Paz was sure his words simply flew over the man’s head.

“You still won’t tell me your name? At least give me a name to thank the gods for when I say my prayers tonight…”

Paz grit his teeth. In the direst and darkest of circumstances, this man still had his gods to rely on?

“Just take my ration and leave me alone.” Paz huffed, his voice faltering when he punctuated it with a, “Sten.”

The next series of clanging bells were more frantic this time. Like panicked toddlers, the slaves cleaned after themselves, taking final noisy slurps of the gruel before depositing them to the washer droids. The poor machines were falling apart, much like the wills of every sentient in this room.

Paz was relieved when Sten took his ration bowl, but to the burly man’s surprise, Sten had slipped the contents into a tiny drinking bladder situated at his side, covered by an indistinguishable flap. Was Sten saving it for a midnight snack or something?

“Th-thank you, my friend,” was Sten’s tremulous acknowledgment of unexpected generosity in a fellow slave through Paz.

Paz still couldn’t lift his eyes to meet the man’s face, but he had finally dug into himself the unlikely courage to give his name away, when he would never had ever done it as a Mandalorian.

“My name is Paz,” he whispered. Sten had heard it. A smile at flitted upon the man’s lips.

There was no repose for Paz that night, a first among many as a man shed of dignity and honor. He lay awake, staring squarely at the tent’s high ceiling, the many watchtower lights playing with the shadows in intervals.

His drew in one fevered breath, and before he knew it, the empty lure of daylight bled into his horizon again.

***

A few days into the slave camp, Paz realized that the imps never addressed slaves by their names. Why would they? He had been erased of his past. He was but a wraith in this wide lonely galaxy. They assigned him a label—“B-4077.” Paz came to realize as well that his serial number meant, in the fashion of Samovar trade, that he was the four thousand and seventy-seventh slave purchased on Benduday—the last day of the week, since this deplorable practice began.

Moreover, Samovar had never really left the jurisdiction of the Empire. Even the galactic civil wars failed in that aspect, along with the new governments that replaced the old. Worlds like Samovar were but tiny grains of sand among endless dunes. The Remnant had crawled out of their holes and resumed their horrid governance.

The Empire is no longer, their Armorer once told them. They had believed in her judgment, her conviction.

She was wrong, Paz thought needlessly. Or perhaps, the Empire had been too clever and planned their resurgence accordingly.

Paz would be one of the hundred thousands transported to Samovar, and from the looks of the current volume of active slaves in this camp, the turnover periods were immensely quick. How many slaves perished day in and day out, so more replaced them?

Sometimes, his mind was clear and worked like a chronometer, ticking with automatic proficiency, but those times were few and far in between. He was far from himself. There were moments when he caught himself simply staring at his upright palms, and then aimlessly at a distance as though he’d expected something to crawl out of the rippling bend. He would certainly feel jolts from the shock collar shoot through his body afterwards, followed by a slew of insults from droid and human guards alike. Paz had learned to drown out the noise.

Sten would be at his side in most days. Paz would always turn his body away from the other man to discourage further discourse. He found no reprieve in talking with aruetii, but Sten had somehow found him fascinating. When Sten didn’t try to converse with him, he worked silently in tandem with Paz. Paz lifted the nets, Sten would unzip them, and a couple more who had joined their little group—Gerrik, another human, and Dargo, the Nikto whose name Paz recalled. They rolled out the rock, sorted them out from the precious doonium.

“So where are you from?” After many days, it was Gerrik who brought up the question to Paz. ”I’m from—“

“Do not speak to me,” was Paz’s curt reply, cutting Gerrik off. His voice had lost most of its authoritative timbre. He even sounded pained, and he winced in disgust.

Dargo cackled mirthlessly. “I still can’t figure out what Sten sees in you, big fella. But we’re not your enemies here. At least, not Gerrik and me. We both got something to lose, like Sten here…”

Sten shot Dargo a hard look, as if to shush him from blurting out a secret, and the Nikto pursed his lips in easy acquiescence.

Paz didn’t miss that slip, that unspoken detail, but he continued to mind his own business.

“You got family?” Gerrik pressed on; Dargo chuckled again, with some unease over how his friend tried pushing his luck at interrogating such an intimidating figure.

Paz had leaned his weight upon a boulder, and he was still again. His mind had fogged over once more, and there was just blankness, blackness.

“No,” he finally replied. “No more.”

“He means ‘no more of your goddamn nosy questions,’ Gerrik,” Dargo eased the mood with a jibe. “Those kriffin’ droids are starting to look our way so we better stop yapping, anyway.”

Another day passed, and Sten and the rest stuck with Paz, drawn to him like moths to a flame—the mystery around him, his silence, his seeming nonchalance to their plight—an unbothered quietude that appeared to calm them down as well as keep them on their toes. Paz was setting a higher bar with how inhumanly productive he behaved. He rarely took breaks, he rarely took meals, he sat in isolation and didn’t join in the camaraderie of various small cliques. The meager socializing was by far the best means that kept them within the confines of sanity.

Another Benduday had passed, or at least in Paz’s reckoning as he calculated with the stars overhead. They were at their meals again, and this time, he had refused his lunch also.

“What on ten hells are you on?” Sten hissed at Paz when the larger man left his lunch ration up for Sten, or Dargo, or Gerrik to take. “You can’t go on with just one damn meal a day! You’d need a whopping lot for your size. Once the guards start noticing you’ve begun to thin out…”

“Just take the damn ration, Sten,” Paz insisted in his sad tone. “You have a kid, don’t you?”

Sten looked stunned. He blinked at Paz as though he regarded the man like a dark soothsayer.

“I… How did you…?”

“The rations you saved up for the past nights. They aren’t for you. You have something to lose. And that is a child. Or children. I don’t know… Maker… There are children in this hellhole?”

Paz was mumbling, almost to himself, reasoning to himself about something so unacceptable. The conditions on Nevarro were already too far from ideal for the foundlings. But this was outright repugnant.

Paz’s eyes shot up when Sten had cautiously draped a warm hand over his arm. A brief wave of revulsion lanced through him—he had not been touched on bare skin for the longest time, accompanied by the fact that he had finally made full eye contact with the man who had dared become his first friend.

Sten looked like a man no older than fifty; there was age in his bearing and on the creases of his forehead. His hair was bleached to a sallow milkiness, and his eyes were a faded, tired grey. His skin was browned from the Samovar suns. Paz couldn’t look away as he beheld the first human face he’d seen with his own bare vision since he swore the Creed.

“A… a nephew. A little boy. He’s only nine years old. They keep the kids as collateral and away from our sight most of the time, to guarantee that no uprising or escape attempts would happen again…”

Paz’s eyes grew wide. The grim stories behind this hellscape of a slave camp were starting to materialize.

“I—I can’t say any more. But now you know. Yes. I have something—someone to lose.”

Paz’s voice was low and bitter. “I sure hope to the Maker they aren’t starving the kids, with you needing to take the rations…”

“No, no. But they need more nutrition to grow strong.” A small smile flecked Sten’s lips. “Like you. Strong like you, Paz.”

However—and sure enough—that strength didn’t last very long.

Paz’s dedication to his sparse and ascetic ways were to his undoing, and it had crept at him like a leathery eel. He was a warrior and he had been tested to live in extremes, but his fractured mind and listless spirit had contributed to a gradual downfall.

One morning, as Paz had hauled another net from the chasm which dug out the ore from deep within Samovar’s crust, weakness overtook him: a wave of nausea, and his muscles eternally sore from never recovering as they days grew challenging. The blood loss from wounds he left untreated in times of injury also took its toll. The bruise on his face was healing, but new ones took its place every day,

Paz’s grip had slipped and before Sten or Dargo can retrieve the net, its entire crib of cargo tumbled back into the abyss. The mechanisms of the tower crane which held the net had given way, and the machinery sputtered as it overheated, and its engines died.

Gerrik’s attempt to hold Paz fast as the larger man fell to a knee was in vain.

A number of guard droids gathered in stormy reproach.

“B-4077, C-5611, and T-4920, rectify this error immediately or punishment will be exacted upon failure to comply!”

“Yes, yes, sir,” was Sten’s irritatingly meek reply, and in Paz’s mind, he comprehended. There was no fighting back, and his stubbornness would cost him and his companions, and the children Sten and the others cared for—!

Paz had forced his own bulk up on his feet. The haze, heat, and hunger beat down on him. Finally, there was hunger. Finally, their was fatigue so heavy that his body registered a level of physical shock—Paz cursed under his breath. He had been mistreating himself, undernourishing himself… he was punishing himself way ahead than what these slavers could ever mete out.

“Yes, sir,” Paz replied along with them. In the wake of his humbling, he had taken all pride away to respond to a godforsaken slaver droid. “I.. I just need a drink of water.”

His throat was so dry, his mind splintered, the suns shone blindly overhead… he coughed, and that’s when he felt the fever set in.

For good measure, a guard droid prodded Paz with a shock baton. If these non-sentient bastards had a remotely oppressive streak to their programming, this was a taster.

“Hydrate accordingly, B-4077, then promptly return to work,” the droid drawled mechanically.

“You okay, buddy?” Gerrik was more than willing to aid Paz to the drinking stations, but he wasn’t part of the respite period. Paz had gently pushed the man away.

“I’ll do it myself… I can’t get you to further harm.”

“Paz?”

But he had stopped listening and he lumbered forward. He swayed in his steps. His parched throat burned, his skin burned, his bones burned. Vertigo nipped at his brain. Paz plodded on, determined to reach the drinking station. One cup of water, that’s all, and he would be all right.

Another step.

He collapsed.

Maybe he heard Sten and the others call his name, or maybe it was just in his head. Paz felt the hot earth meet his body, and he stayed there, completely unable to move. He let a blanket of darkness drape itself over him.

If he died then and there, he wouldn’t have minded. What use was a man without his soul?


***

When Paz came to, he was not in medbay.

He was still too weak, but his heart raced within him with a force that could tear at his ribcage. He remained shackled, but not as stringently enough as when he was out on the labor fields. Perhaps, a more contained and confined environment brought the Imps at ease, and true enough, a solitary medical droid stood so stock-still at the corner of the makeshift treatment room.

Paz took stock of his surroundings as the world undulated in dull waves. His skin was scorching to the touch; his fever could be worse than he thought. He had been lain on a durasteel cot cushioned by a solitary blanket, covered by the same grease that coated their jumpsuits. A more distinct smell of antiseptic permeated the air.

He slowly lifted an arm, and was immediately hampered by a thin tube snaking over his forearm which hooked him to an IV. A dilapidated bag of dextrose was sorrily draped across him from where he lay. These cheap bastards couldn’t even afford a proper IV setup.

If he had been less lucky, they probably would have simply left him to die.

An ugly thought overtook him.

He wished that they had just let him die…

“Mister?”

Paz was flung out of his mournful reverie when he heard a voice. He squinted in the dying light of the late afternoon.

It was a child’s voice.

“Who.. who’s there?” Paz called out. His voice was but a wisp and talking further sapped him of strength. A fit of coughing came after and his entire body shook.

“Mister, Uncle Sten said you’d be here, so I snuck in. Look—I deactivated that stupid med droid for ten minutes! Mister… you were talking in your sleep. I swear I didn’t understand a thing! Is that another language?”

By the gods… Paz groaned inwardly. So the boy was a loquacious one, like his uncle. A tiny body wriggled its way from behind the medical droid and gingerly flitted to him with an awestruck expression. Now Paz knew why the only droid in this room seemed oblivious to its environs. The child had managed to shut it down for a few moments.

Paz beheld a small boy of nine. The little one was pale in contrast to the laborers outside, and the large man wondered if the children were being kept away from the sun… underground, in a cavern away from natural light, just as what could have been for the foundlings of the Covert had they not built a better subterranean system.

The boy was staring so curiously at him with large, very blue eyes. A shock of raven-dark hair covered his head, long and unruly.

Paz felt his heart sink for the little one.

“Yes,” Paz obliged the boy in laborious breaths. “It is another language.” He suppressed another wave of coughing. Hacking his lungs out in front of a hapless kid didn’t sound too ideal.

“Y-you had better leave before you’re found out. Don’t come back here again on my account…”

A minute in, and Paz had already managed to chastise a child. Such was his old habit as a caregiver in the Covert, just as he carried out the role of Heavy Infantry when the need was dire.

The boy crinkled his nose. “What does that even mean? And mister, no offense—you’re not my uncle or a trooper, so you can’t possibly order me around.”

Paz’s side hurt as a glaze of laughter threatened its way through.

“I’ve got the proper medicine for you, mister. My uncle says the ones these stupid droids give just aren’t enough. It’s diluted. It’s probably just water for all we know. That’s how my dad died. He got hurt pretty bad and they couldn’t patch him up in time, right here in these stupid mines.”

Two minutes in, and this child was already telling a complete stranger his tragic backstory.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Paz whispered, sincere and struck by melancholy. “Your mother…?”

The boy shrugged as he started to unravel a medpac of syringes, plaster, and a vial of bacta so tiny, it was a thin strip of aquamarine blue glowing on the child’s palm.

“Lost her years ago,” the boy informed him with a noncommittal shrug. “Don’t worry about me, mister. I hate it here, that’s for sure, but I think I’m doing all right.”

The child showed Paz the medpac’s contents as inventory before he rolled everything back into the tiny pouch and sealed it. “Uncle Sten says one syringe every twelve hours. It’s for the infection, or whatever that is. Us kids have been sneaking things out of the troopers’ supplies. They’ve been hogging everything! I sure hope they all rot one day.”

There was so much Paz had wanted to ask of the child. Us kids? How many of them were kept here, away from their fathers, uncles, brothers… and were they all boy-children of different species? No doubt, once these kids were old enough to work in the camps, they would be immediately put to use. Paz was sick to the core in more ways than one.

“That droid could reactivate in no time,” Paz warned the boy gently. “You had better sneak back. I’ll keep the medpac out of sight. Thank you…”

“Ragnar. My name’s Ragnar, mister.”

The child beamed. Paz almost beamed back. The boy was missing three of his upper teeth. The gaps added to his little youthful charm, and Paz suddenly felt homesick, far more broken than he was. He would never know of his Covert’s fate, and they would never know of his, not while he kept himself imprisoned on this planet and in the depths of his own mind.

Yet he couldn’t get himself to act upon any other recourse but to stay. Ragnar reminded him of his pact that he had irrevocably sundered. 

“You don’t look so bad, mister. You’re growing a great beard. Uncle Sten’s been dying to grow a proper beard for ages!”

“Off you go, Ragnar.”

“Yessir.”

Paz watched the child weasel his way out as his mind swam in a feverish sea. Questions continued to flood into him. He found no comfort and no peace. He couldn’t stay down in the infirmary for too long. His contribution to the work would be missed, and the Imps would surely take it out on Sten and the rest. Sten, who had a child to strive for.

“B-4077, take this medication and rest for approximately two hours. Then you will be sent back to the communal quarters,” buzzed the medical droid as it suddenly leapt to life in a burst of static. “This medication" was but a small insipid cup of vitamin water. It wheeled its way to him close enough so Paz saw, for the first time, his distorted reflection on the half-polished surface of the droid’s metal body.

He had forgotten how he looked like without his helm. When he used mirrors to shave, it only showed the portion of his jaw where work needed to be done. He had always regarded his reflection in passing, and never in full scrutiny.

A very gaunt-looking face stared back at him with eyes that shone with the scars of isolation, of self-loathing, of terrible loneliness. His beard had begun to grow back, just as Ragnar said, and he saw the strands of grey mixed in with light brown. His own crown of hair was unkempt, dusty, as greasy as everything else.

“Paz… of House Vizsla,” he intoned weakly at the reflection, and the droid, confused, asked him to repeat his words.

He never did. The med droid left him alone, and Paz continued to gaze off into an eternally dark horizon, paralyzed in his fever and in the reminder of who he once was, and of the name he can no longer carry.

***

Chapter Text

CW:   Suicide/death ideation; semi-graphic torture and blood (at the end of chapter)

Chapter 2: A Blazing Madness

Once, Paz had wished that he’d see the sun again. The words hidden like sand rats had slipped out of him unbidden, when he argued about Din Djarin back on Nevarro, not so long ago. He had wanted to let all his frustrations out in that one instant, and the only presence he could willfully take it out on was Din’s, and Din taking work from the Imperial remnant was the last straw. Paz had been furious, and he would’ve taken Din down by vibroblade—the quivering weapon was so close to Din’s neck, and Paz could almost determine the artery beating there… so close—and the Armorer had ordered them to desist.

He wished he hadn’t hated Din so much. Isolation does a cruel thing to a person’s mind, and Din had been so alone, traveling across the cold galaxy with only the constant whirl of hyperspace to lend him company. Din’s judgment needed to stay sharp as he relied on it for survival as a bounty hunter, but the empty loneliness of space was a numbing drug.

Paz lifted his eyes up; unconsciously, with his wrists in binders, he lifted a hand and let his fingers trail down his bare face. He flinched. He felt the rough skin of his upper cheek, the thick stubble now growing into a full beard, and the scrape of his calloused, bruised fingers over it all.

Sun on his face, the wind on his skin, and he would look up at the open sky, and not the worn-down decrepit tunnels of Nevarro’s sewers—

Paz felt nothing.

How much time had passed in these slave camps? He lost count, missing the beat of hours and rotations. Things simply stretched into daylight then nighttime, over and over again in an endless loop.

Paz had recovered from his illness. Perhaps it had been a week ago, perhaps two. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. The medicines little Ragnar had snuck out for him did the trick, and he was up on his feet in no time. The med droid wasn’t even suspicious; even it was convinced that the dishwater it prescribed its patients was enough to cure them, and if they didn’t survive, that was that. It was a minimally programmed med droid. It probably couldn’t even do important surgeries that could save lives.

The Imps put him to work again. He was starting to lose his sense of everything. He was slowly falling into a stupor where he was starting to forget the Covert, the Tribe, the Mandalorians and what they all stood for.

A part of him wondered if he wanted that life back, despite everything.

He plodded on.

“Hey—Happy Life Day, Paz,” came a half-hearted greeting; Gerrik was before him with a tired grin on his face.

Paz snapped to and focused on the world around him.

“It’s Life Day?” He couldn’t recognize his own voice.

Gerrik gave a soft chuckle and patted Paz firmly on the back. He sat at the edge of his cot when Gerrik joined him across. Their cots were aligned with twenty others in a row, and five rows of other cots filled one tent. There are more on the camp, of course, but Paz shared this meager space with Sten, Gerrik, and Dargo.

The men had moved cots about, stacking them if need be, to form a cozy-enough space in the middle. A flickering lamp was set at the center and men had converged around it, swapping tales and singing. Singing! Paz had almost forgotten as well what voices catching a tune sounded like.

Life Day. No wonder. Sten had mentioned that it was a single night in a standard year when the slaves were allowed to let loose a little. Small bits of merrymaking here and there, but all under watchful eyes one way or another.

The lamp casted shadows on the thick duraweave walls. Paz saw the shapes of many monsters as the men flailed about, animatedly in deep conversation. It was just all babble in his mind, a sea of noise, and no individual voice stood out. Burst of song struck out here and there.

Paz willed to listen to one of these songs. They were songs of the aruetii, gloriously ribald in raunchy Basic. But this song, this one was different as Paz dug into it, forming words amidst the garble.

When the moons are out and the night is deep

When the demons fall over in their sleep

We will stoke a fire like a morning rain

And on that day we’ll be free again!

“Pay no attention to that,” Sten had joined him and Gerrik, his mouth a hard line. The older man looked rattled and irritated. “They keep singing that old tune. It’s getting rusty. It’s all talk, ever since the last insurrection. What the hell kind of braindead idea was that? There were hardly enough ships docked to ferry us all out in that foolish escape attempt. And only imperial ships visit; we'll surely get tracked down and I doubt any man here knows how to scramble a transponder code, and all that complicated nonsense. Maybe some of us did. Who knows? It’s been beaten out of us. No one remembers…”

Absently, the words slipped out of Paz. “Has anyone called for help?”

Sten looked like he got hit by a metal bar. Gerrik’s confused look tried to deter him, but Paz went on. “Has anyone… tried to figure out this place? Anything about it at all?”

Gerrik’s laughter was strained. “Come on now, Paz. You’re suggesting it as though we haven’t thought about it before.”

Paz lifted his gaze, looked at Gerrik straight in the eye. The other man grimaced under the stare. “Do you know where they keep the kids?”

Sten was the one who returned Paz’s hard look while Gerrik hushed him, almost frantically.  “Paz… we have tried looking, but we can’t get past a certain perimeter, remember?” Gerrik motioned to the nape of his neck. The slaver’s chip was embedded there in everyone. “Any snooping around where we’re not supposed to, then—“ The man tried to be dramatic, “boom.”

The Life Day merrymaking was saccharine mead in this dark place. The disquiet in Paz grew as the songs shifted to something more somber. A few men knew how to sing well, and their voices blew at every corner of the greasy tent like a fragile benediction.

“What’s the gloom about?” Paz’s thoughts were interrupted when Dargo came strutting in, his horned Nikto face beaming oddly. It was as if Dargo himself had forgotten what a smile was. Everyone smiled as though they were in pain. And of course, that was true.

“Escape plan number five hundred and eighty-six,” Gerrik explained sarcastically. Dargo responded with a bitter chuckle.

“Oh—those. Like they’ll ever materialize, not after what happened last time.” Dargo’s eyes were unfocused. There was no alcohol in the vicinity—all those excessive comforts were prohibited and the pathetic supply belonged to the Imps. On the other side of camp, high above the rim surrounding the camp were singing as well—merrier, more sincere, but with hints of bitterness as well.

“No one wants to be here, anyway. Not even those kriffing Imps,” Dargo continued. It appeared that he was able to bargain some alcohol out of a sergeant, or worse—Paz’s skin crawled—a kid had smuggled it out for him. He drew a breath and held his temper. It was only a clouded guess.

“The only difference, of course,” Gerrit’s sarcasm bled on, “was that the Imps are exceedingly better off.”

“Paz,” Sten called out. He heeded it, and with a sterner look on his face, the older man led Paz over to a side of a tent with a gentle shove where a tiny slit of a window faced the rim’s southern wall.

“You have to know,” Sten began solemnly, “about what happened here a year ago. My brother was one of the perpetrators. He never let me in his discussions… I wondered if he even trusted me, or… no. He only wished me out of trouble. But he and sixty other men, they had tried to take the Imps down. I don’t know what possessed them. It was an uncoordinated attempt. Maybe they had a plan but it fell apart as soon as they’ve implemented it. Long story short—they were all quickly rounded up. There was no debate, no investigation. Lt. Jovan had every guilty man lined up against that wall—“ Sten directed his gaze at the southern wall melding with the murkiness outside. “—and had them all shot to death.”

Paz felt a lump in his throat. There was ringing in his ears.

“Your brother—Ragnar’s father?”

Sten wore the grimmest expression. “Yes. My younger brother. It made no sense to me, why he did that… it was a needless risk. Now, his son is fatherless. And all because of some foolish dream of freedom in this place where we can’t even see a foot away from our eyes!”

Paz couldn’t hold back. “Ragnar told me a different story, about how his father died.”

Sten’s face warped; he looked pained. He spoke in sharp whispers. “Did you think I’d tell the boy the truth? I know… you’re probably a stickler for honesty. Not here, my friend. They were painting men like my brother as traitors to the Empire. Would you rather his son know that his father went down like a helpless animal? No—it was a mining accident. A huge one were many men perished, and his father was given aid but to no avail. The children were not there to witness it, so one faux story was as good as any.”

Paz was in a daze. There was sentiment in Sten’s motivations Paz couldn’t exactly comprehend.

“That was merciful, you know. Somehow, they’d spared the children from that horror. To watch their fathers, brothers, uncles die deplorable deaths? Get shot at the back by firing squads like the traitors they were?”

Paz was silent. There was nothing else to say, not when his entire being had suddenly turned to ice.

“Those songs the men were singing—they’re just empty rhymes,” Sten continued, low and tremulous. “They’ll ever only be empty rhymes. It’s a common fantasy among us that we’d take down this camp one day. But Paz, as you can see, the Empire never left. Weakened, yes, but they grow stronger everyday. We’ve run out of hope, and that’s that. I’ll die here.”

“You’ll let Ragnar and the rest of the children die here, too?” Paz’s voice dangled a challenge, but this flew right over Sten. Paz’s heart sank.

Sten couldn’t answer. His mouth opened, but not words came out. He looked utterly defeated; Paz had to look away. He was in a wasteland with zombified souls.

After a moment, Sten spoke again.

“Our wives, our sisters, our daughters… they’ll never know we’re here, and we’ll never return to them. Gerrik had a wife. He tells me every so often, if she finally let him go and remarried, he’d never take it against her. Paz—this is our maddening reality. If ever we figure it out again, it may be too late. Come… let’s sit by the lamplight. Try the few joys allowed to us—eh? Happy Life Day.”

Sten clapped Paz steadily on the arm. The irony dripped from his tone. Paz ignored it.

Instead, he looked long out of the window, at the stretch of wall where those who dared to take their lives back have lost them.

***

“Quinn’s sick,” Dargo repeated to anyone within earshot. “My son’s sick. I can’t get to him until Taungsday. It’s only Primeday… Two days away. One day can make all the difference!”

“Then be on your best behavior until then,” Gerrik berated him, not also the first time. The worry was taut on their faces. Sick children were usually not tended to properly until a caregiver does the work. Most parents were given a pass once a week, when children were allowed to visit them in an assigned, guarded chamber. Another small mercy, when they could be kept indefinitely apart.

Dargo, however, was inconsolable. “He’s been complaining about a tummy ache the last time he visited. I told him not to skip meals. He’d skip them—Paz, you know, my little Quinn’s like you.” A scrape of thin laughter erupted from the Nikto. “He’d give his share to the other kids when he thinks they need it. What are good people like you doing in this godsforsaken putrid galaxy?”

“Will you keep it down, Darg?” Gerrik was getting impatient. “Droids’ll come over and zap you. Zap us too for even talking when we’re supposed to be refining the doonium.”

“To hell with the doonium!” Dargo spat.

Paz’s deep yet gentle timbre soothed the aggrieved Nikto in vain. “I’m not a good person, Dargo. I can admit that as much. I agree—your son is innocent. Gerrik’s right. See this day through. Tomorrow also. You’ll see Quinn in no time…”

“To hell with it all!”  Dargo growled under his breath, his hold on the refinery lever quaking. “Why couldn’t we just leave? What happened? Where did it all go wrong? I never chose to be a slave. Hell—who would? This isn’t a future I want for Quinn. Sten—is this a future you want for Ragnar?”

Sten spoke through gritted teeth, maintaining the pace of his work. “If you don’t shut it soon, Dargo, there won’t be a future for any of us at all.”

Dargo’s eyes glinted with frosty desperation. “Who gets to choose the future, eh? You, Sten? Gerrik? Paz? Do I get to choose? Can I choose, Sten?”

“Shut up,” Sten grunted. To the man’s credit, his voice was neutral. He never broke momentum: drag the ore under the refinery bit by bit, let it sit under immense heat as it purified the particles away. The mineral, as big as a Wampa’s fist, would weigh as heavy as eighty pounds. Doonium was an extremely hardy metal used to line the hulls of Imperial cruisers. Should the shields go down, the doonium hulls would hold long.

Paz heard Dargo sob. A sordid thought trickled into him. Finally, someone was showing emotion which befitted their ghastly fate. For all his confinement in the slave camps, not once had Paz heard or seen a man cry.

Surprisingly, Dargo would be the first.

Because of a child. His little son, Quinn. Paz pursed his lips.

A plan was forming in his mind… He had let the world melt away and he was in his head, taking memory upon flint to sharpen it.

That was when Paz heard something snap. It was deafening, like an explosion, like a giant beasts’s bones breaking into a thousand pieces.

Dargo had lost control of the lever, and the refinery had wobbled to an abrupt stop so much so that Gerrik lost the rhythm of this part of the processing line. His hand had nearly caught in the mouth of the furnace. Dargo had failed to hold the lever down; his own hand snapped back up, releasing the lever, disrupting the process—another day, another important piece of machinery breaking down.

“What the KRIFF, Darg!!! Get ahold of yourself!! I nearly lost a hand, you idiot!!!”

Gerrik was besides himself. Suddenly, other voices rang. Irate voices, angered voices, weary voices. Some were staring at the broken machines in speechless shock. It would take another sleepless night to fix them, with insufferable droids trailing at their backs with nothing but shock batons and electro-whips that kept them in charge. No other sentient in their right mind would join the contemptible drudgery. The Stormtroopers remained unmoved in their watchtowers, looking down in amusement. Just leave it to the droids to imperil wayward sentients. Those incidents don’t last long, and work would resume as it always had.

Dargo was unhearing. He had dropped to his haunches; his face was visibly wet with tears.

Some men stared; others looked away. This was not a normal sight indeed, to see one of them down to their breaking point. Everyone had been holding it, bearing it within their bodies. The tears Dargo shed were tears released by the soul, and it was painful to watch.

Commotion blasted forth into the fray.

It seemed it also had been a while since a sentient who wasn’t a slave, and an officer at that, had trudged over the filth towards the processing line.

“What’s all this?!” Lieutenant Jovan’s pinched voice carried itself vainly across the expanse. “Fix it, dammit—FIX IT!! We’re already behind schedule!! An inspection from HQ should come in any day and I am left with you degenerates to fail at the most basic tasks!”

Paz had grown a fierce, quiet loathing for that damned lieutenant. He balled a fist but kept his peace. Lt. Jovan should be desperate enough to send himself down here, when usually a sergeant did. Whatever work needed to be done was paramount to get him a promotion, perhaps.

Cretin like Lt. Jovan would throw away a thousand lives just to see himself elevated a mere notch higher. That was the Imperial scum Paz abhorred with a passion. That was the scum he had meant when he confronted Din about it and called him a coward over; the scum that wiped the Mandalorians out, so that they were forgotten by the galaxy, a lost people with a lost home…

Lt. Jovan took notice of Dargo, the lone Nikto on his knees, weeping. The man’s lips curled in disgust.

“That wretch ruined today’s schedule.” The Imp had ordered two among a squad of Stormtroopers who accompanied him to hitch Dargo up and bind his ankles as well. “What’s a nice punishment for the likes of you, slave?”

Dargo’s eyes had misted over, but Paz felt a darkness seep into the Nikto’s being.

“Dargo is ill,” Paz suddenly stepped forward from the neat row they all had been ordered to not a minute ago. “He needs rest. I’ll take his work as well as mine. Let Dargo rest.”

The lieutenant was too stunned by this unexpected impudence from one man. He couldn’t even order any of his guards to restrain Paz all the more. The Imp appeared to be unused to this manner of disarray. The words he blurted out were unrehearsed. “Who the hell is Dargo? That miserable creature?” He flung the words at the prone Nikto.

A droid sputtered to clarify. “Z-3315,” it announced, pointing at Dargo. “The slave who spoke is B-4077.”

Silence hung so heavily for a split-second that any more, one could hear a cacophony of heartbeats humming wildly in the air. Recognition crossed the face of Lt. Jovan as his gaze met Paz’s.

“Ah… B-4077. The Mandalorian. Or should I say—once a Mandalorian.”

Paz’s eyes grew wide; Lt. Jovan had unearthed something so sacred to him, a buried part of his past he had held so dearly, which he had needed to let go… and now, the rest of the camp knew.

A buzz of whispers filled the gap afterwards. From Paz’s periphery, he saw the shocked expressions on Sten and Gerrik.

For all they knew, the Mandalorians were extinct. How would they treat him from thereon, knowing that he was s survivor of a warrior people, detested around the galaxy for their overly belligerent ways?

But Lt. Jovan’s face lit up despicably. The man was a sadist at heart, it seemed. He fit right in among the scum Paz so detested with all his might.

“I’ll make use of you then, B-4077. That bulk of yours looks like it’d hold the work of five men. I’ll put you up to the challenge, hmmm? Very well, that limp fool that is Z-3315 can have his rest. Don’t worry—I can be honorable, too. I’ll keep my word—only if you do the work of five men. Should be easy for a Mandalorian indeed. You who were worth the price of ten men. Why wouldn’t I put you to better use?”

The grumbling and gasps of fellow slaves around Paz grew louder.

He felt scores of eyes on him, he felt daggers, he felt stares of awe, wonder… fear. Resentment, even. Lt. Jovan just measured him up against the rest of them. Had he indeed been worth the price of ten slaves? What true purpose did he serve under Lt. Jovan’s jurisdiction? It almost seemed that the Imp was keeping him around like a trophy. Paz felt his insides churn.

Yet he kept his expression unreadable when he declared in his chest-deep voice, “Done. I shall take the load of five men.”

Jaws dropped, stares tore him down, unable to either scrutinize or scorn him in their incredulity. Maybe others would perceive this folly as arrogance on his part. Can he really follow through this challenge? Lt. Jovan was clearly bullying him into it, but in this place, any resistance had ugly consequences.

As soon as everyone was ordered to a new processing line, Paz was slowly left to his devices, but under heavy guard, to fix the machinery through his lone labor. When that was done, he would do the refining as well, good enough for the strength of five pairs of hands.

Sten shot him a concerned look, which moved Paz, but that small glance was all they shared before the man left with the others. Gerrik, on the other hand, was more thorough. He risked leaning close enough to Paz and say, “It doesn’t matter who you are to me. I think Dargo owes you. But Paz… keep this up and the Imps will kill you. They’re killing you nice and slow, and you know it.”

Paz reply was swift but just as thorough. “Dargo doesn’t owe me a thing. And no one will kill me where I stand.”

Perhaps he did still have arrogance in him, Paz thought. He was a shell of who he once was, but when he agreed to the lieutenant’s challenge, a flame had ignited brighter within him, when he thought it had long been snuffed out.

***

By the time Paz had finally settled on his cot in the communal quarters, his hands were bleeding. He had torn pieces of his bedding to stanch raw lesions from the hard toil he’d undergone for the day. He dealt everything with bare hands. He was not issued protective gear. This was a clear violation of a handling code were even slaves were concerned. But what use was that in this sad corner of Samovar among a million worlds?

His body shook from exhaustion. His face was windblown and sunburnt; his hair had started to lighten as well from Samovar’s strange chemical atmosphere. He knew he looked grotesque, a veritable mess of muscle and and wounded flesh. He winced as he tended to his injuries. For once, he was mindful of how he cared for himself. Should Lt. Jovan strike at him again, he would be ready; but for how long, he wasn’t certain.

“Paz.” It was Sten, who had warily approached him as lights-out commenced.

The hulk of a man didn’t reply. He reached out to tear another piece of bedding. His makeshift bandages were soaking through. He calmed himself down, measured his breaths. He needed to heal quickly. He’d used up most of the medicine Ragnar had risked his young life to provide him.

“Paz, know that we don’t hate you,” was Sten’s sudden and strange revelation.

Without turning to the man, Paz let his curiosity win. “I see no reason why you should do either. If anyone hates me, that’s not my problem.”

“Are you really a Mandalorian?” Sten couldn’t hide the wonder in his voice.

“Were. I’m no longer Mandalorian.”

“…and that feat back there shows otherwise, my friend. Many are saying: Why not? Only a Mandalorian would have the spunk enough to spite an Imperial officer, and shove it in his face.”

With that, Paz couldn’t help but pause in his wound-tending. For the first time in a while, his shoulders shook lightly with the right amount of mirth. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But I said what I meant. I broke my Creed. That alone had uprooted me of my birthright. But this doesn’t concern you. Lay off my past and you and I will be fine.”

He didn’t mean to make it sound like a threat. If the men could forget what Lt. Jovan had just revealed about his old identity that morning, all the better.

Sten had indeed looked uneasy, taken aback. Paz mended this with a quick inquiry. “How’s Dargo doing?”

Sten took a minute to reply. “He’s… he’s at infirmary.”

“Will he be all right?”

Sten’s mouth seemed to twist in itself. “I think the real question is: will you be alright, Paz? You’ve basically put a target on your back with that stunt you pulled at Lt. Jovan. Don’t stand out too much, my friend. Any higher and he’ll lop off your head.”

Paz had tried to drift off to slumber with Sten’s words mingling like bitter rind in his throat. He lay awake, stinging from his wounds, still trembling from fatigue and yet he couldn’t sleep it away. Sten could be right, but what could faze Paz now? He was a dead man walking. If there’s a target on his back more evident than it already was, then let the Imps play. He’ll play back.

***

“Paz?”

He was stirred awake by the harsh whispers of Gerrik calling his name. He grimaced in the dark, breath hitching from the heavy soreness all over his body. He turned in his cot to face the intruder: Gerrik was bent over him, his face distorted from worry.

Despite the scarce light, this was the first time Paz had entirely registered Gerrik’s features. He had a lopsided, bony face; dark eyes and thinning dirty blond hair, with streaks bleached to fine whiteness. There were scars on his face, pale welts around his neck where the shock collar lay fastened. He had thinned considerably that a gap was visible between collar and skin. Gerrik was able-bodied, tall and lean, but nowhere close to Paz’s stature.

Paz wondered how he had suddenly gained this clarity, when everything had dissolved into a muddy blur since he was flung to Samovar’s mines.

“What is it?” Paz whispered back, letting the pain settle under his skin.

“Sten’s gone out,” Gerrik said, voice quaking, “when Dargo didn’t return from infirmary. Paz—they never let slaves stay in medbay overnight. Or whatever the hell they call that stinking hole medbay. You’ve been there, right? The droids sent you right back. Everyone has to be in the communal quarters after lights-out, no exceptions; and two of our companions are missing.”

Paz got up slowly to not wake the others. He heard troubled snores and the low whimpers as nightmares lashed in their sleep. Everyone was too tired to take notice, anyhow.

“Of all the—!“ Paz had wanted to curse this dilemma. When he was first dragged into Samovar, he vowed never to form bonds with another living soul. His own soul was forfeit, and he was macabrely content to meet that arrangement. He didn’t expect deep worry to overcome him. Sten and Dargo… whether he liked it or not, he had formed bonds with them. They were his friends along with Gerrik. These men had not judged him for what he was.

“Had you a plan to do something about it?” Paz inquired.

The man crouched there, paralyzed. “I would’ve gone out myself to look for ‘em,” Gerrik admitted, his face abalone-shell pale. “But decided to tell you first… since… you… were a warrior, Paz. You’d probably know what to do best.”

Paz chuckled bitterly. “Load of bantha dung. I’m a shell of that warrior, useless now.” He didn’t seem to convince himself over it, and Gerrik’s expression mirrored that.

Gerrik had plopped helplessly on the cold steel floor of the tent, legs crossed. A dazed look fell over his face.

Paz shook his head in spite of himself. “This will be the death of all of us, Gerrik. But—very well. I’ll take a look. I’ll—“ He swallowed hard, finding the words. “I’ll try my best, but no promises.”

Gerrik’s response was full of gratitude, and to Paz’s own surprise, there was trust. This man trusted him, and Paz felt the pressure of this trust like a fist encroaching around his heart.

“Good luck, Paz.”

***

Paz had counted twelve sentries divided among six watchtowers overlooking the camp.

He needed to remember, force all the knowledge back into his skull. Fighting Corps training had been brutal but cohesive; most of his skills were instilled into him by muscle memory. It felt both rusty and new. He had wasted away in long periods of inaction in Nevarro’s sewers, and now in the mines. Yet, Paz had not completely disowned a lifetime of hard lessons as an apprentice of the Tribe.

He watched, observed, waited. He looked for telltale signs of surveillance holo-cameras, droids that lay in the shadows to ambush him with electric shocks and an unfortunate arrest. He felt the air on his skin, let it sink into his bones. The stars wheeled overhead; the humming of the slumbering mines met his ears, suddenly keen.

He measured, he counted, he calculated. The coast was clear and Paz stealthily made his way to medbay.

For a man his size, he was surprisingly nimble. Without the weight of his beskar’gam, Paz practically zipped through the night. He ignored the flashes of pain. He was too aware now of how much abuse his body took. He was reckless. He had shaved more years off his already doomed life.

He snuck over a look into the medbay window.

Empty. It was dark and unoccupied. The med droid was parked in a corner like a lifeless steel mannequin. It was on standby. Lights flickered over its body in mechanical slumber. A small sound or sudden movement would alert it to wakefulness.

Osik, Paz thought. No sign of Dargo or Sten.

He had fulfilled an end of his bargain, however. His search was futile. Two of his friends were absent and would probably at large once daylight struck. Paz had learned to cover his tracks, and wondered whether Sten and Dargo had that skill somehow, for he couldn’t decipher a trace of them.

He would give it another go as long as he can manage.

Paz trailed over a new route so he wouldn’t trample over the same ground twice. Small ghost lights burned like gaseous veils, naturally occurring in Samovar’s unique environment. They lent a glimmer Paz had needed to see the path before him.

He circled the new path. Still nothing. Paz was starting to grow weary. He shivered. Soon, the suns would rise and he shouldn’t be caught in the slightest thick of it.

He was about to turn heel and perhaps rethink another plan when—

“Mister… mister? Is that you?”

Paz bit his lip to prevent himself from swearing aloud.

The man had taken a short break under a large outcrop, hidden from full view of the western watchtowers. He took great care so he didn’t cast any shadows.

“Ragnar?” Paz recognized the child’s voice instantaneously.

Ragnar slowly emerged from the other side of the outcrop.

The little one was shaking, and his eyes were wet with tears.

Paz had to mouth the words, hoping Ragnar saw. “What are you doing here? Why—?” He made a motion of tears falling across his face. If Ragnar wondered the same question regarding Paz’s presence here, the boy showed no hint. He seemed too distraught.

Ragnar drew close to him so the larger man can hear.

“I was gonna go to Uncle Sten. I know it’s a crime, I’m totally not allowed when it isn’t visiting day. Mister… I’m scared. I’ve never been really scared before.”

The boy suppressed a fit of weeping. It took Paz monumental self-control not to scoop the distressed child in his arms. This had been his role in the Covert. Foundlings would find comfort in his beefy embraces. Some even fell asleep upon the cradle of his broad chest.

Paz the Guardian, the Protector, the warrior who could be anyone’e father, but somehow had chosen not to.

As Ragnar cried his quiet, hot tears, Paz wondered why he had never taken in a foundling to raise and love.

He banished the thought. The name Vizsla carried too much baggage, it was as if it had been verily cursed. He had come from an ancient line of Mandalorians. Generations of misfortune was very much part of his heritage.

But Paz couldn’t just stand there, quite literally. Instead, he carefully knelt before the child.

“Would you like to tell me why you’re scared?”

“It’s one of the kids, mister,” Ragnar’s voice was a wil-o’-the-wisp. “His name is Quinn. He’s been deathly sick and I know Uncle Sten knows his dad. I gotta tell ‘em… gotta…”

Paz was in a pickle. The two imbeciles whom he tried hunting down for all his upbringing as a tracker as well as a fighter were the same ones Ragnar were after.

The search brought them here together. Paz never believed in coincidences… but the child needed comfort. Moreover, while Ragnar possessed stealth of his own, he would surely be found out should the boy remain here longer.

“Ragnar… I need you to calm down for me. Can you do that, ad’ika?”

Paz paused cold. He had drifted into speaking his native tongue, and the child didn’t miss the detail.

“What does that mean, mister? Ad… ad…”

“It means ‘little one’ in my language.” Paz felt the frightening beauty of sharing an old part of himself to someone worthy of the knowledge, at this moment in time.

Ragnar nodded. “Okay… okay…” He hiccuped. “I can’t. I can’t calm down. I can’t. If Quinn dies, if he dies—“

Paz was frozen awhile, considering their plight. He was only one man, a man whose old life which could only serve him in times like these, when he acted alone.

He had become so accustomed to his circumstances, but the itch to be useful once more had grown much stronger.

Paz reached under his shift and took out the same medpac Ragnar had given him many rotations ago.

“There are still two vials of medicine left,” Paz informed the child softly. He pressed the kit into Ragnar’s palms. “The bacta’s in there. It’s too precious, and now I’m glad I saved it. Take this back to Quinn, Ragnar. He needs it more than I do.”

Ragnar’s eyes lit up, incredulous, as though he had witnessed a miracle. The boy was bawling quietly again.

“I’ll—I’ll sneak it back. Don’t you worry, Mister. I’ll get it to Quinn. Those stupid Imps’ve been giving him nothing but that old disgusting water. I hate it here—I hate it here!”

Paz couldn’t take the child’s suffering any longer. Ever so gently, so the child could recoil and refuse if he wanted, Paz had tenderly gathered Ragnar in a hug.

“Deep breaths, Ragnar,” Paz instructed him in the warmest of tones. “Inhale, hold it in for a few seconds, then breathe out. Keep doing it until you can think clearly again. I promise, you’ll feel better. You hear? It’ll be better.”

To Paz’s great relief, Ragnar had briefly sank into his massive arms. The boy did as he was told.

The brazen chill of twilight clawed over their bare heads. Ragnar slipped out of Paz’s hold; color returned to his face, and he had stopped his weeping.

“Th-thank you, mister. I think it helped,” said Ragnar, quite astonished.

“You had better head back now,” Paz advised.

Before Ragnar crawled upon the path where he had tread earlier, the boy had, in turn, pressed something cold and circular on Paz’s large canopy palms.

“598-227-33. That’s the code,” Ragnar hastily whispered. “I was gonna take it to Uncle Sten, but… you can have it now.” The child then vanished at a bend, taking a friend’s chance at recovery with him.

Paz stood there, agape, for what he held in his hands was a tiny holo-projector.

Ragnar had risked his young life yet again to deliver something which Paz never knew could be possible. A little child had thought of it, and he took the chance.

The holo-projector was most probably a map, and whoever consulted it would be led to the lair where the children were kept, and the code was one that would bolt their prison open.

***

Paz had returned to the quarters in time. The fatigue greedily ate at him. As soon as his body hit the cot, and no other man save for Gerrik had even cared that he left and returned, sleep overtook him. It was deep and dreamless, for once. He was comforted by the fact that he may have saved Dargo’s son’s life, if Ragnar had administered the medicines accordingly. He had hidden the holo-projector away where it would not be on his person. The bloodied tatters of his bedroll were enough to disgust and distract attention away from it. He slipped the device underneath.

He had been awoken by the abrupt wail of a siren alarm.

It brought back rushing memories of when he had to sound the alarm himself, back on the Nevarro, when the Imps rained down upon them like birds of prey.

The next sound which met his ears were those of beasts: growling, barking, almost feral with an obsession for the hunt.

His eyes flew open.

“Paz,” Gerrik had snuck to him once more. This time, Gerrik’s fear was palpable. It was so real, Paz practically leapt to his feet, disconsolate. Before he uttered another word, the other man spoke.

“It’s Dargo.” Gerrik struggled to let the words out. That’s when Paz saw the sorrow burning high in Gerrik’s eyes. “He’s dead. The hounds found him lifeless, but now… they have Sten. Outside. They’re assembling everyone at the open grounds. Paz… how the hell did it come to this? We’re kriffed!! Didn’t even know there were hounds. Corellian hounds. They’ll tear Sten apart.” Gerrik was rambling, gesturing wildly, and Paz had stilled him with a grasp on his shoulders.

Paz couldn’t believe his ears. It was all unraveling right before him. Dargo—dead. Gods. Sten would be punished for being caught out-of-quarters, and Paz hadn’t even stolen a chance to find out where they’ve disappeared to last night. Is Ragnar safe? The children… Quinn?

Another fatherless child…

Paz would somehow get to the bottom of this—

“OUT!!!! ALL YOU FILTH!! File out!!!!! A straight line close to the eastern wall. NOW!!”

You’re only one man, Paz, he reminded himself. Before they were forcefully seized into obeying orders, Paz clutched Gerrik by the elbow.

“You stay strong,” he told his shell-shocked friend.

He was uncertain if Gerrik heard, as they were all pushed out, drawn out violently by blaster-point tailing close on their backs. The men had raised their arms over their heads in surrender and servitude.

The camp seemed different now, more ominous and malevolent than ever before.

The men had lined up close to the eastern wall, but they faced the Imps. Last time, the slaves’ backs were turned. A year ago, the southern wall was awash with the blood of insane men, courageous men. Where had they been buried? No—they were surely cremated. There would be no evidence of a real uprising. What had the reports to the HQ said? A stupendously wasteful mining accident.

Paz was swiftly figuring it out, as though a maelstrom had cracked his mind open. Samovar’s suns beat on him as he walked along and filed in with the rest of the men.

His jaw clenched involuntarily and his eyes grew stormy, for before them stood the warped figure of Lt. Jovan standing high over a fallen Sten, curled up on the dust in manacles. The large, muscular body of a pale Corellian hound loomed above his unfortunate friend. Its powerful mandible, Paz noted, had closed upon one of Sten’s shackled legs.

Sten himself was saturated in shock. His eyes were frantic, body shaking like a leaf, his breaths quivering violently. Gashes on Sten’s arms bloodied his jumpsuit. It was horrendous display of a man beaten when he was already down, but Paz can only find gratitude over the fact that his friend was still alive.

But there, a few paces behind Sten was a body wrapped in a bloodied, grimy sheet. The horned outline of a Nikto’s face molded against the cloth. Paz was suddenly numb. At least, he thought, the Imps had the decency to cover Dargo’s body, away from exposure to the cruel elements. Grief trickled into his system, an all-too familiar feeling. He had lost a friend in this bleak, nightmarish world.

You’re only one man, Paz kept chanting in his mind. He didn’t know why, yet he didn’t seek explanation from his grieving heart.

Lt. Jovan was livid. Paz had to look down at his feet; how he hated that devil of an Imperial officer. The lieutenant spewed out a litany of how Dargo managed to get himself killed. Of course, the Nikto went beyond the perimeter, so the slave chip sensed the breach and exploded instantly.

“The fool’s head was nearly severed from its body.” Lt. Jovan’s shrill raving grated at Paz’s nerves in a profound way. “See—that’s what happens, and it’s no less than you deserve, should you attempt escape! And this other halfwit—“ the officer flicked at Sten’s head with a boot, and the man winced, eyes tight… Paz’s fist curled tighter at the sound of Sten in choked pain.

“Good for him, if I say so myself. Says he’s been trying to keep that fool of a Nikto from running over those berms. That mad bastard thinks he knows where the children are. Ha!!” Lt. Jovan was preening. “Fevered delusions. All that slave needed to do was wait for the proper time for the kid to see him. How dare you spit at my generosity! I have allowed those visitation hours, because I know—“ Here, the Imp dramatically let a fawning hand over his breast, “how it feels to be separated from a beloved parent for too long. But now—no more. Not until this scumbag here is taught a lesson!”

Lt. Jovan had placed a tiny whistle to his lips; he blew and it was a tinny, almost absent sound.

The Corellian hound that had its jaw locked into Sten’s leg had begun to twist its muscled torso, ready to torture the man once prompted.

“Stop. Stop this,” Paz croaked out. There it was again—the tenacity and desperation. Insanity had him by the throat. He had stepped out of line, literally, and the other men were hissing and howling quick insults at his brashness.

“What the hell is this guy doing?” one man growled.

“That Mandalorian thinks he’s so special,” remarked another querulously.

Paz’s body was taut as he made his speech. He ignored the barrage of voices speaking against him, disavowing him, swearing to break his neck for yet another show of incorrigible obstinacy.

“You can take me,” Paz suggested. His spoke clearly like an orator on a stage. He had found conviction now, and he clung to it. “I will take that man’s place. I offer myself to accept the punishment which could have been his.” His voice dropped low, matter-of-factly, truthfully. Paz saw it as plain as day in Lt. Jovan’s eyes—an infernal sadist resided within that gaze. “I know it, lieutenant. You want me to suffer, but you couldn’t kill me. I’m the prized trophy you can use to gloat at the other officers. A Mandalorian at your bidding, one you wished to break. Am I not correct?”

The uproar was veritable. Many of his fellow slaves were vindictive and agreed outright to Paz’s offer, that he suffer in Sten’s place. Some, however, were protesting against the exchange. Let the punishment befit the criminal. No one else should carry another man’s burden.

You’re only one man, was Paz’s mantra, echoing in frenzied thought.

Lt. Jovan looked absolutely beleaguered. There was his real, monstrous desire to hack at Paz’s innermost will, to break his spirit to the fullest. On the other hand, the Imp refused to be ordered around by a slave.

The Imp had decided to build an illusion of choice.

“Do you want this man flogged for his insolence?” Lt. Jovan had a pair of humanoid droids, grips as powerful as the clamps of the refinery machines yet could not be spared to the refinery themselves, to subdue the ill-mannered brute of a giant.

Paz was brought before the false jury.

Many had begun to hesitate, much to Lt. Jovan’s sheer disappointment. Paz had thought—as heat swallowed him along with a warring chill and he began to tremble against the droid guards’ hold—that the men couldn’t truly condemn one of their own. The Imps were the real enemy. Paz could almost hear their thoughts—fearful musings that were needles tugging at the fibers of his brain. 

The lieutenant’s scowl was dark. He yelled the orders, forgoing the pretentious vote entirely.

“Chain that man unto that steel beam. That’d hold the bulk of him. I want an electro-whip in my hand on the double or there’ll be hell to pay!”

The droids had strung him fast to the beam. Paz dangled there; like a holo-reel in slow motion, he saw the world through the view of a bystander. It was not in him to disassociate in times of agony, but everything had become too surreal. The inner loathing he had purged out of himself inched its way back into his heart.

Paz held on to his conviction, telling himself that this was done honorably. Sacrifice, brotherhood. Pride in mandokarla. He would trade a bit of indignity for the life of a friend. Dargo may have perished by his own doing, but Lt. Jovan, with all due merit, had kept his word and Dargo was treated in medbay. How far could he trust the Imp’s word now, in exchange for Sten’s life?

Should Sten die, Ragnar would be truly alone.

He felt the searing tendrils of the electro-whip meet his bare back. Once, twice—five lashes in succession.

His jumpsuit had been ripped at the seams so forcefully that he felt his bones twist in their sockets. It exposed the target to Lt. Jovan, holding the whip gleefully like a child in a candy store.

The electro-whip’s settings were manipulated so the plasma emitted from its bowels mimicked the true texture of a leather whip, razor-forked like the tail of a Nexu beast.

The Imp lashed the oppressive weapon at Paz again. And again.

Sweat started to dribble from Lt. Jovan’s face from the visible effort. He lashed again.

“Why aren’t you crying out, you bastard?” the lieutenant’s voice cracked terribly with the sound of the whip. “Don’t you feel pain? Or are you Mandalorians impervious to it, like the monsters you are?”

The Imp had violently set the whip at Paz’s back until the ugliest of lacerations tore at his flesh. Some had fallen bone-deep. Blood pooled slowly at Paz’s feet, dangling mere inches away from the ground. Yet he didn’t make a sound. He would give Lt. Jovan the satisfaction of beating him ragged, until there was nothing left of his back but ruined pulp.

But he would never allow the Imp the jubilation of hearing him cry out in pain.

Paz had let his mind wander, allowed himself a place in his dreams where he was upon the lush grass of Concordia once more. Mandalore was a half-orb at a distance, bronzed and sterile on the surface, yet an entire civilization flourished within its domed cities.

The pain was nothing but pressure now. He had secured his spirit in a memory of Concordia as he suffered through the ordeal. Paz thought he heard a prayer flow through his blood-flecked lips. He didn’t know the prayer. It seemed like something from rote, long-forgotten, but this hellscape of a reality had pushed it out of him.

Lt. Jovan kept hacking at the flesh of his back, like skinning bark off a tree.

Paz wondered for a moment whether Lt. Jovan found more entertainment in killing him, after all.

His breath bled out of him as surely as his life’s blood. He can no longer count the times he was close to blacking out. He kept the pain locked deep within. His face was but an expressionless mask. Was it humanly possible for him to keep at it, now that he was surely eroding away?

There was so much blood everywhere. It was hot liquid against his skin, crimson and gleaming in many large pools at his feet.

He could be dying. In the haze of it all, he laughed to himself.

You’re only one man, the voice taunted him again. What makes you think… you can save them all?

That wouldn’t be his problem anymore once he was cold and dead, forever done with this desolate existence.

Paz was drifting away. His breath had become haphazard, uneven, lost. His body slowly grew slack, no longer reactive to the onslaught hailing upon him.

The final commotion that seeped into his senses was the sound of another command, more robust and authoritative. It was a clarion reverberating through the vestiges of his consciousness.

“Lieutenant!!! Desist immediately! THAT IS AN ORDER!!!”

Paz had thought dimly—he would never know who issued that order, and why. There were finally tears in his eyes, falling away in pathetic droplets and mingling with the sea of blood around him.

The Mandalorian seemingly breathed his last.

***

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: A Fiery Absolution, Part 1

Paz had thought he saw a man in his dreams. It was certainly human in silhouette; his face was shadowed but he knew, by some instinct, that that man—whoever it was—had his head tilted upwards, watching him as though Paz were on display.

An then the man had disappeared…

A myriad of sensations flooded back into Paz’s slack limbs. He realized that he had burst awake, and that he was floating, tethered, unable to move far. At first he couldn’t see. All he saw was opaque film, and he felt the warmth of viscous fluid encasing his hulking form.

He breathed thin oxygen through a mask covering half his face, and he felt a thrum in his chest, felt the hum of blood flow hot in his veins, and that was when Paz slowly realized that he had undoubtedly awoken in a bacta tank—

And that he was alive.

There was hardly time to react. His body felt like lead, his limbs carrying an onerous weight and he moved sluggishly that for a moment, Paz thought he was dreaming—or he lingered in a limbo deprived of the Oversoul.

Soon, he was bodily lifted out of the tank’s cradling womb as though he were born again from a dull void. His only response was to shiver, as he seemed to be in a room with a slightly cooler temperature than what he had become accustomed to on Samovar, on Nevarro…

The next sound he heard was the mechanical voice of a droid.

“The patient is healed from initial serious injuries and self-recuperation may commence.”

Injuries—?

In the haze of forming lucidity, Paz looked up and blankly studied the diagnostics flashing in small holo-screens next to the bacta tank. A diagram of a human form blinked into view, highlighting a slew of internal damage which the bacta had sought to fix: ruined muscle, broken ribs which gave way to bruised lungs, deep lacerations angrily carved by the plasma whip. A considerable amount of blood loss; rising infections nipped at the bud.

Paz grimaced in disbelief.

His memories were jumbled to the point of sheer disorientation; but it was the surprising, grating familiarity of a medical droid’s report on his condition which anchored him to the present.

But… how? Why waste precious bacta on a mere slave? Why this extreme switch of treatment?

“Sir, you are to be dressed comfortably and in 0200 shall be promptly fetched to see the Captain. That will be ten minutes from now…”

“Where am I?”

Paz finally found his voice. He winced; it was scratched, and he sounded so unlike himself. He had even forgotten how he once sounded like, altered and disguised by vocoder, but that was a life long ago…

He addressed the droid with clumsy authority and a hint of desperation. This must be a trick. He was certain that he had died back on Samovar. His body and mind had snapped and there was nothing but the silence of a metaphorical tomb. He had welcomed that darkness, and he had ceased resisting the clutches of death in those final moments of immense pain. Had he cried out? He felt cold again. No… no. Even in his dying throes, he would never give the enemy the satisfaction of reveling in his agonized screams.

When Paz made no move to clothe himself, the medical droid, with the awkward tenderness of a rusty caregiver, draped a robe over the man’s broad shoulders.

“You are in The Celestial Flame, sir. A Victory-II-class frigate under the command of Captain Isak Holden.”

Paz froze, considering the med droid’s words. He was particular over the fact, as clarity returned to him, that the droid omitted the words “star destroyer,” as was the true nature of these vessels.

“How long have I been in the bacta tank?” Another question for the droid, which the automaton replied with a steady:

“You have been administered treatment in the bacta tank for two days. Increment sessions are recommended. 90.8% of the damage has insofar been repaired.”

“That would be enough,” croaked Paz, not wanting to linger in this facility far longer than he needed to.

As it was, Paz was seemingly at the mercy of this veritably odd situation. It was as if he had awoken into another world, into another life, and his previous circumstances were a mistake, and this droid was the herald to rectify it. It was a proper medical droid at that, and Paz appeared to be indeed in a better-equipped medbay. A momentary madness seized him, and he sat idly, his shivering slowly dispelled, wondering what the hell could have happened since Samovar.

Before his fight-or-flight defenses roared into full gear, he was met with the swish of opening doors. Paz felt his body tense, on the ready, but he was still too weak even in recovery. He seemed as fragile as a newborn despite his bulk, so he had made an agreement with himself to get to the bottom of this without protest.

Two RA-7 protocol droids entered; Paz made a quick assessment to check if they were armed, even if these models were not made for combat.

These droids bore no weapons, which further bewildered the man. Did they not see him as a threat to treat him with reckless ease?

One of them, however, tentatively approached him with what looked like a pair of mid-ankle boots.

“I hope it is to size, sir,” said the droid with a touch of reverence.

After being treated like scum and dirt on the slave camp of Samovar, this seemed akin to a slap on the face for Paz. He scowled, yet he cautiously acquiesced to the offer. The boots were a little ill-fitting but he said nothing. They were also, as Paz noted, brand new and crafted from fine leather.

“If you please, sir. Follow us.”

Paz felt a moment’s defiance; it alarmed him, knowing that his faculties were returning, and with the right motivation, he could turn belligerent. He kept his reservations and followed the protocol droids into the lion’s den, so to speak, if this Captain Holden was far from anything of a pleasant host.

***

The destination was but a short distance away, yet Paz noted the effort he needed to walk through the ship's dim corridors. He dared not believe that he could possibly be indebted to an Imperial officer. This frigate seemed to be refitted from the days of the Empire, and he for certain knew that his rescuers were not of the New Republic. Only the Remnant or a crime syndicate would have access to the utterly dismal proceedings of slave camps.

Hold off… he thought. Paz needed answers and it would do no good to be overly reactive.

Besides, he was still sapped of his full strength. He was, in more vulgar terms, a sitting duck.

The protocol droids escorted him to a door which swished open at his proximity.

He beheld a gaping space within, but the droid’s voice was even. “If you please, sir. The captain awaits.”

Paz wordlessly and warily went through the doors, mildly surprised that the droids’ duty of escorting him ended there. He immediately took stock of the room which seemed to have materialized around him as atmospheric lights donned the horizon.

There were two humanoid figures speaking in low volume further into what appeared to be a common room. It was spacious and mildly scented with what Paz vaguely remembered to be cedarwood.

The next sight which met Paz made him bristle.

For the two figures upon closer inspection belonged to two human men, and one of them was the sickeningly despicable lieutenant Jovan, the slaver who held the whip and nearly ended his life!

It didn’t escape Paz that Lt. Jovan had noticed his presence. The man’s face twisted in a shocking turn of chagrin, mixed with fragments of disgust.

The other man turned to face Paz knowingly.

This other man—he had stately poise which veiled a mysteriously tortured disposition. His face was pinched but possessed handsome features, nonetheless. The man could be a bit older than thirty. He was clean-shaven with a defined jaw, an aquiline nose, deep green eyes and tan skin. An officer’s cap crowned his oaken-hued hair.

The young man had broken into a stiff smile, but Paz couldn’t fathom why remorse shone clearly in his eyes.

“Ah,” began the man in customary Imperial airs, which lightly turned a switch of abhorrence within Paz. “I see that you are on the mend. Very good. Lieutenant Jovan—“ the young man called to the other without regarding him as was respectful; in fact, there was a curious disdain in the officer’s tone, directed fully at the unfortunate lieutenant who was none too excited to behold the slave he had almost executed by his own hand.

“—Do you know who our guest is?” continued the strange officer, and Paz could hardly believe this apparent change of status.

Paz found the righteous audacity to look at the quivering lieutenant in the eye as Jovan’s lip curled, quite under duress as he was hard-pressed by a higher ranking officer.

“That man is…” Jovan swallowed hard, his eyes aflame yet his expression was shadowed, “That man is B-0477. Sir, respectfully, you are mistaken in letting this lowlife into your ship, much less into a bacta tank! He is a slave and the brig would be a more fitting—“

“We have agreed, lieutenant,” the captain roughly cut Jovan off, “that my decision is final, and that sort of outburst would gain a deaf ear. You are wrong, Lt. Jovan. And you will set this right. Now—apologize to our guest. You shall address him as Lord Vizsla. I want to hear it loud and clear. Don’t stutter, man. You are an officer of the Imperial Remnant and such blanching is beneath you.”

Now that had caught Paz off-guard, yet he dared not allow this timely vindication to rush over him in waves. Lord Vizsla. Paz inwardly scoffed. He had never owned such a title even during the glory days before the Great Purge struck. However, a spark of pettiness welcomed the sight of Lt. Jovan squirming like a tadpole in profound humiliation.

It rubbed salt further into the lieutenant’s wounded ego that the captain seemed to enjoy this show with a subdued glint of mockery in his eyes.

Lt. Jovan could not feign good graces. His face was pained; the captain may as well have placed the man at blaster-point. A small smile, a twitch of the brow, a barely concealed frown.

“I apologize for my actions, Lord Vizsla,” Lt. Jovan stated tremulously. It added comical effect that he decided on a tiny bow as an afterthought. Jovan had suddenly shrunken to the size of a figurative ant which the captain could step on at any moment. It was prodigiously clear that the captain was not pleased over the entire affair, and his watchful eye kept Jovan in decorum.

The lesser man could not meet Paz in the eye, even as Paz continued to level him with an acute, unflinching gaze.

The officer who was surely Captain Holden chuckled. “Wonderful. See? I’m quite relieved that honor still runs in our veins. You are dismissed, lieutenant. Promptly return to your station and we shall not speak of this again. Are we clear?”

Lt. Jovan broke in sweat as he spoke. He seemed to be at the point of tears. The loathing in Paz grew for this pathetic creature. How this man had treated him with unspeakable indignity for the likes of a Mandalorian, and yet his true colors were shamelessly unfurled, ones that belong to a despised hu’tuun.

“A-aye, Captain Holden,” stammered the lieutenant. “L-long live the Empire.” He saluted, marched off, and was quickly out of the common room.

Now, it was just the captain and a towering slave-turned-guest who faced each other alone.

In faint recollection, Paz knew it was Captain Holden who had been observing him by the bacta tank while he drifted in and out of consciousness, integrating the captain’s presence in his dreams and it haunted Paz for a second.

Paz couldn’t gauge what he must look like to this officer who was confirmed to be an Imperial dog. Warring emotions fought within him and his eyes must have reflected that blaze as the captain broke eye contact with some discomfort.

“That’s how it’s run here,” the captain bridged the silence with casual talk. “Let the likes of Lt. Jovan take charge of things, and all he thinks is how destructive he can pull his governance off. Such creatures need their leashes. He must’ve not been expecting me. His former superior had been reassigned and I took her place. Jovan and I were colleagues and it seemed I had surpassed him by a mere margin. It helps, however, to be from a prestigious family.”

Paz hadn’t interrupted the captain despite comprehending what he may be getting at. His fists were clenched and he kept composure, regardless. This was someone who had managed to save his life, after all, but to what exact purpose and end?

The captain sought eye contact again, and he looked calmer, as though he shook off the debris of great disappointment and frustration. He reintroduced that smile.

“Where are my manners? You may have probably guessed—I am Captain Isak Holden.” The man held up a hand cordially, but it hung suspended as the large man didn’t take it. Holden remained unperturbed and quietly retracted the gesture. “And you, sir, are Paz Vizsla, from a noble clan of Mandalore.”

“Concordia,” Paz blurted out the correction, heat rising to his face. “And noble? The Vizslas are of an ancient house, true. But I am no longer Mandalorian…” He stopped short. Should he be telling these very private things to one he couldn’t determine whether he was brief ally or eternal foe?

Captain Holden strode to a portable bar at a corner. Paz noticed that the captain seemed nervous as he poured himself a drink; thought twice as he poured a second glass.

“I do not partake in vices, captain,” Paz uttered coldly.

Holden sighed in puzzling relief as he left the second glass empty.

Even more puzzling was the cheerfulness in Holden’s tone as he addressed Paz. “You must know, Lord Vizsla—“

“What is this nonsense? Just call me ‘Paz.’ It’s an improvement from being called a number.”

“Of course,” the captain assented. “Paz, if I must beg your pardon. Lt. Jovan’s report exaggerated your level of debasement, said that you have been broken—an imbecile made for subjugation and certain death. I understand that as a thorough attack on your person. He is livid. You had, after all, tried to spit at his face. Well—that face does deserve a bit of dribble, if I say so myself. I am relieved that you are none of those things. You are far from broken.”

Holden chuckled as he sipped from his glass, but Paz found no humor in it. He had fallen past raging fury. He was surprised at how he heard this all, and yet remained numb save for his balled fists and his piercing gaze.

“Why did you save my life?” Paz demanded, striking the heart of the matter.

Holden seemed pensive awhile, considering an apt response. His eyes danced; he may as well pick a particular grain of sand in a dune heap.

“You are a nobleman of a prestigious Mandalorian clan. Believe it or not—in Imperial officer training, we are made to study diplomacy of many wolds. The customs of Mandalore shouldn’t be scorned by outsiders. Many take these subjects for granted. Anyone drunk in their power would see themselves above anyone else. But I am digressing. Enslaving Mandalorian nobility is extremely bad form. My fellow officers would think none of it, but that was how we had failed as an Empire. It was the hubris of it all. I had wished to correct my own doings long ago and keep my dealings under honorable conduct. I couldn’t do that at the height of Imperial reign. Now that the Remnant is all that’s left, I have more flexibility to exert my will as officer.”

Paz had to drink this in. Either this Holden was a pretender, a liar—or he was most definitely an outlier. The Imperials were devils of space. For kriff’s sake—they had orchestrated the genocide of his people! Mandalore was glassed down, cursed forever, because of the infestation of Imperial demons.

The hulk of a man felt a strain in his heart.

He had fought Din Djarin vehemently over such matters. Paz would rather have the Covert spend a cycle with no provisions than accept those bought out of commission by indirectly serving Imperial interests. For Paz, it had always been a contention about honor. Oh—how proud he was to the point, indeed, of zealotry. But that had been the Way. Or was that his own inflexible principle? How far had he fallen from the pedestal he planted himself on?

“You place me in a debt of gratitude… captain,” Paz slowly mouthed the words. He felt weakness overwhelm him again. The storm of his emotions were taking a toll. His healing was not yet complete despite the bacta.

Holden’s expression changed to that of a man bludgeoned by conscience and yet shackled by duty.

“If that is your prerogative,” whispered the captain, choosing his words. “But that is completely unnecessary. You see, Paz—I have nullified your sale into slavery. Your chip was removed while the med droids treated you. Why do I call you a guest? It’s because I now speak to a free man.”

Reflexively, Paz reached out to meaty part of his neck where the slaver’s chip had been injected. He would always feel an invasive lump move underneath the skin where the chip was. But that lump was no longer there.

The strain in Paz grew heavier. It was taking all his strength to remain upright, to keep his recouped stance. His breaths were labored.

“How much power do you wield in this place, Holden?” Paz had become agitated enough to address his host by last name, but the captain made no move to correct him. “Slavery is illegal in the first place… and I should not have been captured to be sold on top of that! Why free me and not the others? Is it simply because I am nobility? My status was marked by how faithfully I carried the legacy of my ancestors. Mandalorians keep tradition to themselves. I followed a Creed of which I had broken. I am an apostate. I’m a nomad with no home. You think you can reinstate my humanity with a piece of contract as quickly as you’ve taken it away?”

Those words became the last straw. Paz had lost steam and he tottered, stumbled…

The sound of shattering glass filled the expanse as Holden dropped his drink to quickly free his hands and hold Paz in place before the large man hit the floor.

Paz felt instantaneous revulsion over physical contact with an Imp, but Holden seemed just as agitated. His features were haggard, as though he had been robbed of sleep for many nights following his “promotion” to this side of the galaxy, over a planet with an industry thriving on slave labor.

“In my own education, it’s an unfortunate fact of life that all sentients are not born equal,” Holden huffed in subdued argument. It took effort to keep Paz on his feet. Thankfully, Paz had held his ground. He absently pressed a hand to his side where a dull pain was forming. Sweat beaded on his brow.

Paz let the captain continue. His stamina for counterargument was lost in the pain.

“Some of us are born into privilege. I, for one—“ Holden’s voice hardened. “It’s no use. What many see as privilege is truly my gilded cage. I’m an officer, and so was my father, my mother, my siblings, cousins—I am from an Imperial pedigree. It’s my name which kept me impervious to the usual politics that pollute the galactic landscape. I have learned to respect it as much as I despise it, but it has kept me and my family alive. One false move could bring dishonor, but I have been flung so far in the Outer Rim that my actions would hardly make a ripple. But there you were, Paz. I can free one slave. You can leave anytime and not be a fugitive. I don’t care what you do to your renewed freedom. I am weary.”

Holden’s rambling came to an abrupt halt. He had released Paz from his supportive hold with an anxious sort of dread.

“Are there not much of you left? You Mandalorians?” asked the captain.

Paz’s lips were sealed. He studied the captain with eyes laced with his own distinct weariness.

“I am sorry for your people. Had it been my own damn way… this so-called Purge… would not have…” Holden struggled, this time, to find the right words. The notion lay suspended, incomplete.

The hulking man remained impassive. He couldn’t stand another word from this conflicted soul.

Holden prodded the last words out of his system before he entreated Paz to return to medbay and rest.

“Your armor,” the captain said softly. “I’ve preserved it. When I heard of your capture and sale, I had bought the beskar from Jovan’s hands. Please do not resent me for it. No, you are not indebted to me. By the gods—it’s the least I can do. Your armor is intact and will be delivered to you in your quarters promptly. You may leave me now, sir. I grow completely weary.”

For some arcane reason, Paz had refused to budge. Suddenly, he wanted to shake more answers out of Holden. A torrent of the many decades of injustice whirled in his skull—questions, many rhetorical ones that can’t be pinned down by a single truth.

His indecisiveness to leave, however, seemed to have coaxed more confidence out of the Imperial, as Paz had wanted.

What Holden relayed to him was something Paz had least expected.

“I have… I have met one of your kind, three years ago. But he was a bounty hunter.”

Someone immediately came to mind, but Paz patiently listened on, hand pressed over his throbbing side. This was a story he needed to hear.

Holden decided to distract himself as he spoke. Instead of interrupting their privacy by calling in a servant droid, he opted to clean the shards of the broken drinking vessel himself. He picked up the glimmering fragments, unceremoniously tossing them into a nearby garbage chute.

“My family is powerful but certainly not beloved. I was shocked to discover that there was a bounty on my head. I never knew who the perpetrator was—we do have enemies across the galaxy. For all I know it could’ve been a fellow Imperial, envious of my fortune. In any case—that Mandalorian came for me. Said that he could bring me in warm or cold. Such jargon. He thought I was alone. I knew he would kill me the moment I resisted. He was simply doing his job, following an expensive commission…”

Holden’s attempts to sound unaffected were in vain. He uselessly cleaned up the finer pieces of glass from the carpet, glittering like stars against a dark cloud. Paz noticed drops of crimson on the last bits of crystal. The captain had accidentally cut himself in the process and made no fuss.

“…the Mandalorian unsheathed his blaster. He was about to point it at me when I did plan to make a run for it—my fear had made me stupid, but, Maker, the night could’ve gone far worse. My little daughter flew out the door of our home. I was outside, walking around for some fresh air and my daughter had wanted to see me, chanced upon the moment where I was being taken in as bounty…

“My little girl had placed herself between me and the Mandalorian! What sort of father was I to bring her to that kind of peril? Where I was paralyzed by trepidation, she had sprung into action. She pleaded for the Mandalorian to spare my life. My daughter was all of seven years old. Indeed I would’ve fought back against a fully armed Mandalorian for the sake of my daughter, had he placed her in real harm. There is nothing truly left worth dying for in this wretched galaxy, but that never counted my dearest Celeste. I would gladly die for her…”

Celeste, Paz thought. The medical droid had informed him that this vessel’s name was The Celestial Flame. How sentimental for a father to name his ship after his daughter… but that would not be beyond a Mandalorian’s own regard for their child.

“The Mandalorian sheathed his weapon. He looked at me, at my daughter. I was shaken, my daughter stood tall. Then he left. The Mandalorian simply left; he didn’t bring reinforcements nor did he return. He let me go. What was the price he had to pay for that blunder? That is why my debt runs deeper than I could presume. You may not be that Mandalorian, and you may not even know him, but in his honor, I wished to repay it. Paz, I hope it is not in vain. My daughter had her father for a bit longer because a Mandalorian wouldn’t dare harm a child in front of her parent. I am most sincere when I say that I regret what happened to your people. My pathetic apology would not bring them back, but I can bring you back. Do you have a family, Paz? Return to them. I am sorry about your Creed. Anyway, now you know my story. I’ll feel more at peace.”

***

The same RA-7 droids that had escorted him earlier were those which directed him to his quarters. It was not far from medbay should he need any assistance.

Paz had quickly concluded that this frigate was sorely understaffed, at least by human crew members. Captain Holden couldn’t have simply set him loose with this much information on the Remnant’s situation. Paz could easily draw a report and would be part of his ticket to returning to the Covert with an ounce of dignity. But how better were the Mandalorians? They were both living on steam, clinging to tenuous threads of life and ambition.

His armor was indeed waiting for him, as Holden promised. It was the first sight which greeted Paz as he crossed the threshold to his assigned quarters.

A small sob escaped him. At one glance, he knew the inventory on his Heavy Infantry beskar’gam was complete. All the parts were displayed upright, as though another warrior stood in the room, wearing his armor. Gooseflesh crawled over his skin. He felt disgustingly naked next to this regal shell of his once-birthright. Was he worthy of wearing it again? In his case, it would be nothing but an overly expensive costume. Beskar iron mixed with the long sacrifice of his ancestors would not suffer an apostate.

Paz pondered on: he was a free man again. A part of him reveled in it; a larger part wallowed in great denial.

He couldn’t just leave Ragnar, Sten, and the rest of the children and the slaves on Samovar behind.

The price of regaining his armor was too high. Even his freedom didn’t cover the price of what the slaves needed to continue laboring for. Did he have it in him to just abandon them, after he himself had an unabashedly ugly taste of how their lives were run?

No, Paz thought. Holden was wrong. The notion of sentients being born unequal was a shallow lie. One cannot outmeasure the essence of another because of wealth, of status, or what-have-you. That was why Paz had such deference to the Creed. He was not exempt from it, should he break it—and broken it he had, even if it was not of his deliberate doing. The visor gave the Mandalorians a single face, one not above the other. It was only by Holden’s own personal code and ironic debt of gratitude which provided Paz the fortune of being freed because of his lineage. He couldn’t deny that such lineage had earned him better treatment than most, even among fellow Mandalorians. And admittedly, he had allowed some of it to get to his head.

Paz ignored the pinpricks of pain that assaulted his exhausted body as he slowly circled the empty beskar’gam. Captain Holden was thorough. His heavy repeating blaster was latched to his jetpack. Was Holden a fool for giving Paz unlimited access to live weaponry, and ones which he undoubtedly had expertise in? The buy’ce alone was a weapon. The vambrace, his flamethrower… by the Manda. Holden was blanketing him with blind trust.

I grow completely weary.

Those were the captain’s words. Was Holden giving up on the very system which sustained him thus far—the gilded Imperial cage which he willingly locked himself in? What of Celeste?

And then Paz’s thoughts shifted to the bounty hunter of Holden’s tale.

There was no mistake on who that beroya was. Din Djarin was the only warrior allowed to traverse the surface, if the incident indeed occurred three years ago.

He was even beginning to miss the man he once called brother. In a way, he had become indebted to Din, and it was an arrangement which he found more agreeable than one which made him beholden to an Imperial.

Yet, Paz had already saved Din before. How was his brother doing, as well as the child he'd rescued? Din had always stayed true to the code, and Paz was teetering to the edge of unreasonableness when he pounced at the other warrior over an Imperial commission. Din would never harm a child.

And so would Paz not bring a child to harm.

He held the image of little Ragnar in his mind, how the boy had counted on him with all his heart, as he unhooked his armor from the stand and had ceremoniously donned each piece.

He let the weight of the armor sink into him, meld into him once more. Breaking the Creed didn’t deprive him completely of the right to his armor; it was the helmet whereupon the question lay. He had kept it on the stand and it stared at him with its visor, blacker than night. It had an oddly patient look to it, an almost forgiving gaze, and Paz hoped his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him, manipulating him into wearing the buy’ce again despite his oath.

The flight suit hung loose upon his limbs. The armor hung loose along with it, and Paz had to make quick adjustments over his much leaner frame since he wore the entire suit last. He had lost a tremendous amount of weight and had not regained the muscle through hard manual labor.

Paz hesitated as he had a small stare-down with his own helmet. He wanted to commune with the spirit of the beskar in some way—what honor would he hold should he wear the buy’ce again as an apostate?

Overthinking wasn’t his manner. He was fundamentally a man of action. As he reached out to pluck the helmet from its stand, something shiny and minuscule had fallen out from within the depths of the helmet.

Paz caught it in a flash.

It was the kyr’bes pendant—the mythosaur skull, the ubiquitous symbol of the Mandalorians.

He had forgot that he even owned such a precious artifact. Not everyone from the Tribe were presented with the high honor of a kyr’bes necklace. Only the best warriors were granted it—

—Din was one such warrior.

Paz was one also… if he accepted the position once more.

He had wished for an answer to a droning prayer in his head just as the necklace made its presence abruptly known. Was that the reply? Was the beskar indeed a living armor that interceded to the Manda on behalf of its wearer?

He ran a hand tenderly over the tiny grooves of the pendant.

He sat slowly upon the edge of his cot. He was shaken by the sound of his own weeping. These were healing tears, he realized. He had not shed any since the moment he was sold into slavery. He had become a dead man walking. He thought of Dargo, he thought of his dear deceased Nikto friend’s small son. He thought of Ragnar and his foolhardiness, of Sten and Gerrick and their willing friendship in the unrelenting bleakness of the labor camps.

He let the tears fall onto his armor. It was not enough to cleanse him of his transgressions—there still may be intricate rituals to purify one of such sins, but Paz knew in his heart of hearts that he was the only one who can do this. It  was a seemingly insurmountable task.

He would fight to free Ragnar and the children of Samovar.

And yet, a feeling of unwitting guilt nudged at him when he thought of Captain Isak Holden.

Paz held his buy’ce upon his forehead, letting the cold beskar rest on his skin for a sacrosanct instant.

His resolve was complete when Paz had finally slid the buy’ce upon his head, resealing the pact which was the best use of his newfound freedom.

This is the Way, Paz whispered in his mind, the words sounding foreign and yet ringing true.

Tonight, he would return to Samovar.

***

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: A Fiery Absolution, Part 2

“I’m afraid your return to Samovar may complicate things, Paz. Your friends whom you have left behind, sadly, know you to be dead.”

Paz performed a routine check on his armor and munitions, revisiting his earlier conversation with Captain Holden, letting it further sink in—a conversation he hadn’t expected in relatively peaceful terms from this frigate’s commanding officer.

Waves of pain racked Paz’s still-recovering body as he ran various diagnostics on his buy’ce and beskar’gam for any tampering. Other than a few burnt wires and micro-units, Paz was astounded at his armor’s integrity. That was one thing less to worry about. Perhaps he had the captain to thank yet again. Any data stored in the systems of his suit could’ve been hacked and easily used against him.

Paz pondered at Captain Holden’s earnestness over his dealings with a once-captive Mandalorian. Lieutenant Jovan had perceived Paz as a trophy, merely property.

In stark contrast, Captain Holden regarded Paz as some sort of savior.

Paz was embracing the fact that this sole aruetii was an outlier, a resistance of one man who had recruited a Mandalorian into this stealthy cause.

“Dead?” the word was bile in Paz’s throat. Holden beheld Paz in his fully armored form; his face was obscured by the helmet so the captain no longer deciphered any pertinent expression from his guest.

Paz kept his prudence in the wake of Holden’s statement. He was drawn to the captain with the same morbid curiosity Holden did towards the Mandalorian. Paz recognized desperation and fear in a sentient; he sensed both in Holden, shadowed and barely breaking the surface.

“It was information disseminated without my knowledge,” Holden explained stiffly. His visage was stoic, yet his eyes mirrored a complexity which burdened the man. “Lieutenant Jovan has numerous counts against him. I’ve set him loose, so now he’s informed the camp that you had finally perished. Big talk for the likes of him. He had used the plasma whip with unbridled cruelty that the men unfortunately believed him. At the time, when I was able to get to you, you were hardly breathing. Your blood had splattered on my uniform from the lashes just as Jovan heeded my order.”

The hulk of a man remained silent, aware. With a tiny nod of his helmet, he bade the captain continue after a weighted pause.

“Paz,” Holden went on,, "I despise Lieutenant Jovan, and I am most certain that he despises me. I have constantly upstaged him throughout our careers, and I made sure to turn the blade on the wound I’ve caused in all those years when I took command of The Celestial Flame, with jurisdiction over Samovar and its neighboring worlds. Yet I deeply despise this whole affair. Slavery is tasteless as it is primitively baseless. Its perpetuation is for a symbolic purpose rather than a practical one. It is a tool to convey encompassing control over sentient beings who are indoctrinated with the illusion that their lives are forfeit. The Remnant find ways everyday to reinstall tighter grips on the fringes of the galaxy.

“I despise it all, and yet I gain no conviction or courage to put a stop to it. Now that I am finally in charge, I can do something. And you came in. Jovan had gloated about owning you and your armor, most especially the armor. A status symbol for himself, but I managed to purchase it off his hands. The cost of the armor is only a fraction less than the monstrosity I had helped prolong when I couldn’t find a way out. Jovan couldn’t deny me, even if he vehemently wished to. The powerful network established within my family of Imperial officers was the only thing holding him back from mutiny. I would always have to be two steps ahead of him. I did my research on you, more so than the information on your chain code. Pardon the succinctness, but Paz—you are my way out.”

Paz shuffled on his feet in subtle and dark distress.

“I do not follow,” Paz admitted, his low rumbling voice laced with a veiled threat—done out of habit, as all habits of his old self returned to him gradually. “I detest being used, Holden. Least of all by the likes of an Imperial.”

Captain Holden had provided audience with Paz in his private office. Its viewport spanned half the room, and below them, the warm glow of the planet Samovar engulfed the horizon. The Celestial Flame had remained in orbit during Paz’s days in the bacta tank.

Beforehand, Holden had made a blatant show of a full sweep of the office so no one overheard their discussion. No droids were in sight. The surveillance cameras were muted and had trained their focus away from the two lone occupants. That was when Paz formed a stauncher inkling that Holden was different.

A secrecy shared by conspirators was heavy in the air, confirmed by the captain’s next words.

“We need each other, Paz. I set you free and return your armor, then you go as you please. I know what you are set out to do, should your Creed remain your highest guiding star…”

“The Creed I have to my people has been broken,” Paz bouldered his way into Holden’s trailing thoughts; the other man spoke in a daze, almost unbelieving of his own deeds, of the things he was about to carry out with the help of a new ally.

“I wear my armor again because of a promise I made to my friends on Samovar. That promise to me is binding, but your subordinate’s incompetence may have compromised that promise. Then again, what are the words of a wretched lieutenant to me?”

Paz conferred freely after being suppressed for so long, bringing him relief that bordered on insolence. If the captain’s generous revelations were true, then the man acted as though he had nothing to lose, and a single valuable thing to gain.

“Do you do this for your daughter, Captain?” Paz’s flung the speculation at Holden before he could stop himself.

Holden’s eyes glimmered with life anew upon the mention of his daughter.

“It seems that Mandalorians possess great urgency when it comes to the welfare of children. I know of the children of Samovar. Is it misplaced for me to assume that they will be of greater priority? Paz—you are bound to a promise to them. I am bound to a promise to my Celeste. I wish to no longer raise her under the shadow of this putrid hellscape, but she would not be safe from the clutches of vindictive relatives once I try to extricate myself of this damnable network. My family have become my worst enemies, but with Celeste—“

Paz had seen such a look on wildly anxious aruetiise parents one too many times. Captain Holden was truly conflicted. Whereas he had made up his mind to defect in a way, a contingency plan for his beloved child in a sea of fanatical family members remained unformed.

Was this the same look Djarin had seen on Holden? It was painfully effective. it was an embarrassing display of vulnerability if the captain was conscious about appearances. He wasn’t, in this case. He let that vulnerability shine through.

Paz decided to respect that vulnerability. “I mentioned of a debt of gratitude. While my  promise lies on Samovar’s children, I am inclined to repay you for your aid once I survive this ordeal. You want me to protect your daughter should the rest of your plan fall apart.”

Holden gasped with a brazen willingness over the offer Paz introduced to him.

“Yes,” was Holden’s whispered reply. “By the gods, yes. I do apologize. My troubles are my own once you leave the confines of this frigate. Yet you must know, somehow,  that…” The captain struggled over what he imparted next, “The Celestial Flame is a Victory II-class frigate. It was not a popular vessel among the Empire, even to this day. Superstition surrounds the event of an officer’s assignment to a ship of this class. It was seen as a long retirement ritual. An officer assigned to a Victory-II class is doomed to their last mission. If I do not act now, that opportunity may be taken from me forever. Perhaps they are beginning to question my loyalty to the Remnant. As I said, I have to be two steps ahead.”

The captain’s inner battle continued to afflict him; his once-sharp demeanor adopted the frailty of glass. Holden licked his chapped lips. Exhaustion sank his cheeks.

“I want you to know, Paz, that you can trust me. In fact, I’m beseeching you with a precious task. Here—“ The captain reached under his officer’s coat for a second which made Paz tense, but sensed no danger. Holden presented a data-chip so small that it dwarfed tremendously on the larger man’s palm. The memory of Ragnar entrusting him with a tiny holo-disc struck him. Such was a paradox, when once, Paz wouldn’t trust a single soul outside of the Tribe. Now those not of his Tribe were placing their hopes on him. He had come to accept that.

“After you depart, we may not see each other again, at least for a while. Perhaps never, if the fallout is abysmal. But enough of grim talk. Three standard months—that’s all I ask. If you do not hear of me by then, that—“ Holden pointed at the data-chip, “holds the coordinates where my daughter resides, as well as a means for us to establish communication, if the Maker deems it.“

“Your little one will be in safe hands,” Paz reassured the man before Holden endlessly rambled. Agitation had etched on the latter’s face. The Mandalorian continued, “But be cautioned that the moment I know you have deceived me, there are those who will avenge me.”

The words rang empty to Paz. He could have means to reach the Covert, but would the Covert keep true to him, especially now that he’d become dar’manda?

Nevertheless, Holden treated those words with reverence.

“I understand,” replied Holden. He proceeded to unhook one of his code cylinders from a breast pocket and handed the device to Paz as well.

“Take this,” Holden insisted. “Please. It will allow you to access most of the camp’s restricted areas. This privilege comes with my jurisdiction over Samovar. I know that you shall use it as fitting.”

Paz felt hesitation rise. He would jump at this chance with absolutely no question; the lives of Ragnar and the others were at stake, more than enough to set him on a solitary warpath.

But Paz also had a conscience. When he broke his Creed, he thought he had lost his soul.

He hadn’t, and that was as clear as day.

“Will you be alright?” Even the hulking warrior couldn’t believe his own ears. The well-being of an Imperial was the least of his concerns.

Holden smiled bitterly, but a mysterious joy shone in the captain’s gaze.

“I’ll worry about myself, Paz. But I thank you. The galaxies are rife with misconceptions on Mandalorians. That’s a great pity, for all I know with all my heart that Mandalorians are an honorable people, and you are one of such calibre.”

Tired eyes glistening with the last of their tenacity met the inky black of Paz’s visor. Paz dug into himself, knowing his next gesture would entirely cement Holden’s loyalty to their pact, once events have come to pass.

“Captain Holden,” Paz said somberly, He took a small, non-threatening—even humble—step forward.

“A part of me still distrusts you, but the consideration you’ve shown me is something I won’t forget—and a Mandalorian never forgets. I do have one more favor to ask of you.”

Holden’s shoulders relaxed with comical exaggeration, as though a great weight had been lifted off his back. It was never easy to gain the trust of a Mandalorian, and more so of one acutely wronged. The captain’s lips formed a faint smile.

“Ask of me what you will, Paz. I remain under the pretense of being an officer of the Remnant, and our conspiracy shouldn’t leak out with a trace. But whatever I can grant you, I shall.”

***

Captain Holden had supplies scheduled from the Celestial Flame to be delivered into the dark heart of the camp that evening. With only Paz’s skill at keeping himself hidden among the wares until he needed to spring into action, the Mandalorian suffered a small inconvenience of camouflaging himself, wedged between crates.

“The Stormtrooper sentries are too self-assured. They have become complacent. You could quickly get past their scans. I would watch out for a pair of monstrous droids known as Dark Troopers. They are third phase experimental models and can be deemed faulty. They are what successfully restrained you on Nevarro. Have a care, Paz Vizsla. It is still the force of an entire camp against the strength of one man…”

“You forget, Holden” Paz riposted with a smirk in his voice. “I am one Mandalorian. If I recall what Jovan had said—worth ten men. May our paths cross again as you reunite with your daughter.”

In all truth, Paz was apprehensive. He couldn’t tell the future, but he can measure the odds. Tonight, he’d give his all to free his friends on Samovar. There was no real assurance that he could get out of this alive, yet the agency still belonged to him.

As long as he can secure the ships and take them far into orbit for the jump to hyperspace, whatever befell him no longer mattered. As long as Sten was free to raise Ragnar as the child deserves, then he was more than willing to call this his final mission.

The hulking Mandalorian felt aversion in his bones as he studied the slave camp’s familiar landscape. Paz had successfully threaded his way out of the delivery barge before proper inspection, past the guard droids and oblivious Stormtroopers, past rows of hangar pods.

His sweeping inventory only found two ships space-worthy enough to hold their numbers.

Lessons on sabotage came in handy as Paz strategically lined his path with grav charges which he could detonate remotely. He hoped these wouldn’t be discovered before the that time came.

Paz deftly hurried along patches of shadow and light. The ghostly lamps of the southern wall scarcely illuminated the night. Cocooned from head to toe in armor, Paz no longer suffered extreme temperatures. He had forgotten what it felt like to be near-invincible.

Before concealing Ragnar’s holo-disc under his tattered bedsheets all those nights ago, Paz had stolen a moment to view the map. The Fighting Corps taught a technique of absorbing a good amount of detail in an eye-blink. To Paz’s pleasant surprise, the nooks and alleyways that composed the holomap leading to an underground labyrinth were properly committed to his memory.

Four watchtowers at each cardinal direction jutted along the rim of the camp’s fishbowl terrain, more or less of equal distance from each other. The West watchtower housed the main control room. He could acquire tools which can deactivate the slaver chips there.

Considering the bulk of his armor, Paz did his best with a sneak entrance and surveyed the situation: a squad of Stormtroopers and two rusting battle droids guarded the West watchtower. Holden was right. Being unchallenged for so long bred questionable security levels. If these sorry conditions reflected the rest of the camp, Paz was about to find out.

His targets were in close range who hardly noticed his approach. Four Stormtroopers played cards, two more were at the controls, while two droids guarded the exits. Paz readied a blaster suppressor to silence his shots, and would make quick work of the West tower patrol.

“HEY—“

Before one of the two battle droids warbled loudly over the intrusion, Paz took a clean shot at its head, and rapidly at the other, the muted sound of the blasts barely registering—and before the ruined lumps of metal hit the floor with a raucous clang, Paz had sighted all his targets, taking them down one by one in bloodcurdling precision. No Stormtrooper had a chance to cry out, much like the hapless droids whose falls Paz cushioned.

In the aftermath, all he could hear were his deep breaths within the buy’ce, drowning out the eerie silence. The smell of burnt plastoid and human flesh found its way through the helmet filters. A tempo of hot rampage began to stir in his blood.

Paz recognized shereshoy when he felt it: a poignant maelstrom building up after a long dormancy. His Mandalorian persona was fully taking over. Gone was Paz the slave, labeled simply by number and stripped of dignity.

Paz observed for any panic in surrounding areas. The watchtowers were spaced enough apart that news of disruption from one station could take a while before it reached another without proper comms.

Like Holden, Paz needed to be two steps ahead. Muscle memory flowed into his system and he set to work. He installed a comms jammer on the main control panel, hampering any manner of transmissions within the vicinity. If any of the remaining watchtowers discovered that they couldn’t reach their comrades, the only way to check was to go on foot or send drones.

The Mandalorian swore under his breath, using seconds of precious time to conjure Ragnar’s holomap from memory. There was a passageway in the main control tower that led directly into the camp’s subterranean network.

He first needed to access the means to deactivate the slaver chips, once he caught wind of Sten and the others. How had they taken the news of his so-called death from that slithering Imp Jovan? Holden had said that they believed in the lie. Perhaps they weren’t granted the time and rectitude to mourn, not in this place where surviving one day at a time was paramount.

The jammer began to blink and softly beep. Someone was hailing the West patrol unit from another watchtower.

It would only be a matter of time before they came to investigate.

Paz directed his view to the surveillance system above the control boards. Stormtroopers from the North watchtower were filing out on their way to the West watchtower.

There should be a way for Paz to discover the entrance to the subterranean path!

Breathe, you idiot, Paz reprimanded himself. Adrenaline throbbed in his veins.

He remembered his advice to little Ragnar, how deep breaths helped appease a frazzled brain. The buy’ce brought him familiar comfort and focus. He took full, rhythmical breaths. His HUD rapidly scanned the controls, spot-checking each section.

The HUD highlighted some durasteel panels suspended by the surveillance screens. He zoomed into the scans, detecting means to open the panels. They bore tiny keyholes that blended into the metalwork. Tentatively, Paz drew out Holden's code cylinder, inserted the device into each keyhole until he’d covered every single one.

The panels immediately swished open. Paz stood there, a little dumbstruck, blood rushing to his ears. The dead silence of the control room indicated that he had made no intrusion and that this was an authorized action.

This seemed to be a good start that proved Captain Holden’s sincerity.

Paz inspected the contents stored within and soon found what he was looking for. He’d seen these discreetly secured on utility belts of a few Stormtrooper sergeants, which had never been used.

Slaver chip deactivators, Paz thought incredulously. A stroke of luck. These devices were half an inch shorter than the standard code cylinder, with a distinct purpose of neutralizing a slaver chip upon contact with the subject’s skin where the chip was underneath.

Paz grabbed a handful of deactivators, throwing them into his belt pouches. He decided on his next course of action; there was still the matter of getting into the underground tunnels.

Perhaps if his luck continued, he would get to the children first.

Manda, Paz fervently pleaded to the Oversoul. Let me last long enough to save the children. Somehow, his plans reached a dead end when it came to his own survival. If he went beyond tearing this hellhole down, if the children could make it all out alive, then it would be more than he’d bargained for. Should he face the Dark Troopers again…

A switch caught his eye, interrupting his thoughts. It was a tiny lever on the upper right, beaconing at him with its flint-like sheen.

Paz gambled on the lever and he pulled at it.

Stormtroopers clambered their way noisily up the West watchtower. Before they discovered their fallen comrades and blasted droids, and before they gathered their wits to sound the alarm, Paz had already slipped through the passageways and into the heart of Samovar.

***

The tunnels were dark and winding, longer and narrower than the ones on Nevarro. Paz crouched low to fit into tight corners; a more claustrophobic person would have immediately balked.

Flashes of Nevarro intruded his mind and the devastating trauma of his capture assailed him. These nightmarish passageways were squeezing him slowly out of his quietude.

For Ragnar, Paz breathed, sweat pouring down his face. For Quinn, Dargo’s little boy.

Time seemed to function in its own dimension where Paz couldn’t tell night from twilight, but he soon found his way to a space broad enough where he could stand upright and stretch his back.

Before him was a massive vault-like door. Instinctively, Paz knew where that door led to, and excitement added to a brewing adrenaline rush.

He scanned for a code cylinder slot as he had back at the West tower, and was puzzled when he couldn’t detect one.

The code, Paz thought suddenly. Ragnar gave him the code! Osik. He was certain that he had locked it in a secure part of his brain on his way back to the sleeping quarters, all those nights ago in a vain search for Dargo and Sten.

He sighted a keypad to the lower right of the vault doors. Paz ran a scan through the keys, determining any fresh heat signatures if they had been recently accessed, or any wear and tear from the overuse of the same buttons over and over again.

Paz was stumped. The keypad was pristine! It was as if it had never been touched; perhaps there was another way in and out of the chambers, but Ragnar showed him one which was barely—if not ever—used.

That child was too clever for his own good.

He couldn’t let Ragnar down, not when he was this close.

Paz roughhoused with the dust motes in his brain to finally uncover those numbers. Whether more prayer had ballasted his resolve or cold desperation set in, Paz immediately stole that moment to enter the code.

598-227-33.

A hollow clanking reverberated through the tunnels. Paz held his breath, heart pounding. That could either be battle droids approaching or a mechanism abruptly utilized since the inception of these chambers.

It was thankfully the latter. The vault doors swished open.

Paz carefully made his way through.

It was a large, arching dormitory. Compared to the tight squeeze of the tunnels outside, this was a sight of luxury. There were many small beds lined up to the walls, but the beds were empty.

Had he arrived too late and the Imps transferred the children as a precaution? Had he been outsmarted amidst all this damned talk about being two steps ahead?

Paz fought a crushing bout of despair when a small voice called out to him in a familiar manner.

“M-Mister?”

“Ragnar?” Paz automatically responded. He looked around the empty beds against bare walls. Bare floors, bare—everything. If the children were kept here, there were no means of enrichment at all.

“MISTER!” Ragnar cried. The child burst out from under a beam at a far end to the rows of beds. The boy shrilly addressed a still-invisible audience, quivering with relief. “It’s alright, everyone. He’s okay! He’s with us! He’s my friend!”

Paz’s heart both sank and glowed at Ragnar’s mention of friend, and how the boy announced it with monumental pride.

The Mandalorian bent on a knee, as was his habit of greeting little foundlings without an ounce of intimidation.

Ragnar’s unkempt and very young face brought Paz crashing down to reality. The boy was alight with a smile that missed a few teeth; then his expression changed, awash with confusion and doubt. Paz realized that his helmeted face was something new to the child.

“That is you, right, Mister? I know that voice anywhere, but…”

In Paz’s periphery, he saw small, frightened faces of more children peering out from various concealed spots in the room. He noted one little Nikto. The child looked pitifully tired, eyes swollen, most certainly from shedding tears over the loss of his father. It was little Quinn.

As Sten had sworn, the children did look well-fed and healthy, if not sorely in need of proper baths.

“It’s me, Ragnar. It’s Paz,” the Mandalorian coaxed gently. With no further thought with regards to a Creed already broken and gone, Paz slowly lifted his helmet. What the children needed was a face of flesh and blood, and one which Ragnar had grown accustomed to.

“IT IS YOU!!”

In unexpected reaction, Ragnar dashed headlong at him and Paz caught the child in his arms, enveloped in a clash of limbs and muffled sobs of joy.

“Mister Paz,” Ragnar wept and Paz shushed him. “They told us that you were dead, that when they punished you for something Uncle Sten did, they executed you. Uncle Sten never saw you again after they took you away… but you’re here now, and guess what?” Ragnar set his chin stubbornly. “I never believed them one bit! Those bad guys are liars. Look how you proved them all wrong!”

“Ad’ika,” Paz murmured, his heart clenching. So the news of his “death” did reach the children. How deep had Ragnar fallen into despondency, even when the child held on to the denial of loss? First the death of Quinn’s father, then the capture of Sten, and his own severe punishment followed by false news that he’d perished…

“You’re right, ad’ika. I’m here now.” Paz’s warm, deep baritone filled the room’s confines. Slowly, each child emerged out of hiding. They circled him. Tiny bodies quivered at his fully armored, towering form even at kneeling height; many gasped in amazement over the fact that someone whom Ragnar trusted finally came for them. “Let’s get you all out of here. I have a plan, but you all need to follow it closely.”

“Is this a rescue mission, mister?” asked one child, eyes wide.

“Is there a very huge ship to fly us out?”

“Are you taking our dads with us?”

“I got an older brother and I want to see him whenever I want!”

“I want my papa! And I want to go home!”

Paz felt beleaguered over the little ones’ distress. When foundlings were brought into the Covert, it was in individual or small numbers at a time. Right now, there were twenty or so young boys of various humanoid species clamoring for attention and sympathy.

“Are all of you here?” Paz’s paternal streak took reign. A Mandalorian was both warrior and protector, a veritable beast of might and heart. “I need a headcount.”

It was Quinn who took the initiative. Twenty-three kids. Dargo’s son ran up to Ragnar—therefore to Paz—and in turn, buried his tiny face where his Nikto horns hadn’t fully formed yet onto Ragnar’s side. The latter held the smaller child tightly.

“That’s good, Quinn. That’s excellent work,” Paz praised. Quinn looked up and nodded in a mix of pride and melancholy.

Ragnar’s voice was the steadiest. “Mister Paz, they took Uncle Sten and some others into the mines. He told me yesterday. There’s no more doonium left to refine close to the surface so they’re digging further in. It’s much deeper underground. I can show you where!”

Paz marveled at the boy’s willingness for risks. There was so much mandokar in this child. Ragnar could become a great leader someday.

But first, Ragnar needed to grow into adulthood, and Paz would grant that future for him as well as the others’.

“Mister.” Ragnar had the impressive resolve of a verd’ika. “If you need our help, we can help you. We’re not helpless little kids. We all taught each other to survive—you’ll see! Misha and Julon want to be Mandalorians like you! I told them that you’re a real Mandalorian. So you can tell us what to do, mister. We can help you!”

“Easy there, easy,” Paz tempered the child’s over-eagerness. “It’s too dangerous.”

“That’s bantha dung!” an older boy’s voice rang from a corner. “We’re used to danger, mister. Uh…I didn’t mean to shout like that, I’m truly sorry. But Ragnar’s right. We can help!”

Paz sighed. He did need extra hands, but he was not about to put a child in a position where they could potentially lose their lives!

“Ragnar,” Paz called to the boy. “Do you have another copy of that holomap you gave me?”

Ragnar presently provided him with the last remaining copy of the holomap.

Paz had never seen a brighter smile on a child with so little teeth. He beamed back at Ragnar solemnly. This young warrior’s training had begun too early.

Paz had been keeping an ear out for blaring alarms and fevered racket over the discovery of an intruder who had successfully raided a watchtower moment ago, and disappeared.

Any trooper worth their salt would track him down the tunnels, but how well could Paz wager that apart from a deadly pair of Dark Troopers, the rest of the camp had morphed into decay? The sentries’ bodies may be rested and fed, but their minds have become indolent, reassured countless times that a mass of slaves had no power over their smaller numbers.

It was sickening, but that was how the Empire imprisoned minds as they had imprisoned bodies.

There was no commotion yet.

In the gloom of the dormitory with children’s heads crouched low, Paz instigated a briefing protocol. This was a novel experience for the boys.Their eager attentiveness and intelligence clearly gleamed in their eyes.

He found and trove of mandokar where he'd least expected it—not among grown men, but in the hearts of these young boys.

The entire room glowed with a holographic rendition of the map as Paz activated it.

“Know these entry and exit points,” Paz laid out crucial areas on the map. “Stick together, watch each other’s backs. You’re only as strong as the warrior next to you—that’s a Mandalorian motto we have. I need the older kids to look after the younger kids, and I need the younger kids to behave and do as the older kids say. Can I count on you?”

On Nevarro, he’d provided the near exact briefing with the foundlings in the midst of frantic escape. Thankfully, they had all made it. It was the full-fledged warriors who sacrificed their lives. Paz was captured before he could recognize the armor of his fallen brethren. The large warrior grit his teeth.

“You can count on us, sir,” came a small, determined voice. Paz gazed at the little Nikto. Quinn would’ve made his father proud.

“All right,” said Paz. He had innocent lives in his hands. He needed to get this right again. “Let’s go.”

***

Paz secured his helmet over his head once more as he threaded down the tunnels. It was easier, now that he’d downloaded the map into his vambrace so Ragnar continued to own the original copy. Holo-images of the map fizzled with the shadows. The underground doonium mines shouldn’t be far if Ragnar’s estimation was viable.

Paz had to momentarily split with the children while he assigned them to meet at a rendezvous point. With the youngsters’ safety still in mind, Paz tracked them as consistently as he could, while arming the older children with smoke bombs should they need emergency cover. Their courage was contagious. It was more than enough to convince Paz that he could leave them to fulfill their part of the plan, while he accomplished his.

While he made his way to the mines, the foul residue of his torture haunted him. The revolting face of Lt. Jovan and how the imp hungered for control emerged from the dark depths of his memory. How diabolically had Jovan craved for power over an entire camp by breaking the spirit of one man—and that one man had been Paz.

Paz forcefully clenched his teeth to the point of pain. He would tear this karking place down. You are but one man, Paz, his mind kept deriding him—

But better one man than none.

Soon, the churning of heavy equipment permeated the place. Rhythmic booming that clawed at one’s gut added to the cacophony of frantic shouts spiraling across the vastness of the caverns.

Before Paz knew it, a pathetic attempt of an ambush met his path.

“Get him…! Get him!”

Half a dozen hands grappled at him—at his arms, on each of his legs; one even managed to clamber onto his back, in hopes of dislodging his jetpack.

Through Paz’s visor, he saw their faces.

These were men among the slaves!

Paz effortlessly shook them off with no intent to injure. In his armor and with a face obscured, perhaps they had mistaken him for a droid. Or—Paz’s skin bristled—a Dark Trooper.

“Sten,” Paz breathed, biting back pain from his aggravated injuries. His healing had been stalled. “I’m looking for Sten and Gerrik! It’s me—it’s Paz! Don’t attack. I won’t harm you.”

In a rare impulsive move, Paz slipped his helmet off once more to reveal the face whom his brothers in the mines knew by heart.

The men sprawled around him had clambered back to their feet, murmuring in astonishment. He was met with the customary expressions of aruetiise he witnessed throughout the years he’d been clad in beskar’gam.

“Paz? Paz!” It was Gerrik, shouldering his way to him. The man looked very worn, face raw from chemical exposure. “Oh gods. Is it really you? Are you indeed… a Mandalorian! Sten was right. You’re a Mandalorian! But how? How did you come back? You were dead. Sten saw you. You were lifeless!

Ragnar’s tears were one thing, but seeing a grown man, a dear friend like Gerrik weep with shameless abandon, tore through Paz like a heated blade.

Gerrik flung himself at him in search of solidity, for confirmation, for true consolation. Sobs heavily wracked his diminished frame.

“Forgive me, Paz! Forgive me. I had believed that you were truly dead. We’ve lost all hope, my friend.”

Paz was speechless; his head had begun to throb dully, his ears began to ring. He dazedly acknowledged Gerrik’s grief by wrapping a free arm over the man, holding him tightly awhile. He had kept a blaster on his other hand.

“Gerrik,” Paz’s gentle tone broke through the noise. “What happened here? Are there no guards?”

His distraught friend calmed a little to relay the details. “Most of them have been dispatched aboveground. Said it’s an emergency, and left the slaver droids to keep us in check. After all that happened… thinking they’d killed you… It was stupid, we know, we lacked foresight at the time, and we jumped on those droids and broke them. Broke them, Paz!! It didn’t take much to tear those mechanical devils apart. Then before we knew it, we saw a shadow… We thought it’d be our doom for this sudden boldness, but it was you! Alive!”

Paz was astounded over that foolhardy risk his friend took along with the others. Had fortune not been on their side, even for this small instant, everything would have fallen apart more relentlessly. The Mandalorian continued his query. “Where’s Sten? Is he with you?”

“Paz…” a brittle voice then called to him; Paz sought the source.

“Sten.”

He barely recognized the older man. Three days had gone by, and Sten had fully taken Paz’s death to heart. Why wouldn’t he? Sten had already lost a blood-brother. Losing another bond forged in these miserable times of turmoil was more than a long-enslaved man could bear.

That illusion, that trap was finally shattered, but the initial shock committed to memory of such an abrasive lie wounded a soul forever.

Sten advanced with a horribly lopsided gait. Paz noticed that a milky film had formed over his friend’s eyes, and the sockets themselves were discolored and oddly misshapen.

“Sten, are you—? How did you…?” Paz was at loss for words.

“I wasn’t careful, Paz, I was like Dargo, so much filled with grief that I couldn’t function. An accident. It’s just… just a chemical burn. I… I’m turning blind.”

The warrior’s blood froze. Paz led Sten by the arm to better guide the wobbling man towards him.

Paz brought his friend’s weary face close to his so Sten could recognize him in proximity, to feel the living breath of a man brought back from the dead. The warrior saw of what spirit was left in the wavering light of Sten’s eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. We’re getting out of here. All of us. Sten—I found Ragnar and the children. We’ll turn this place into ashes. We won’t be looking back.”

Above the already chaotic din of the mines, sirens blared their ominous, telltale wailing.

Paz felt Sten grip the arms that held his face near; the older man slowly nodded.

The Imps have sounded the alarms. The entire camp had been alerted and troopers would be forming their ranks in disarray.

For too long, these enslaved men were husks that fed on listless dreams. Paz felt their fervid stares like tubes bearing into him, extracting for themselves a renewed sense of purpose by virtue of his presence, of his very existence.

It was a peculiar transmutation that made them whole, little by little, as though awakened from a dream and a spell had been broken. The cumulative lies of the camp by nefarious imperial tongues have evaporated, and all because Paz had returned to them alive, breathing, offering his remaining strength to the cause of freedom.

There was indeed no turning back.

“Gerrik,” Paz counseled his friend. “A floor above, you will find an armory. It’s small but it will suffice. Take the comms. Grab all the weapons you see. Do you know how to fire a blaster?”

“I’m no expert,” Gerrik admitted; enthusiasm belied his pallor. “But don’t worry. I’ll shoot if I need to!”

“You know of the holomap I hid under my mattress—?”

The color returned to Gerrik’s gaunt cheeks. The man reached from under his sleeve and fished an item out, holding it up for Paz to see.

“I don’t know what possessed me to do it,” Gerrik muttered, his eyes afire, “but I took it out of your mattress. Hid the holomap on me, for all the good it’d do should a surprise inspection happen and they discovered I had it! They’d shoot us all down, just as they’d shot Sten’s brother on the wall. We couldn’t care less. When we thought they’d finally killed you, all bets were off. We were going to try to escape again, anyway. We’ll die trying, if not for the children.”

“And now the children will be alright,” Paz reassured him. “I’ll make sure of it. And you can make it—you’ll get far. Consult the map. There is a hangar beyond the Southern wall. There are two Tartan-class corvettes docked there that can hold the number of us. When I can, I’ll pilot us out in one of them. We’ll find a pilot for the other. Rally the rest of the men to the hangar. Arm yourselves. I’ll meet you there.” The burly warrior reached into his pouches and started distributing the slaver chip deactivators among the men. “Here.”

“How on Maker’s good stars have you come across these?” one man exclaimed, pleasantly aghast with a rhetorical air. Every gesture Paz made to ensure that escape would finally work stoked raging vitality within them.

The swiftness of how they formed a plan took Paz by surprise. These men were like taut springs, primed like beasts in the darkness that couldn’t pounce without word from the leader of the pack. All they needed was someone like Paz to trigger them into action, unlike the scattered pandemonium of years past.

“Do what you need to do, big fella,” Gerrik’s said in lifted spirits. “I’ll make sure the guys do what you say. Sten will be fine by my side.”

As Paz felt Sten’s quaking hand reluctantly slip from his hold in parting, a foreboding arose within him. The Mandalorian stood frozen for a second, witnessing his friends disappear at a bend.

Paz followed suit, dragging his legs like lead. His mind recalled a lesson from his youth. In this dire moment, he could only conjure the fourth tenet of honor, and it sent chills down his spine.

Death is life, one should die as they have lived.

***

Chapter Text

CW: Combat violence, child endangerment, mentions of blood, death/death-related themes

Chapter 3: A Fiery Absolution, Part 3

Paz had linked himself to certain frequencies so he was able to monitor most of the reports blazing all across the camp.

He shut his eyes tightly for a moment. He may well had sent the men to their deaths; only a handful of them had combat experience, and leadership wasn’t their strongest suit, after being quashed of their willpower and self-sufficiency long ago.

At least, Paz thought, his heart turning cold for an instant, they will die as free men.

Pandemonium arose. Paz remained steady in his course as he traced his steps, navigating with the help of the holo-map upon his vambrace which he consulted from time to time. He would need to head to the rendezvous point where the children were, and with all the discord ensuing all around him, he hoped to the Manda that they were faring well in hiding.

“The South Tower is under attack!!”

“We need backup in the North Tower!”

“East Tower’s overrun! Maker—where did they get the weapons? How the hell did they get here without their chips exploding?!”

“Couldn’t hail the Celestial Flame, sir!! Someone’s jammed our comms!”

“Unjam it, damn you!! We are kriffing sitting ducks!”

Grim satisfaction filled Paz when he heard the panicked, feeble yowling of Lt. Jovan across the comm channels. He had to hand it to the lieutenant, who was frenetically barking out random operatives, quite useless in practice, but he was giving orders nonetheless.

At least Paz had a clue that many of the men had successfully deactivated each other’s slaver chips. The crowded frequencies ringing in Paz’s own comms within his buy’ce lent his head a throbbing pain, but his training kicked in and he compartmentalized the chaos.

The children would be by the field kitchens, inoperative during lights-out and masked by the thick greasy atmosphere which clung ceaselessly to the skin.

Paz had reached the side of the kitchen tent, which were held up by pillars and pegs of durasteel. It was relatively more quiet here, and with a prior agreement to make his presence known, Paz rapped at the durasteel frame loudly three times.

It took a moment before he heralded the response of the same (albeit clumsier) three knocks from within. Paz sighed in tremendous relief.

He slipped into the tent, and with his night vision activated, he saw many little bodies huddled close together. He counted twenty-three little heads, and one of them bobbed up before the rest.

“Mister,” cried out Ragnar in a pinched voice. “We’re here, we all made it! But what do we do next?”

Whimpers and tense whispers filled the tent, and Paz shushed them, bent on a knee again to garner rapport.

“That’s good work, all of you. But we’re not done yet, far from it. I need the little ones to be braver a bit longer—all right? And the older ones, when I give the signal, throw out the smoke bombs.” He leaned forward with an air of stifled urgency, and through his night vision, he saw the fervid looks on the boys’ faces. Fear could be the last thing in their minds, and Paz knew through experience how both beneficial and detrimental that can be.

“There are bombs I can detonate all over the camp. On the way looking for you, I planted those bombs. They’ll be both for diversion and ambush. I’ll give word before I set them off, but don’t panic, don’t be afraid. Keep your chin up and hold fast. Our next destination is the hangar. Move quickly and I’ll cover you. Your dads and everyone else will be waiting for us there if the plans go right.”

A child openly raised both of his hands with his fingers visibly crossed. “I hope the plans go right! I wanna see my dad again!”

“Me too!”

“Me three!”

“Lead us out, please, Mister,” Ragnar spoke again. “We’ll be right by you.”

At this point, Paz had become so endeared to the child; he could warn Sten of how hardy his nephew had become—or perhaps, his friend knew that already and Paz was witnessing it more thoroughly, first-hand.

“On the count of three, we head out. Keep your focus entirely on getting to the hangar and I’ll handle the bad guys.”

“Okay.”

“One… two… three!”

*

Samovar had become saturated with the volatile force of insurgency.

The fishbowl terrain of the camp which was seen as an asset to trap prisoners from the high ground had turned against the perpetrators. The Watchtowers had been captured by the men by some miracle, despite frantic bouts of disorganization. Now, the same men who were once on the opposite point were trailing the once-dormant E-web repeating blasters upon their former oppressors. Unfortunate stormtroopers who were caught in the fray were gunned down. Flanks and formations were broken apart; some were hit but some scrambled away and reassembled.

The buzzing of overlapping comms continued to fill Paz’s helmet.

“We still can’t hail the Celestial Flame for backup!! I think Captain Holden has been compromised!”

Good, Paz thought. Let them think that. If the captain was to fulfill the favor Paz had asked of him earlier, Holden's subordinates needed to believe that his hands were clean of this catastrophic mess.

In that hallowed moment, Paz found his purpose once more. He felt the presences of the children running alongside him as he provided a wide breadth for them to move, firing his blaster cannon, suppressing attacks before they began. His focus was whole, his resolve was intact; as if the whole world had slowed down and all was quiet save for an occasional cry of pain, a yell of a dying Imp… blaster bolts squarely hit plastoid and durasteel, and battle was in Paz’s blood again. This was the noble and tragic birthright of the Mandalorians, and most of all, it was for the sake of the little ones.

Paz gave the signal for the older boys to throw out the smoke bombs, far ahead upon the vicinity of the enemy. Its effect was mostly to obscure visibility and the fumes weren’t dangerous, but he had the children cover their mouths and noses all the same. His HUD’s thermal sensors determined the warm bodies across the smoke which he needed to hit; soon, he was spitting more firepower than the ones directed at him. He had hoped for that advantage earlier on.

Every shot Paz fired met its mark, and returning fire couldn’t sail past him or the children, although Paz knew that this streak could end abruptly. A battle was a bloodthirsty dance, and he’d lead this dance as much as he could, as long as he was able.

Paz made an expressive motion of his body so the children halted obediently.

“Does anyone here know what a Tartan-class ship looks like?” Paz inquired, feeling a little absurd about this oversight, which was immediately remedied.

“I do, sir.” Paz recognized the boy, Misha, whom Ragnar had readily provided recommendation as one who wished to become Mandalorian. Under the helmet, Paz smiled.

“There are two of these docked in Bay 7. Those are our escape vessels. The ramps won’t open without codes, but I’ll get them for us. See that deck up there?” Paz pointed as the older child’s gaze followed: there, overlooking the entire hangar, was a transparisteel deck partly concealed by a one-way film where its operators can see the goings-on outside, but no one from the hangar had a view of the deck’s interior. “I’ll head for that control room. Again, wait for my signal. I’ll be setting off a grav charge in the northeast part of this hangar. It’s farther from where you’ll be so don’t worry.”

Little heads nodded. Paz felt the fear adhere to him like minuscule crystalline webs.

Before he set out, Paz glanced at the chrono on his vambrace. Holden should’ve sent the beacon by now; the jammers were losing cohesion. Someone must have figured out how to hack through them, but no matter. If Holden were true to his word, Paz would know in time.

Paz launched himself to the top of the deck bridge through his jetpack. Upon landing with a heavy metallic thud over the footbridge, Paz felt weakness set in little by little. He was about to further exert himself, and this was no time to crumble away. A chill drove down his spine and he looked about. At the back of his mind, he wondered if they had set the Dark Troopers to find him.

First thing’s first.

Paz had blasted through the viewing deck doors, dramatically setting off a useless alarm. The whole place was imploding, a note of warning compounding with all the others.

He heard a hellish yell from within; it was Lt. Jovan in a tangle of limbs driving himself to the back of the control room as his stormtrooper guard detail fired soundly at a towering armored giant bounding into their territory.

Paz grunted as many of the shots deflected, but a few seared their way through his flak vest. He felt the telltale sensation of blaster burns underneath, but he had become numb to the pain since the attacks began. Tendrils of smoke snaked out of his armor. Paz caught his breath as he switched to his blaster for close-range combat. Just as he made quick work of the patrol in the West tower, so did he wipe out the hangar control room patrol.

He spared no one save for the sniveling Lt. Jovan, folded like a paper toy in the shadows. Paz saw the coward’s face plain as day; it was a monstrous mask of disbelief and hatred so strong, Paz couldn’t fathom how such loathing for him, practically a stranger from the start, could stem from one man. 

The lieutenant was not unarmed. A blaster was quivering in his grasp. Jovan suddenly open fired, again and again until for certain his canister was empty, if that was at all possible.

Paz had activated his plasma shield; the circular veil of blue energy crackled and pulsed as it absorbed most of Jovan’s shots. They were pell-mell and some still hit Paz on the torso and legs. His reflexes weren’t what they used to be. While his Mandalorian spirit had returned to him, his body fell short. Pinpricks of pain dotted his consciousness but he remained in control. He had completely backed Jovan in a corner.

“Slave filth!!” Jovan spat. His eyes were wild, and Paz couldn’t help but feel pity for the man who had only shown cruelty towards him. “What makes you think you can win this?” the lieutenant raved on. “Once we get ahold of backup, by the gods, you’ll all get torn into shreds! The execution by the southern wall would be nothing compared to the carnage I’d prepare for you!”

Paz stood there, silent and imposing. An odd sort of peace settled in him. The Mandalorian had reached his moment of vindication. He wanted to feel rage towards the pathetic weasel who was Jovan, but the need to avenge himself had dissolved. In his mind’s eye, all it would take was one shot to the officer’s head, and the Imp would forever cease to torture any more souls.

“Imperial filth,” was all Paz uttered as he drew out a pair of binders from his supplies. In a fluid move, Paz had shackled the whimpering lieutenant to a beam, and a flash of disgust hit Paz as Jovan grew slack in an act of surrender, yet the man wouldn’t proclaim it aloud. He heard Jovan’s sharp breaths of apprehension, but the hatred never left him. It was like a figurative blaster pointed at his heart, as if sheer, quiet vehemence alone would topple a giant to the ground.

Paz proceeded to ignore the pale and shivering lieutenant when he took out Holden’s code cylinder, and as if he was shrouded by a mantle of great authority, he ceremoniously thrust the device into the main control panel’s slot.

“You—That belongs to the captain!! I knew it—you took the armor and shamelessly betrayed him! That damn fool didn’t listen. Now we’re all doomed! You killed Captain Holden, hadn’t you? That’s why he hadn’t responded! I knew it! Never trust a godforsaken Mandalo—“

Jovan’s outburst was brought to brazen standstill when Paz bent over him, and without warning, he took his helmet off.

The lieutenant must’ve been terrified over what he saw. Holden was right. Whatever he looked to Jovan resembled nothing of a broken man. Jovan was looking death in the eye, but death was merciful that day. That act of intimidation must’ve stricken the officer mute, as Jovan never retched out another word as Paz replaced his helmet and set to work.

The Mandalorian sighted Jovan’s own code cylinder; Paz practically ripped it off the squirming Imp’s uniform pocket. It would come in handy, just as Holden’s had become an essential tool.

Paz had complete sway of the hangar with him at the controls. Like an automaton himself, he flicked on switches and tapped on screens as would benefit the escape plan. He locked in the few TIE fighters that had been delegated to Samovar’s defenses before they were launched to lay waste on the open fields; two were halfway out of their cycling racks when he brashly interrupted the procedure. He heard the perplexed shouts of the TIE pilots through the comms. They had been stranded in their pods, suspended along the railing.

Next, he opened all possible entry points which Gerrik, Sten, and the others can take. He’d already spotted a group of men running into the facility just as one of the many hangar doors swished open.

Finally, he managed to unlock the two Tartan-class corvettes, so they were finally untethered as soon as they were authorized to launch. He knew of ways to manipulate a transponder code so it registered as a rogue Imperial ship, merged with a distress call but one which wasn’t unique to him. Whoever caught wind of the signal would approach skeptically, but at least they wouldn’t be faced with outright hostility.

He needed to alert Ragnar and the children of the progress. With a short muttered prayer, Paz pressed on a vambrace button which detonated the grav charges to cue in the little ones to hastily board one of the corvettes. Paz couldn’t see much from his vantage point and the security holo-cameras have been dislodged from the blasts, so he could only trust the fact that the children promptly did as they were told.

A harsh rumble from the resulting explosion shook the facility. It was a speck of diversion in an ocean of chaos.

With his tasks at the main controls finished, Paz unhooked the code cylinder from its cradle. An inadvertent glance at the lieutenant saw that Jovan had fainted. Paz couldn’t bring himself to feel any animosity at all. In a way, Jovan was enslaved by his own ambitions, chained down by the greed to remain on top of this rundown food chain which was Samovar’s slave mines. No fault fell on the men who were led to believe that they were kept in an iron prison, when in fact, it had whittled away to glass.

Paz shrugged off his thoughts as he hailed from the upper story with his jetpack and landed with a magnificent clang upon the hangar floor. His blaster canon was at the ready as he made his way to Bay 7 with little resistance.

A sliver of doubt harshly tugged at of him, warning him that it appeared too easy. Tribulation and adversity had become integral to Paz’s psyche that any way out without considerable struggle was a sham in his mind.

Paz caught the frequency from which Gerrik called to him.

“Paz, we’re closing in on Bay 7! We’re almost there. We have a guy named Yolen, said he can pilot the other ship! Are the kids with you? Paz—come in!”

Paz thundered his way through the dense haze and was about to answer the comms when something from the corner of his eye zoomed its way straight at him, bodily slamming into him… Paz grunted at this surprise attack; his sensors did nothing to detect his assailant, and he strained within its hold.

The Mandalorian saw himself face to face with the glowing red-tinted visor of a Dark Trooper. Its black metallic face was cold and expressionless, simply programmed to eliminate him—he, who had become the biggest threat of all.

No, Paz’s mind screamed. His instincts had warned him beforehand, but the hope of a near-seamless escape had swallowed him to the point of recklessness. He cursed at himself and the situation. The Dark Trooper crashed them both through one crate, and another, until Paz growled at the impact of his body finally hitting solid wall.

“Paz!” Gerrik’s frantic voice shot through, as though his friend yelled straight into his skull. Paz was resisting full-force against the inhuman grip of this overpowered battle droid. Fear was hardly part of Paz’s vocabulary, but such sentiment chipped at his defenses. He knew that if he couldn’t find his way out of this one, he wouldn’t be able to make it out entirely. He had to conquer that devastating thought.

Upon reflex, when the Mandalorian could no longer take the crushing pressure clamping onto him, he threw one of his most powerful headbutts against the mechanical monster. A blinding flash of light filled his vision as a high ring reverberated in the air. Paz was incredulous, all implication crashing down on him. No wonder—this monster was built of beskar! He felt hot liquid flow from a gash on his head. He injured himself in the process, and for nary a dent on his opponent.

An act of desperation overcame him as he attempted to fire his blaster canon. It was no use, and stray bolts could end up hitting unsuspecting targets. He never wished to turn Gerrik or anyone into collateral damage. With a defiant yell, he freed an arm and activated his flamethrower.

The heat rippled and roared at him, and more so towards the Dark Trooper. A sudden thought ate at Paz. Would he take this Dark Trooper down with him; should he decide on an act of jare—a foolish risk of ultimate self-sacrifice and self-destruction?

Suddenly, Paz felt truly afraid. In all the times when he had offered his life to save a fellow slave’s, this notion shattered him the most. He could only think of Ragnar and the last spark of light extinguished within the boy should he know of Paz’s real death this time. Once jare was fulfilled, there was no coming back.

His feet met the ground, and he panted in anguish, strength ebbing away. The flamethrower successfully razed through a fragment of the Dark Trooper’s head before the weapon spewed its last tongue of fire. The red glow of its visor glitched for a second. It seemed that the machine may have short-circuited, and Paz stole that chance to kick himself out of the Dark Trooper’s unrelenting grasp.

The droid’s hauntingly unaffected facade struck at Paz like a slap. He quickly pondered over the madness of this place. The Purge was but a huge piece of this nightmare, and the nightmares had never truly ended. He unclipped his mini-gun and fired, the throaty booms pounding ferociously at the Dark Trooper. All Paz could do was pull the trigger and never let go.

The Dark Trooper was thrown aback but a few paces from the onslaught. Its seemingly indestructible body sparked and smoked in places; the toxic stench of burning oil filled the expanse. It was dying a long death…

But so was Paz. He was sorely weakening but he held on. He just needed to make it into the ship Ragnar and the children had boarded, and then he would take the yoke and would fly the hell out of here. They’d make the jump to hyperspace, and would find proper help along the way.

The beacon could’ve reached any of his intended recipients by this time. Paz needed to hang on a little longer. Any moment now…

Paz scanned over convenient areas where he had earlier planted more grav charges. Before the Dark Trooper could recover to issue a counterattack, Paz shoved himself full-force upon the metallic creature, jetpack aflame, driving it to a corner. In a slew of movement, Paz quickly abandoned the momentarily fallen droid—he flew out of range and pressed at his vambrace. An explosion rocked the place as a cascade of debris fell upon the Dark Trooper, trapping it in its wake. Paz amassed his bearings before the monster broke free of its prison, and the Mandalorian, for once, overcame it. Paz had grappled the droid’s throat, pouring all his will into that attack.

With vibroblade in hand and a cry he only heard in his mind, Paz drove the buzzing weapon into the Dark Trooper’s neck joint. The blade screeched in resistance, but Paz knew that the creature was not entirely covered in beskar. Like its human counterpart, there were vulnerable gaps in its armor.

The vibroblade sung its last as it abruptly broke in two. Paz was willing to bid it farewell as the weapon had served its purpose. The Dark Trooper’s head swerved at an angle, and while it didn’t sever, the red glow of its visor had diminished until it was empty. Its devilish light was gone, and the monster twitched violently—and was finally still. Oil leaked out of its innards like blood.

“Paz!!!” Gerrik roared in horror.

It didn’t come from the comms, Paz turned to face his friend with a squad of men frozen in place, agape; their expressions beheld him in awe and fleeting terror. They witnessed what the Dark Trooper could do, but with it, what Paz could do to something as practically invincible as a Dark Trooper.

“Hold on, my friend!” It was Sten this time, and Paz acknowledged him by Gerrik’s side. The Mandalorian’s heart sank when he saw that blood had covered half of Sten’s exhausted face. “Tell us what to do and we’ll do it. We’re almost there, Paz!”

Almost there…

Paz swayed on his feet but remained upright for the sake of his friends. He beheld their bloodied, dirtied, tired yet determined faces. He knew that some had perished—dying as free men—but more had survived. They were counting on him. How did he become that single most sublime element that affected morale so significantly? When they knew that he had perished, when they bought the lie fed to them by a heartless Imperial, it triggered among them a savage temerity many times more potent than what may have transpired in the last insurrection.

These men had finally found a way out of this endless cycle of despondency. Paz would not let them down.

Paz huffed as he sprinted to the doors of Bay 7 to the open ramp of one Tartan-class corvette where the little ones were on standby, waiting for him, waiting for someone to guide them out and along.

“Yolen,” he breathed, addressing the candidate pilot for the second cruiser.

“Right here, Paz,” said the man who stepped forward, sprinting alongside him as the others followed suit.

Paz couldn’t even speak when he handed Yolen the code cylinder which had belonged to lieutenant Jovan. His heart beat erratically; he breathed in ragged gasps. He had overexerted himself when his healing wasn’t over yet. It seemed that the infernal struggle with the Dark Trooper had undone the recovery done to his body.

To Paz’s gratitude, Yolen understood that silent exchange. Placing a tender hand on the heaving Mandalorian’s pauldron, the man took the code cylinder and nodded once. With a rallying call, he bade as many as he can to follow him onto the ramp of the second cruiser.

The warrior found his voice when he had reached Sten’s side. “Get in,” he rasped, motioning to the ramp of the first cruiser. “Ragnar’s waiting for you. Go.”

“After you, big fella,” Sten said fondly, fearfully. His friend must have caught the finality in his tone. “You need medical aid, Paz,” Sten tried to reason in spite of his own condition. “Please… you go in first. Gerrik and I will follow…”

“Over there! Get him! Get that Mandalorian!”

It was the tinny, modulated voice of a Stormtrooper sergeant, but what happened next sent everyone in in a wave of dread.

The sergeant was giving an order; the recipient was no other than the second Dark Trooper.

The droid thrust itself out of the shadows, armed with a blaster. Paz’s senses grew razor sharp as he moved in borrowed time. The Dark Trooper’s aim was too precise. If it fired unhindered, it wouldn’t miss a target.

Two steps ahead. Holden’s mantra echoed in Paz’s mind.

The Dark Trooper fired a barrage of shots, but Paz had calculated a few moves in advance. He instantaneously acted as a shield between heated bolt and sentient life as the shots met his armor instead of five men too shocked to register the twist of events. A shot had landed with a sickening thud over his heart; his chest plate barricaded the impact while Paz was hurled a few steps back. His gloved hand grasped at that tender spot. He breathed heavily and his world spun around him.

“GET IN!” he roared. The vicious order hurtled the men back to their senses

His audio sensors automatically picked up the pained gasps coming from Sten.

Amidst the daze of agony, Paz stilled in shock when he realized that his dearest friend had been hit. The warrior assessed that it was one of bolts his armor deflected, and it had grazed Sten in the aftermath.

Paz hoped to the gods that it wasn’t a serious wound, yet warmth left his limbs as he saw Sten clutch his side tightly where the bolt may have hit him.

“Get in!” Paz repeated, holding his demeanor together in the wake of bludgeoning pain. “I’ll follow you.”

Gerrik was the one who took action. “Gods,” he whispered. “Oh gods. Sten’s hurt. We’ll get some help. Paz, come on. COME ON!”

The Dark Trooper’s chillingly vacant crimson gaze had pinned Paz down.

It charged at him.

There was little time to react. Paz had shoved Gerrik and Sten upon the end of the ramp and keyed in the code for the damned thing to close.

It closed a second too late as the Dark Trooper reached out, grabbing him by the leg and it forcefully pulled him down and out of the ramp, out of the cruiser as it the corvette’s doors swished shut.

Paz swore under his breath. Holden’s code cylinder was still in his possession. Without it, the men would have no immediate means to power up the cruiser, if its flight controls were secured from unauthorized use. It would take time to bypass, and time was in short supply.

Paz paid little heed to the cries of his friends tearing at his comms as he was bodily dragged over the duracrete floor. It left a trail of crimson on the ground as Paz bled out of the gaps of his armor.

The Dark Trooper’s own blood-red gaze bore down on him before it flung him into a stack of crates, as though he weighed no more than a child.

Manda, Paz prayed yet again, fervent and encompassing. He was tired, so tired. He lifted his arms and couldn’t get them to obey. The Dark Trooper came for him again as it open fired. Paz had the presence of mind to roll out of range. He was functioning entirely out of adrenaline. It wouldn’t surprise him if he suddenly dropped dead then and there from this abnormal display of fortitude. Was this the warrior’s death his brethren had always craved?

Excruciating pain seized him on all fronts and he grew paralyzed from it, nailed in place, too powerless to grip his mini-gun and offer his final act of defiance. It would be in vain if Gerrik, Sten, and Ragnar couldn’t take off without the needed instruments. Paz felt the weight of the code cylinder at his side, slung over a portion of his belt. If he could just find a way to toss it over, have someone catch it… His thoughts lost all coherence.

The Dark Trooper raised its blaster again. The glowing red slit of its helmet quietly mocked him. Paz prayed for the end to come quickly.

“PAZ! Head’s up!!” a voice amplified by a ship’s loud-hailer careened through the entire hangar. It belonged to Yolen.

A barrage of laser fire trailing from a starship hit the Dark Trooper with amateurish aim, but miraculously, none of it left a mark on Paz.

The Mandalorian looked up to see the second cruiser hovering over his general vicinity quite masterfully. One of its low-powered laser cannons had fired at the remains of the Dark Trooper; more shots from its sister cannon blasted through the line of stormtroopers and decimated most of the stupefied bystanders.

With the loathsome droid suppressed by continuous fire, Paz found the will to move. He nearly blacked out as he practically crawled his way onto the ramp of the first cruiser, which had reopened; he couldn’t go any further until two pairs of able hands pulled him in, deeper into the secure bowels of the ship.

“Mister!”

Ragnar had rushed to him—always, the child was first to cheer him on. The boy gave him a restless embrace, but through the pain, Paz saw the dejection in Ragnar’s expressive azure eyes.

“It’s Uncle Sten,” cried the boy. “He’s hurt bad. And you’re hurt bad—!”

Paz patted the boy’s head with a benevolence Ragnar nearly melted into. He heard the scuffle of numerous feet as men searched for a medpac on board.

The Mandalorian couldn’t wait for aid to come. He needed to see Sten. His heart ached with a heaviness, a familiar one that came with the shadow of death. It could be his own. It could be Sten’s. He had to see him. This was his chance.

“Mister…?”

“Take me to your uncle, Ragnar…” It took much for Paz to speak. The child nodded—brave little Ragnar, a tender soul already scarred.

Paz lost no time in stripping the helmet off his face when he saw the limp form of Sten. He thought he had come too late until he saw his friend’s body faintly rise and fall in labored breathing.

“Sten,” the warrior called. “I’ve made it. See? We made it. You and Ragnar can live in peace. You can live free…”

Sten’s eyes slowly opened, revealing his unseeing gaze, directed at where Paz crouched close to him.

“Free?” Sten was fading. He whispered that sole word so reverently as his lips formed a ghost of a smile. “Paz, remember that song the men sang on Life Day? You remember it, don’t you?”

When the moons are out and the night is deep,

When the demons fall over in their sleep,

We will stoke a fire like a morning rain

And on that day we’ll be free again!

Paz never expected to commit such a solemn song to memory. It had been a time when the thought of silver lining was only as real as the gods of old reaching down and touching them in the flesh.

The Mandalorian nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I remember.”

But Sten no longer heard. His friend was still, very still. His body showed no signs of life, his heart had stopped cold.

Paz heard the sobs of men all around him. He heard mumbled prayers for the dearly departed. Paz’s bare vision had clouded over with tears.

His grief knew no words as he tenderly touched his forehead upon Sten’s. He should’ve shown this sort of affection while Sten was still alive. The kov’nyn—a Mandalorian’s ultimate gesture of trust. Of love. Of great respect.

He had let Sten go. He gently laid his dearest friend’s head upon the cold floor of the ship.

The ship—he still had breath in him to fly them out into orbit.

But he was completely sapped of strength. There was still breath in him to speak, however.

“Gerrik,” he breathed. “Anyone—please. Take the code cylinder from my belt. Take it to the controls. It’ll authorize this ship to leave…”

Gerrik, still in his throes of grief, had followed Paz’s orders. “Paz, what coordinates do we set? Maker, you’re to pilot the ship, you need to make it…!”

Paz couldn’t blame Gerrik for his brief lapse of callousness. He sensed everyone’s helplessness, their immense need for a buoy in the storm, now that they had lost yet another of their own through Sten. One last chance, he prayed to the Oversoul. One more ounce of strength and that’s it, I’ll ask no more.

“Mister Paz,” a young voice which wasn’t Ragnar’s met his ears. Ragnar had very calmly clung to his uncle in a tight embrace, and Paz was fraught with the same amazement at the boy’s resilience. No doubt it may have trickled over the rest of the children. Death was rife all around them and yet they remained steadfast.

Paz turned to the voice; it was Quinn. His bare face now bore expression, so he tried his best to smile at the little one’s efforts of courage. “Quinn,” the warrior acknowledged the child.

“You can have this,” Quinn offered, holding up a tattered medpac which Paz immediately recognized. It had exchanged hands time and again, but Paz knew the little kit Ragnar had risked his life for, all those months ago when the man burned with fever, alone with a useless med droid in the makeshift infirmary.

“It’s got one last vial left, sir,” Quinn said, keeping his voice even. “I think it’s for the pain.” The boy unfurled the medpac; true enough, there was a lone vial of painkiller left. It sent Paz reeling in disbelief. Was the Oversoul truly listening to him? His faith on the Manda waxed and waned over and over, never in a fixed state since his arrival on Samovar. He took the vial, partially stripped an arm of its layers and injected the drug into his system.

“Thank you, Quinn,” Paz rasped. This dose wouldn’t spare him from an impending death, but it was all he needed to clear his mind long enough to reach the ship’s main controls. Gerrik was immediately by his side, aiding him upright as the man handed over the code cylinder to Paz.

“For Dargo and Sten,” Gerrik said softly. Paz nodded, almost imperceptibly, as he inserted the code cylinder into the control panel slot; the ship made a grating whir which rattled everyone on their feet. Paz lay a hand over Gerrik’s own, squeezed it in reassurance before he whispered again. “Y-you gotta buckle up.”

Gerrik was about to lead Paz unto a jumpseat opposite the pilot’s side.

“No, leave me. Go now. I’ll handle it from here.”

Gerrik’s reply was caught in his throat. “I’ll have Ragnar by your side, at least…"

It seemed that Gerrik took Paz’s imploring gaze as a “yes.” His friend had left his side, and now it was cold where Paz stood. Too cold. The engines whirred even louder as Paz guided the corvette out of the hangar.

His vision had blurred to almost nothing. No—he couldn’t take the ship to hyperspace. He had overstayed his welcome, and Gerrik would have to figure this one out without him (and in the dense fog of his mind, a little girl named Celeste was wondering at the stars if anyone would come home to her… a promise unfulfilled…) The Mandalorian slumped on the cockpit floor, shivering as the warmth left his limbs. The colors were now gone; in death, Paz had always thought, the last among his senses to go was hearing. He sensed it when Ragnar had rushed to his side. He felt the boy’s tiny hand grasp his much larger one.

He did hear the child. Ragnar was sobbing, finally pouring all his cares out; he was speaking to Paz, the words fragmented but the Mandalorian heeded them.

“You’ve been very brave,” Paz spoke, uncertain if words even formed. If he could transfer his thoughts unto Ragnar, it would be a wondrous litany of how much he had come to love the child. Soon, he would be joining Sten and Dargo. If he were no longer to join the Oversoul, at least he would still be in good company. One of the best he’d ever known.

Slowly, the claws of a void were at his feet as it eventually claimed him.

***

Ragnar had run as fast as he could towards Paz when Gerrik had requested him to stay by the Mandalorian’s side, as they trekked their last moment upon Samovar, and finally into orbit.

But something was wrong. Very wrong.

Paz stood still, hunched over the controls, laboriously dragging in one breath after another. Then, the huge warrior had slid unto the floor. Ragnar froze for a moment in shock as he noted that Paz had been clutching at his heart as though he were in immense pain.

“We need more painkillers!!” Ragnar shouted over his shoulder as he practically threw himself at Paz’s side. Tears were on his cheeks, glistening and raw, as he gripped the man’s hand and drew it close to his own tiny chest.

“Don’t die, don’t die,” Ragnar murmured. He was certain Paz felt his own little heartbeat through the glove, and somehow, in one foolish thought, the boy wished he could find a way to transfer some of his life force into his last living beacon of hope. “Mister—you’re all I have. I know I sound so selfish and desperate but Uncle Sten had told me if anything happened to him, that I’d go to you. So don’t die… please.”

Ragnar realized that this was the first time he had a long, good look at Paz’s eyes. They were the deepest blue like his own, replete with meaning, with a lifetime’s worth of joy, of sadness and pain. There was a light in those eyes that had slowly begun to fade.

“No…” Ragnar whispered. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

Paz’s smile was but a wince; the man seemed to sift through a veil of darkness to find Ragnar’s own gaze. The man lightly squeezed his hand, and Ragnar held onto it as though it were the most precious thing in the galaxy.

The warrior’s lips barely moved, but Ragnar knew that Paz meant to tell him something, something important as the man strained so hard to form the words. The boy leaned closer and the only thing he heard was “brave.” It was followed by a series of shallow breaths, and Ragnar clung to Paz’s hand as he had clung onto Uncle Sten, grateful that for once, he had held someone he cared for so deeply, unlike his mother and father who had passed so suddenly without word in this cold galaxy.

And now, he was holding onto Paz, beloved Paz like a father he never knew, one who had encouraged him and made him feel safe when he’d least expected it, when Ragnar had thought of simply giving up.

He would soon be losing Paz as well, and Ragnar thought that it was’t fair—it just wasn’t fair!

Ragnar wanted to yell out at the freezing vacuum of space; angry at everything and nothing all at once; he lifted his little, tear-stained face to glance at the viewport, ready to heave his grievances at an uncaring world—and that’s when he beheld a most strange and wonderful thing that it nearly frightened the child.

Men and women clad in armor same as Paz’s were hailing from the sky on wings of fire, from a vastness mottled with stars upon the wide open hangar.

They wore jetpacks like Paz which aided their efforts. Ragnar spared a moment to let go of Paz’s hand so he leaned over the viewport, his mouth agape and his eyes twinkling, reflecting all the blazing lights.

“Mister!! Mister!” Ragnar called from where he stood, gaze still affixed at the unexpected splendor before him. “There’s people outside! I think they’re Mandalorians like you! Did they come to rescue us? Did you call to them, Mister? Look—!“

Ragnar turned his head to Paz, hoping that the man had indeed seen. He’d bodily lift the large warrior if he had to, just so Paz could get a better account of everything!

But Paz had not seen. The warrior had slumped forward, face down upon the ship’s durasteel floor.

“Mister?”

Ragnar crept to him. He refused to believe it. Gingerly, the boy held Paz’s shoulders and with a mighty attempt, he tried shaking the man awake. Once. Twice. There was no response.

“Mister?” He couldn’t let the word out. Ragnar had choked over a fresh bout of tears. The boy grew numb as he held his ear against Paz’s chest. His heart had ceased to beat and there was nothing, nothing.

Everything felt too unreal for the young boy. He couldn’t associate the triumphant sight of other Mandalorians coming to their rescue with the sight of one dearest to him snuffed out like a light, and it had grown so dark again.

Ragnar obstinately refused this reality.

“HELP!!” the boy crowed out with all his might. Footsteps thundered towards him, but Ragnar was lost in a sea of unwilling sorrow. “HELP US!! There’s a Mandalorian here who needs help! WE NEED HELP!”

Ragnar felt as though he floated in a dream, or was sucked into the melodrama of a holofilm. He couldn’t feel his hands, his face, his entire body as someone who wore a helmet just like Paz peered through the cockpit doors as it flew open with a vicious swish. It was a Mandalorian wearing silver-hued armor from head to toe, a shredded mantle flowing behind him as the man lithely approached the boy.

“Paz…” the newcomer breathed. Ragnar shot up from where he slouched.

“You know him?!” the child demanded, the sound of blood rushing to his ears in excitement. “Yes—yes, that’s Paz!”

The silver helmet moved its gaze upon the child. Ragnar was mesmerized for a moment, letting a wordless conversation happen between himself and this stranger, a stranger who felt oddly familiar—but perhaps it was because he was one of Paz’s people. Paz had relayed to Ragnar that he was no longer Mandalorian, but that simply wasn’t true. They wouldn’t come for him, otherwise.

“He revealed his face…?” were the Mandalorian’s next words. Ragnar didn’t know what that exactly meant, but he nodded.

“Is he in trouble for it?” Ragnar asked. In his mind, Paz was simply asleep. He continued to speak of the man in present tense. The child was adamant that Paz had not suddenly left him, just as everyone he had ever loved did.

The silver-clad Mandalorian seemed dazed, but whether it was a response to Ragnar’s question or if he was referring to a question in his own mind, the stranger shook his head.

He then called out to the open cockpit doors. “MEDIC! We need a medic over here!”

“Roger that,” a composed response came almost instantly.

The silver Mandalorian gently laid gloved hands upon Ragnar’s trembling shoulders.

“It’s best to give the medic room to work on him,” suggested the stranger.

Ragnar thrust his chin out. “Will Paz be okay?”

The silver Mandalorian couldn’t give him an answer. With the same tenderness Ragnar mysteriously expected of a formidable-looking warrior, the stranger set the boy aside as another Mandalorian, this time clad in cream-colored armor which bore a complex crimson signet upon both shoulders, took Ragnar’s place close to Paz. Ragnar supposed that’s what Mandalorian medics wore.

It was a young man who, upon seeing Paz stripped of his helmet, paused in mid-action, seemingly conflicted whether or not looking directly upon someone’s face was acceptable. Ragnar was mystified; he wasn’t schooled in the ways of Mandalorians, but it seemed afterwards that the medic answered a higher calling and cast out whatever prejudice he had seconds ago.

The medic rapidly brought out instruments and assessed his patient in a thorough, systematic fashion. He glanced up at Ragnar in concern. “Djarin,” clearly said the youth, addressing the Mandalorian that first came to their aid. “This doesn’t look good. I’d need you to take the kid outside. It’s gonna be brutal.”

“NO!” Ragnar retorted, resisting the hold of the Mandalorian named Djarin. “I can take it. Whatever you need to do to make sure Paz is okay—I’ll take it. I want to be with him when… when he wakes up…”

Ragnar didn’t like the way both Mandalorians exchanged glances. Without seeing their faces, Ragnar couldn’t gauge their expressions, but he sensed that the decision to keep him here was a very reluctant one. And worse… they didn’t seem to believe him, or at least Ragnar sensed they didn’t, when he’d said that Paz would wake up.

No—they should believe him, because Paz would!

Djarin, however, was full of the clemency Ragnar needed to see this through. He kept his hands upon Ragnar’s shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze. “Just let me know when you need me to take you outside.”

Ragnar shook his head, tenacious as ever, but in an unlikely response to the kind gesture of someone who could be Paz’s old friend, the child held on to Djarin’s hands and squeezed them in return.

The boy had never seen a humanoid medic work on someone else before. The med droids on Samovar’s infirmary didn’t seem equipped for such hardened, fastidious tasks.

The medic worked with measured grace as he unclasped Paz’s chest armor, revealing the layers underneath. Realizing that Paz seemed to profusely bleed, the medic utilized laser scissors to cut meticulously through the fabric.

“Osik,” breathed the medic in what sounded like Paz’s strange language. “He’s bleeding, alright. Cardiac arrest no more than five minutes ago. Djarin—stand back. Keep the boy with you.”

When the medic had said that things were going to be brutal, Ragnar couldn’t deny the truth to it. The cream-colored Mandalorian with the peculiar signet had produced a considerably sized bottle of bacta from his kit and began to generously spray it over where Paz bled heavily. The coppery smell of blood filled the cabin. Thereafter, the medic positioned himself bodily over Paz, both his hands firmly upon his dearest friend’s exposed chest, and the medic began to push rhythmically with all his might, his entire weight depending on it.

Ragnar was worried that the medic could be crushing Paz’s ribs.

Djarin squeezed his shoulders again. “Paz is a big guy. It’ll take a lot to get to his heart.”

Ragnar shot an astounded look at Djarin through fresh tears. “To his heart…?”

“He’ll try to make it beat again.”

A fire had suddenly ignited within Ragnar at those words. Confusion set over him—can they really do that? Can they bring someone back from the dead in all sincerity? Ragnar was weeping again, his silent cries drowned out by the sound of the medic’s garbled grunts as he continued to work on Paz.

Had the Mandalorians made it earlier, could they have saved Uncle Sten as well…?

The child watched the scene as though everything moved underwater. The lights were beginning to hurt his eyes; he had grown fatigued from the day’s relentless action that probably lasted him a lifetime. His mind began to swim and he was seeing things as though he were disembodied.

“Please,” Ragnar whispered. “Please, mister. You have to make it. You have to.”

Djarin’s grip had anchored him, but Paz’s warm kindness was the real treasure Ragnar wished to experience once more, and for a long, long time.

“Please…” the child croaked, exhausted but obstinate.

“He’s breathing! I got a heartbeat! Manda—he’s breathing!” the medic exclaimed, and the young man, perhaps suppressing his own torrent of emotions until then, began to babble out a storm. “Paz—oh stars. I thought we’d lost you. Stars—we got your signal and we’ve tracked it to a frigate in orbit. But we caught another distress beacon right here. Paz, we were so karking worried!”

Ragnar’s world had suddenly become so vibrant upon witnessing the medic’s jubilation.

Sure enough, Paz’s chest had moved again with a delicate up-and-down motion. In a spectacular telltale sign of life, Paz sputtered and coughed, wheezed for a few moments as though registering what in the ten hells had happened to him—and his eyes flew open, wide and alert. Ragnar broke free of Djarin’s grasp as the silver Mandalorian fell in awe of the sight.

Ragnar didn’t care if Paz’s blood soaked him through, didn’t care if he bawled like a baby. He didn’t care if everyone saw him like that; he had never cried this hard before. He had always been strong, but now, Paz had come back to him. He can be safe again. Paz’s warmth had returned.

“Mister!” Ragnar wailed, shutting his eyes tight, losing himself in this indescribable moment of happiness. “I knew you’d make it. I knew it.”

He felt the weight of Paz’s hand brimming with life upon his dark head. The sound of Paz’s breathing was the most beautiful music to Ragnar’s ears, only topped by the sound of Paz’s gentle, robust voice.

“Ragnar,” Paz called to him, and the boy found himself looking into eyes that mirrored all the galaxy’s oceans. “Are… are you okay?”

“I’m okay, Mister,” Ragnar croaked back. He flung his arms around his dearest friend again—more like a father, Ragnar had decided not too long ago. He could feel the stunned helmeted stares of the medic and Djarin upon him, and Ragnar let them both be. They had brought Paz back from the brink of no return. “Are you okay?”

Paz held him close, and Ragnar swore he felt the heat of the man’s tears upon his own sodden cheek.

“I’m okay, ad’ika,” said Paz.

***

Chapter Text

Epilogue

“What is to give light must endure burning.”
-Vicktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning

Three Months Later

Paz felt he’d been placed in an incommodious position, sitting on a cushioned chair too small for his hulking armored frame. It came to a point where he needed to bend his knees close to his chest, as his boots met the lush carpeted floor evenly.

A modulated cough rang beside him, and Paz scowled. He knew he looked funny, and he knew that Din was disguising a chuckle again.

They needed to be in their best behavior.

It had been three months since the rescue and raid on Samovar. Within a long time afterwards, Paz was provided with a strict recovery regimen which had touched him a great deal. The Mandalorians were treating him with far more respect than he deserved, after knowing that he’d broken the Creed.

The Armorer, once he was well enough to see her, bore him no ill will. He was, however, still a marked man, so to speak. The Armorer had allowed him to wear the buy’ce again, but it was highly conditional and really, more of an exception.

“You have been stripped of will when the helmet was taken from you,” the Armorer had reasoned, her voice ringing judiciously. “While the Creed was indeed broken by that act, even if it was not of your own doing, an oath is something that needs to be honored as had been done by our ancestors.”

Paz found little reassurance when the Armorer had proceeded to tell him that the only way he can reinstate himself entirely in the Way was to bathe in the sacred Living Waters on Mandalore. He might as well have jumped ten leagues in one go and travel back in time to stop the Purge from happening, so Manda’yaim would never have been ruined and in effect, the Living Waters would still stand, unsullied.

As it was, the thought of full redemption remained a faraway dream. He was only here to fulfill a pact which was sealed by the gravity of Mandalorian honor.

Three months had passed, and he was to meet little Celeste in the appointed coordinates and time. Din had offered to go with him, and while Paz was a little annoyed at his brother’s sudden protectiveness over him, the large warrior was grateful that he wouldn’t have to go through this ordeal alone.

For they were to meet with Celeste Holden in a lavish boarding school along a lovely countryside, surrounded by well-bred young people and pearl-clutching governesses.

They were met with terrified stares, contemptuous stares, bewildered and awestruck stares, and despite the upbringing of these seeming gentlefolk, they would noticeably stop and scrutinize the two armored men from head to toe. It was a good thing that Paz decided to be in a light mood. Such tersely open stares irked him; many still saw a Mandalorian as a strange and unwelcome presence.

More so in a dandy world like this.

It was good judgment on Din’s part to have consulted a friend of his, a New Republic Marshal named Cara Dune. Paz had his own reservations towards the New Republic, but it wasn’t as dire as the ones he had for the Empire and its Remnant.

In fact, the New Republic were quite heavily involved in the entire operation. When the Mandalorians landed upon Samovar on that night they rescued Paz and the rest, they had company.

It appeared that the New Republic had heeded the distress signal as well, and by some divine intervention, both parties willingly worked in tandem to set things straight, especially when it came to outdated diabolical practices like slavery.

“Here they come,” Din informed him, breaking Paz from his thoughts.

Two figures bounded down a great stairway of expensive marble and other glimmering minerals (this place is too damn extravagant, Paz huffed), right toward the spot where the two Mandalorians patiently waited, scrunched in their luxurious seats.

Paz stood up to greet them and so did Din; his old injuries still troubled Paz once in a while, and the burly Mandalorian let an embarrassing moment slide as his brother helped him up as though he were an old man.

“Hey easy there! Easy now!” the woman named Cara admonished the girl with a chuckle. “Your dad won’t be here until another fifteen minutes!”

And that was true.

The New Republic were given jurisdiction over what remained of the Samovar slave mines. Optics and theatrics were part and parcel of this discovery, and Holden was made to appear as one captured rather than one who had surrendered. It was a lie, no doubt, but his daughter’s safety depended on it. In due time, many among the former slaves would testify against the Remnant survivors who had caved under the weight of a great insurgency. The last thing on Paz’s mind was to see Jovan’s sniveling mug again, but duty was duty, to be honored at all costs. At least, in the wake of it all, justice could be served.

On the other hand, the Mandalorians had simply come for Paz to bring their brother home; that was the agreement, until most of the freed slaves expressed their desire to fall under the jurisdiction of the Mandalorians instead.

Besides, Paz thought fondly, Ragnar had stubbornly refused to leave his side, a competing presence next to the baar’ure who tended to him in shifts as he healed.

In the meantime, he gazed at little Celeste as she skipped down the steps, shoes tapping playfully against carpeted floor as she raced Cara to the foot of the stairs.

“I beat you! I beat you!” chanted the child, beaming splendidly. Paz’s heart warmed over the sight of a little one so happy, blissful over the news of reuniting with her father after a long wait, and of course, for soundly defeating a panting Marshal.

“Stars!” Cara pretended to gasp in exhaustion as she caught up with Celeste. “You’re a speedy little womp-rat, aren't ya?”

Celeste seemed unaware of the presences of the two Mandalorians as the child did a little dance. Cara wrangled the child in vain, and it was she who acknowledged Paz and Din while Celeste continued to fidget.

“Well, that was easy! Thanks a lot, tin-man and friend,” Cara spouted in good-natured sarcasm; and that was when Celeste paused in her frivolity to follow Cara’s line of sight and conversation.

The child audibly gasped, her face warped in shock as she hid behind the Marshal upon beholding the two armored behemoths.

“It’s Mandalorians,” whispered Celeste, squeezing her body very close to Cara’s.

“Yup, that’s a great observation,” Cara fondly countered.

“Papa said they weren’t bad buys, after all. Are they bad guys?” the child hissed again, as though the subjects of her perusal were not in the same room.

Paz and Din exchanged glances, with Din knowingly tipping his helmet at his brother. He knew that Paz had unearthed his history as bounty hunter, during the time Isak Holden was a name and face on Din’s bounty puck. Celeste didn’t recognize Din at the moment, as he was no longer in his old worn-down armor from when the child encountered him years before.

The blue-clad Mandalorian took initiative to gently allay Celeste’s doubts. He slowly dropped to a knee so the girl was at the level of his visor.

“Your father is a friend of mine,” Paz whispered, the sonorous calm of his voice seemingly soothing the child. “I know he’ll be here in a bit, but he’d given me a very important mission to make sure you’re okay, so I’m here all the same. I hope you don’t mind.”

The hesitation on Celeste’s little button-nosed, apple-cheeked face had transformed into curiosity. Cara goaded her a little, and the child emerged into view.

“My Papa told me about you,” Celeste admitted, eyes wide. “He said that he saved your life so you saved his.” The child swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

Paz was about to reply with a customary “you’re welcome” when the child, with absolutely no warning, had ran to Paz and flung her chubby arms around his beefy neck.

The burly warrior stiffened, dazed and surprised over this turn of events. Did he really have such an endearing effect on children when he shed himself of his tough demeanor?

He ignored the ‘awwwww’ emitting delightedly from the Marshal, and Din slyly masking another “cough.”

This gift of trust was something Paz genuinely appreciated. He briefly yet tenderly patted the little girl’s sandy brown head. Her father had named a whole starship after her, and Paz came to understand such a gesture. He then uttered a choked, “It’s an honor.”

Celeste only broke free of her embrace when the fuss of a welcome committee care of the boarding school’s personages echoed from the establishment’s ornate doors.

“He’s here!” Celeste exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement. “Papa’s here!”

“Well,” Cara followed it up with a matter-of-fact shrug, addressing the Mandalorians as Paz lumbered back on his feet. “At least I know Captain Teva’s in charge. He’s no-nonsense. He and I are kinda built the same. Come on.”

Din allowed Paz to precede him in quiet deference, and soon, both Mandalorians were outside upon a large courtyard, populated by a few fancy-clothed citizens of the greeting party and an entourage of formally clad New Republic representatives.

On the helm of the group was a man named Captain Carson Teva, the one Cara had vouched for, and the same squadron leader who had caught wind of the distress beacon on Samovar and came to aid the Mandalorians in their efforts.

“Marshal Dune!” Teva grinned in all his white whiskery glory. He and Cara clasped forearms. It appeared that the official pleasantries were dropped and they were here for some respite as well to fulfill an end of a bargain (one which Din had a good hand in).

The captain turned to face Paz and Din; the man did little to hide his amazement.

“Truly a sight to behold,” Teva orated with a small flourish.

Paz had no time to acknowledge Captain Teva as Celeste created a magnificent commotion of squealing with joy as she raced to a figure who had trailed behind, flanked by uniformed plainclothesmen.

It was Isak Holden, dressed drably in a suit assigned to him by the New Republic’s Amnesty Program. Cara had tried to explain the program to him and Din at length, and while Paz believed in second chances, he wondered if most of the Remnant who had willingly surrendered to the new government deserved such an opportunity.

Holden was a worthy recipient, Paz knew.

The man looked weary but the exhilaration was palpable in his eyes. In fact, the man shamelessly wept as he scooped his daughter into his arms and he carried her high. Celeste burst in exuberant laughter. Paz thanked the Manda once more over this reunion which he believed, once upon a time, would no longer transpire.

Paz had the mind to quietly disappear and leave the celebration to father and daughter, and was about to turn heel, coaxing Din to join him if he wished, when Holden called after him.

“Lord Vizsla,” the captain said, without a trace of derision in his voice and only awash with fond reverence. Paz shook his head. Holden knew that addressing him as such would get his full attention. Also, it spared everyone from knowing his entire name. Cara must have informed Teva that Mandalorians of Din’s Tribe were very particular about revealing their names.

The populace murmured in admiration. There was a change of atmosphere, mixed with a tinge of regret that perhaps these snooty people should’ve treated a noble-born Mandalorian better back at the waiting veranda.

Paz scoffed but he nevertheless halted mid-step and allowed Holden to come to him, smiling widely, Celeste in tow.

“I’ve gotten word of what happened,” Holden said carefully. “You have no idea how overjoyed I am, seeing you alive and well. I fear that I am now buried in a debt of your sacrifice that I can never repay.”

“That’s nonsense,” Paz riposted immediately, almost apprehensive over the captain’s sincere admission. “All I want is for you and Celeste to live happily in peace. That’s all I ask.”

Holden’s eyes brimmed with tears again. He tried to express more of what was in his heart, but was at loss for words. However, Paz did take this opportunity to confront the captain over something.

“You kept your promise as well,” the burly warrior said, voice tinged with warmth in spite of the vocoder. “You’ve sent the beacon for my brethren to pick up. It’s one unique to me, and I’ve entrusted you to activate it from your frigate. I couldn’t have well sent it on time on Samovar. And for that, you have my eternal gratitude. We are even.”

Holden held the child closer to him as Celeste started to snooze over his shoulder, comforted to be in her father’s arms at last.

“I hope you did not mind the other beacon I sent remotely from Samovar itself. It was I who tipped the New Republic, but your personal beacon seemed to have overlapped with mine. I only hope the Remnant would not expose me and condemn me, for all I am under the New Republic’s protection. For all the Remnant knows, Samovar had been captured by the enemy. It was a long time coming, and I’m grateful that its baneful days have come to an end.”

Something may have prompted Holden to acknowledge Din, even as the latter stood stock-still, he might as well have been invisible.

“I thank you for your help, noble Mandalorian,” Holden said, with a small bow of his head.

Din was silent for a moment, as though debating whether he’d speak or not. In the end, all Din did was to respond equally with a nod.

Paz respected Din’s decision not to reveal himself as Holden’s other savior. Perhaps it was for the best. Djarin had always a grating humility to him, one which piqued Paz time and again, but his brother wasn’t one to revel in accolades. It would be a secret for far longer.

Holden and Paz had parted in a manner of extraordinary brotherhood. They clasped forearms, a great understanding forged between them. And then the captain and his sweet slumbering daughter were on their way back to the New Republic entourage once more.

Teva was in high spirits. “I heard there’s a pavilion close by that serves the best jogan pies in the parsec?”

*

Cara escorted them back to the Lambda-class shuttle, modified so that it was coded under the New Republic. The Marshal had loaned it to Din after acquiring it from a fateful mission. Paz had listened to Din’s own account of it not long ago, where Din had revealed yet another secret to him.

“You boys are probably wondering what would become of Samovar,” she volunteered; she seemed eager to relay news, and Paz supposed that it was good.

“You got us,” Din replied with a sardonic lilt. “I’m willing to hear it if Paz is completely fine with it.”

Paz chuckled. Din remained irritatingly considerate over his mental well-being. It had not been easy to process the horrors he lived through as a slave on that karking mining planet.

“Fine,” said Paz simply.

“Well,” Cara began, “everything that had happened there is a confidential report. The New Republic High Command have it in their records now, of course. They’ve done a thorough sweep on Samovar, thanks to the holo-map the little tike provided.”

Paz smiled under the helm. Cara had meant Ragnar, who had cooperated with parts of the investigation as securely as a child his age could.

“You were mining doonium, as the reports say. We’ve traced the doonium shipments directed to the Santhe Shipyards on Corellia. I am at liberty to tell you that we have unmasked traitors in our midst, Imperial zealots who’d disguised themselves as loyal to the New Republic. There’s been a lot of arrests, I tell ya. And I think you’ve helped us stop a major operation from moving forward. Looks like the Remnant were secretly building some kind of colossal hyperdrive. We don’t know what it’s for yet, but we’ll get to the bottom of it. Maker! Your rescue on Samovar—with no disrespect intended, big guy—was a blessing in disguise. All mining operations were shut down. We’re trailing the slave trade network with Holden’s help. and we’re close to cracking it. I thought you should know, especially the last part. We’re damn well kissing slavery goodbye.”

“Thought I’d never say this, Cara, but your New Republic friends are pretty efficient, after all. Not bad,” Din teased. Cara made a pretense of punching him on the gut while Din skillfully evaded it, like a pair of annoyed siblings.

After a moment, while Paz had fallen in a haze of memory, Cara stopped him in his tracks.

“Big guy,” Cara said fondly, and by this time, Paz had forgiven the Marshal over her familiarity with him. She was one other outsider Paz had welcomed into his space. “I know this is something between you and Holden, but yeah—he said he needed to return this to you. He knows it’s important.”

Din seemed puzzled at first, and so was Paz himself, when Cara fished out a pouch from her belt and handed it solemnly to the large warrior.

“Good luck,” Cara said, thereby patting Paz heartily upon the pauldron. With a playful salute to Din, she shuffled away, perhaps to join Teva over some freshly baked jogan pie.

***

The trip on the Lambda shuttle back to their clandestine quarters on a ringworld called Glavis, tucked at the fringes of the Outer Rim, was a sobering one.

The item which Cara had returned on Holden’s behalf was his mythosaur necklace. The kyr’bes pendant had a data-chip installed which was indeed unique to Paz, and through it, Holden was able to send out his personal beacon which only a Mandalorian of the Covert could heed. The timing had been impeccable. Paz had thought the beacon never reached anyone, only for a dozen Mandalorians to come rallying to it with Djarin himself heading the search party.

Paz felt the tiny weight of his mythosaur keepsake on his palm once again. He stared at it awhile as he sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Din had leaned on his own chair as the shuttle drifted though hyperspace.

In the comfortable dimness of the cockpit, Paz sought this moment to take a weight off his heart, and Din was the perfect confidant for it.

“Djarin,” Paz uttered. “You awake?”

Din’s helmet abruptly turned to him as his brother sat up.

Paz felt a warmth blanket him upon seeing how attentive Din had become. The silver-clad Mandalorian offered him nothing but his willing support, knowing well that they shared the same predicament.

Paz knew of Din and his foundling, and how Din had broken the Creed so the little one could see his face.

After his encounter with a stalwart soul such as Ragnar’s, Paz completely comprehended Din’s motive behind it.

Now, they were both dar’manda and yet they were not, somehow still welcome in the fold of the Tribe, albeit unable to completely mingle with their brethren as much as they could. For what it was worth, they had each other’s company. Din had been helping him sort out the men they had rescued on Samovar, along with their children. Many had chosen to return home, willingly carrying the secret of their suffering and the nature of their rescue to their graves.

Gerrik was one of them, and he had lovingly brought little Quinn with him, whom he had adopted in honor of Dargo.

There was no reassurance that they would regularly keep in touch, as the Mandalorians’ whereabouts had to remain secret. Paz sighed. It was the same old dance again, where they needed to relocate and go into hiding. One day, Paz pondered on, the Mandalorians would be welcome openly into the galaxy again, without fear of persecution and mass annihilation.

“My wife sends her regards,” Gerrik had informed Paz, overjoyed, before he had been shepherded for a long journey to his home planet. “Guess what, big fella? She hadn’t remarried. I don’t deserve my lovely Marron. Well, she and I have a son now. Quinn will love it. He’ll have a home. Marron’s a splendid cook. One day, I’ll get you to meet her. Paz, my dearest friend. I’ll never forget you.”

The past month had been filled with bittersweet goings-on. However, at this moment, Paz knew he needed the closure over something which was contentious between himself and Din.

“Well, Paz, I’m listening,” Din broke through his meandering with an easy, kind air.

“Back on Nevarro, more than a year ago,” Paz began, immersed in sudden guilt and melancholy, “I have talked to you harshly. I had called you a coward, and I nearly killed you for it. I had judged too quickly. I should’ve known of your loneliness, being the sole Provider of the Covert, gone for long months at a time. You only did what you needed to do to continue your role when you took a commission from the Remnant…”

“Paz,” Din whispered; the compassion in his tone seemed unmerited as Paz plodded on.

“I want you to know that I am sorry for my cruel words. You had never deserved them, vod. I hope,” Paz felt tears unbidden, thankful that his helm hid his agitation, “that one day, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

For a moment, the cabin was filled with even, modulated breathing. A beat passed, then another.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Din responded, gentle and unwavering. “It was within your right to rebuke me the way you did. You are the Covert’s protector. I would have done the same to one such as myself, had I caught them going astray.”

That was more than what Paz could bear. He bowed his head, paralyzed by a maelstrom of emotions. It was Din who took the initiative to briefly and affectionately bump his helmet against his.

The rest of the journey went by in thoughtful quietude.

***

As it had always been for a time, Ragnar was the first in line to greet Paz.

The child rushed to him in a familiar mutual manner—the child bounded full-speed into his arms, and the hulk of a man would pick him up and would raise him high, followed by a bone-crushing hug upon Ragnar’s heartfelt request.

Nearly every night since Sten’s passing, he and the boy would whisper the prayer Mandalorians turned to for comfort and inner peace.

“Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.”

I’m still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

Paz sensed that Ragnar had been scheming something, and Paz had to admit that he schemed along with Ragnar. However, with him needing redemption from breaking his Creed, it would be tricky making all of it official.

The moment they both had was now.

It seemed the same night as were all nights when Paz took time out of his busy rotations to tuck Ragnar in bed. Back on Nevarro, this was Paz solemn duty to little foundlings who wished for this venerable service.

Ragnar, Misha, and Julon were among the boys from Samovar who had stayed with the Mandalorians, along with Julon’s uncle and Misha’s older brother. In a clumsy, almost foreign moment for all parties involved, they had pledged their fealty to House Vizsla. Paz himself couldn’t acknowledge this allegiance, not while the Living Waters awaited him in some shape or form. It was the Armorer who welcomed them into the Tribe, and had become Paz’s own set of faithful shadows ever since.

“Mister,” Ragnar piped up under the covers Paz had freshly tucked the child into.

“Yes, ad’ika?”

Ragnar sat up with an overly dramatic sigh.

“I’m tired of calling you ‘mister,’” Ragnar declared with the seriousness of one in scholarly pursuit. “Would it be totally okay with you if all I ever wanted was to call you ‘dad?’”

Paz felt the world undulate around him, and all because of the sudden elation he felt. Ragnar had finally presented the idea to him, and for Paz, it was indeed quite the ambush proposition. He hadn’t expected it to happen this night of nights, but their last one of Glavis was as good as any.

Tomorrow, they would be well on their way to their new hideout, but for Paz, it was very much a path for a new life.

Cin Vhetin. Pure as snow.

And he’d start that life anew with a little one he so loved most in the galaxies and beyond.

Paz needn’t be too dramatic, but here he was, scooping up the boy in his beefy arms, unfurling the impeccable cocoon he had made of the child’s bedsheets.

“Of course,” Paz said softly, and he saw how Ragnar lit up like the very suns of dawn. It was a kind of dawn he thought he’d never come to witness again, and he cherished it fully.

“Yes, ad’ika. I would like that very much, more than you ever know.”

***