Not original

717 FNM (21 BBY)

Month 1

Mandalore, Sundari Palace

Satine Kryze

As I make my way to the Palace's Terrace, where the many political leaders of the sector are currently gathered for the celebration, I pass by the various banners of famous clans across Mandalore's history. The historical spectacle of the many Mandalorian Clan flags are like birds strutting their feathers.

From Ordo to Vizsla and even to my father's Clan banner as well as Keldau banner. While I understand the need to represent the various Mandalorian clans, however, the fact that the clans submitted Battle Standards gives me mixed feelings. I would much prefer to have holoprojectors display their symbols instead, to separate our history from their use in battle. Unfortunately, having several dozen holoprojectors to display every influential clan of the past and present seemed to be beyond the local company that was commissioned to install them. Thus, the flags are put on display and the dysfunctional holoprojector arrays have been left in a small storeroom until they are fixed, though I fear that the battle banners may send the wrong message.

I stopped in front of the Kryze clan banner, and I am reminded of simpler times with my father telling stories on the history of Clan Kryze as well as life lessons that I took to heart. I wonder what he thinks of what I have done, whether he approves or disagrees with what I am doing? I know he wouldn't approve of what I was doing in the early years of my reign, which Bo reminded me of a few times before I started to change, but what about what I am doing now? Would he say that I am moving too slowly in enacting changes, or would he be patient and agree to a gradual change? With a sigh, I returned to the present and continued to make my way to my destination.

Finally, I entered the terrace room, which overlooks portions of the city. The room is a social battlefield, the Mandalore sector's tensions reproduced in miniature. The sun is warm, let in by many glass walls that surround the terrace. But Sundari has little traditional weather, so the terrace has discrete fans and mist generators hidden in alcoves to make the rooftop more welcoming.

As I approached the rear of the east wing of the Palace terrace, I sipped on the Kalevalan wine that had been served to me by one of the droid staff. There's a raised pillowed dais prepared for me in this part of the shaded terrace rooftop area. There are multitudes of representatives and guests that fill the terrace, but their placements are anything but random. It only took a glance to notice that the New Mandalorians congregate near my dias in particular, while isolationists mingle in the terrace median. The outright foreign individuals, including the representatives and leader of Anteevy, Liliya, are ensconced in the west wing of the Palace terrace.

In my closest orbit are my more vocal supporters. After I took a seat on my dais, the first to approach me was Governor Pre Vizsla. He isn't wearing any armor, which is an interesting statement and fashion choice to make after I lifted the armor ban yesterday. Slightly behind him, a man and a woman flanked each of his sides. They are the governors of Zanbar and Krownest respectively. I rarely had the time to speak with either governor, so let's see what their interests are. Clearly, both of them want to sound me out with proposals they thought I would have previously dismissed before my recent shift in political stances.

"Duchess Satine, I am sure you remember Governess Wren of Krownest and Governor Priest of Zanbar. Governess Wren has been imploring me for an introduction to the Ithorians." Governor Vizsla began. "We're all very impressed by their progress in terraforming Mandalore. I'll admit I was in the pessimist's camp before, but their results have certainly won me over." Governor Vizsla motioned to some of the Mandalorian flora from before the Excision kept in carefully maintained terrariums to emphasize his point. "It seems that they are more useful than I expected." He admitted, stepping aside for the governor of Krownest. Pre's laying the flattery a bit too thick for my taste today.

"Duchess Satine," Governess Wren stepped forward from behind Vizsla before giving a respectful bow, "Krownest is very impressed by the terraforming efforts of the Ithorians. It is as Governor Vizsla says. We're interested in negotiating our own deal with the Ithorians, if we can have your blessing." Ursa Wren is wearing one of the new fashionable dress armors that's been going into style ever since the Gargon girls had taken off.

"I can't imagine the Ithorians are capable of exploiting a Mandalorian, so I'm inclined to encourage more involvement with them." I admitted. The terraformers are well known for being even-handed and fair. "I'll ensure Tanya reviews your proposal, so she can pass it along to the Ithorian Council." A droid handed me a datapad with Governess Wren's proposal. A brief skim revealed they are interested in locating more cold-climate agricultural vegetables to grow, and not to terraform Krownest. They liked the ice?

The Governor of Zanbar, Freder Priest, started speaking while I'm still absorbing the Krownest proposal. "Concordia has agreed to give a loan for a plan to expand the agricultural settlements on Zanbar. In the past, for other worlds, Mandalore has also contributed subsidies to such projects. Is this a project that Mandalore would be interested in contributing subsidies for again?" He asked, clearly fishing for interest in having us pay the bill for some scheme or another. Governess Wren had already escaped the discussion after handing off the datapad in order to grab a refreshment from a nearby attendant. I looked down at my own diminishing wine glass in boredom.

Not falling for such a simple scheme, I replied, "Vorpa'ya is already a functioning agricultural colony. Mandalore fought back a pirate invasion and helped the colony assert independence from their colonial master. Those aren't subsidies." While I would like for various planets to be more food independent so that we can spend less on food imports, which is slowly rising in prices as the war raged on and trade slowed to a crawl. The government doesn't have any extra space in the budget for any more agricultural subsidies. Governor Vizsla should know this since the majority of the subsidies are already going to Concordia, and he is on the governing Council, so he saw what the budget is like himself. It's likely that Governor Priest didn't believe Vizsla or that he thought that it's worth the effort to convince me.

Governor Priest rattled off some numbers and figures, some sort of last ditch effort to try to convince me. I told him we'd be expecting a proper proposal and when he did have said proposal to submit it to Tanya. If I have the spare credits in the budget, I might have entertained the thought further, but I do not, so the matter ends there. The Governess Wren re-appeared with her wine and a tapas, which reminded me of my own parched throat after my verbal exchange with Governor Priest. So I reached over to my serving droid and took a replacement wine glass.

After it became apparent I'm not interested, Governor Vizsla cut back in and led the two away for a side conversation nearby. As I watched them depart, I am left wondering if that had been a test or examination of some kind.

"Interesting trio." Ms. Crikey isn't armored, yet she appeared quite uncomfortable in her dress, as she looked at the three who had just left. I recognized her from Korkie's introduction. She is wearing boots under her dress, which is likely less of a fascinating fashion statement and more that, like Bo and Tanya, as she has a preference for comfortable footwear. "Anyway, I won't waste much of your time, Miss Duchess Satine, ma'am. I want to be appointed the Governess of Breshig."

I am a bit taken aback at the direct request. "I'll have to discuss that with the administrator of that planet first." I stalled, wondering at how to defuse this request gracefully. Breshig didn't have a governor because it didn't have enough population to need one. However, with its current terraforming underway, that could possibly change, especially with conflicts brewing across the galaxy. I wouldn't be surprised if there would be plenty of refugees in need of resettling.

Ms. Crikey gave me a funny look for a minute, which I could not decipher, while I tried to recall everything I knew about the world. Breshig might become a destination, especially with the recent discoveries that a large portion of the groundwork facilities meant for building ships are serviceable. They are underwater, yes, but could be salvaged and replaced with more modern facilities. If the planet is returned to a state which is more in level with when it was before the Excision, it might become a dockyard again. While we didn't need it per se, anything that could help increase the economy of the sector will be welcome.

However, it seemed that I had stalled for too long, now she seemed annoyed. "I'm that administrator!" She stomped one foot, and I heard her boot thud on the terrace.

"I told Tom to give Prince Korkie the proposal. I'm guessing he didn't do that?" She continued to tap her boot angrily in thought for a minute or so, her armored footwear clacking noisily on the terrace, before deliberately stopping. I wondered if she forgot where she is for a moment, but when Ms. Crikey turned back, she's all smiles again, "Ahem, love the cultural festival, the snapjaws and terraforming are both getting us a lot of questions about people moving to Breshig. Whole lot of new interest, new colonists too." She seemed to misunderstand the point of the cultural festival, but it didn't seem worth correcting. However, she did seem the type of person I could distract with Bo for a while. After a gesture, my savior of a sister came over, leaving an awkward-looking conversation with Governor Vizsla.

After a roll of her eyes, Bo simply stated. "I'm definitely leaving soon, Satine. You know I hate these kinds of events."

"I just met the most fascinating person, though. Meet the administrator of Breshig." I introduced Ms. Crikey to my sister in an understated way that I knew would catch her attention.

"Wait, she's the reptile-hunter from Korkie's stories?"

Success. The two started talking, giving me a deniable distraction, while I took the opportunity to scan the terrace and evaluate the situation again.

I also noted a few clan leaders from Kalevala walking away from the west side of the terrace. People there simply wanted peace, as far as I could tell. So whatever Anteevy is playing at, I doubted it would be something my homeworld wanted to deal with.

Past them, seeming to enjoy the food bar, is the representative from Gargon, a member of their triumvirate, I believe he is a member of a former crime family, if I understood the situation correctly. They are trying to go, as Tanya put it, straight, or at least that is the story that they tell everyone who would listen.

He and a few of his men seemed to be just enjoying the atmosphere but are staying out of the political cliques that are trying to form. However, one of them saw Bo-Katan, and waved the pair over.

These last four days have been great, it is so unfortunate that it will soon be over. All in all, I would say this festival has probably been one of the more successful cultural moments in Mandalorian history. I have not seen any indication that the people have rejected this cultural festival or that it had been taken as an insult by anyone, which is a good start towards a more peaceful future.

Not only that, but the announcements of drawing back on some of the more extreme anti-Old Mandalorian laws had been met with quite a bit of support, indicating that the plan to keep the New Mandalorians in power is succeeding.

At least from my point of view. After all, the last time there had been this many Mandalorian leaders in one room it had been many years ago, at the end of the Clan Wars, so the fact that we're not yelling at each other is a sign of things going in an upward direction towards a peaceful Mandalore sector.

I had to smile at this internally, as I'm sure that some of our neighbors are probably more fearful of a peaceful Mandalore sector. When Mandalorians are at each other's throats, they don't cause many problems for the sectors nearby, which means that they are safer.

I turned to check the other side of the room, and noticed Prime Minister Almec making a beeline for me. Following him is a whole entourage of government officials and VIPs: Deputy Minister Jerec, Ms. Ordo of the MSDF, and Patriarch Raz of Clan Ordo. Oddly, all three Ministers has decided to wear at least a breastplate to represent their commitment to my new course for the New Mandalorians. Korkie's comments a few nights ago had me wondering if maybe I had pushed for change too fast, so I chose not to appear in my full armor as well. I only brought the breastplate on one of my dresses, just to make it clear that armor is acceptable but not necessary in our lifestyle.

"What have your thoughts been about the festival so far?" I asked Patriarch Raz, curious what Ordo's impression of current events might be. Ordo is one of the few places in Mandalore with vibrant political debate left, although the current Patriarch is a reformist, he tended towards more traditional Mandalorian views.

"We approve, of course." He nodded, and didn't elaborate.

Instead of discussing the topic further, Ms. Ordo changed the subject. She started discussing the minutiae of the Super-Kandosii arrival with Mr. Almec and Mr. Jerec, and I wondered why they chose that topic. Surely they didn't need my input for any of the timetables. I tuned their conversation out.

Sipping the wine that had been supplied to me by one of the droids, I looked out from the raised pillowed dais. Several of the commercially bought server girl droids are serving the crowded leaders as they interact with various individuals. I tried to keep track of one individual in particular.

In the crowd is Liliya of the Anteevy Workers' Council. Like before, she is wearing no Mandalorian armor and meeting with several officials, by the looks of it, as her security guards looked around suspiciously. For some reason, she's speaking with Chief Bose of Draboon and Jarl Himmin of Hrthging. Both of their planets are technically not that far from Anteevy; one of them is even located in the same subsector, Esualm subsector, to be exact. It's strange, I couldn't figure out why they would be meeting with her. As far as I knew, those two are some of the most loyal Mandalorians in my entire regime, having supported me from some of the earliest days. Perhaps they are simply trying to find out what Anteevy wanted. They are, after all, neighbors and they do work in the same field. Both of those planets are heavy mining planets, producing raw resources for much of the local Mandalorian sector.

Chief Chaka appeared to be having an intellectual debate with the Anteevy representative, while Jarl Himmin didn't even seem to hide his disinterest. It could be that they're just humoring the woman. Or perhaps they are worried about the CIS; their planets are on the utmost edges of the Mandalore sector, and in the course of the current war with the CIS, that edge is bordering closer with the CIS. Perhaps they are trying to gauge exactly how close Anteevy is to them. There does seem that there is some sort of connection from the reports I had read indicating that Anteevy is at least in play as part of the CIS's motley crew of droid-producing planets. Maybe they are trying to work out some sort of deal, so they would not be invaded by the CIS, trading resources into the Separatist space for assurances that no conflict will come to their worlds. That is a risky move and could draw in the Republic's ire if the Workers' Council is not careful.

Beyond that, I saw the armored, tall representative from Concord Dawn standing off to a corner. The Governor, Purton Jendri, is rarely seen off his world, the last time was years ago now. Apparently, my glance is some sort of signal, because the representative locked eyes with me and walked straight over. Prime Minister Almec started off in the opposite direction at the first sight of the man approaching, and the rest of his entourage followed behind him. Interesting, I wonder what is behind that reaction.

"Duchess Satine, Concord Dawn is aware of the early discussions about the creation of a league of systems within the Republic that can maintain trade relations with non-member systems." This man is speaking of highly classified early drafts that only a senatorial delegation, a few select diplomats and I should have any access to! The neutral league isn't supposed to be public knowledge. Even Bo hasn't seen those copies yet, we are still working on proposals, deep in sensitive negotiations with other systems outside the sector! I schooled my face so as not to show my shock at this blatant faux pas. Either Mandalore has a high access intelligence leak, or Taris did.

He misread my shocked silence as permission to continue, "So Concord Dawn is very eager to contribute to the creation of this league in any way. We only want to ensure that trade can flow between all Mandalorians outside the sector, be they from Anteevy, Ordo, or even Gargon." So that is his plan. Concord Dawn's power in the sector has been on the decline, its hold over food is the source of its power in sector politics. Now with Vorpa'ya abandoning its colonial master and Governor Ghajoja Kraungh's miniature rebellion, they have new competition. Anteevy and Gargon represented new export markets, and more agricultural exports would mean less food for the rest of the sector, so more leverage for Concord Dawn. All under the guise of helping fellow Mandalorians, of course. Now that he had admitted to such blatant corruption and I knew his scheme, what shall I do about it that would benefit my goals the most?

"I'm impressed by your zealous interest in the well-being of our fellow Mandalorians." I lied as naturally as I breathed through decades of practice. I didn't want to spend any more time with this corrupt representative, but Tanya's voice in my head asked me how I could exploit this. How many concessions could I extract from them before they realized they're being played? "I think we can work together, the league is being negotiated, and Concord Dawn could be a senior partner in the negotiations I think, in exchange for certain commitments." I directed the man to speak with Tanya further and sent her a memo as well, asking her to investigate how the information had leaked. Only a select few individuals high up in the government have access to those plans. We might have to start doing some of that "OpSec" Tanya keeps describing to me.

Once that loathsome man left, he's replaced by a much more bombastic guest. Jakelia's King Buika'ra is practically arm in arm with the Clan Kregg Patriarch, who is wearing a cape over his armor, again. At least Korkie didn't hew to that sort of fashion sense.

"Well met, Duchess Satine." The Clan Kregg Patriarch greeted me, bowing slightly.

"Hello Patriarch Kregg, I've heard you've recently had a peace accord on Harswee. I'm glad both sides are able to come to an agreement, especially in these increasingly uncertain times." Mandalore certainly didn't need more tensions sparking over silly reasons like fashion statements.

"Yes, actually, that's what I need to speak with you urgently about." The Kregg Patriarch approached a step closer and continued, "You see, the Harswee government had a crisis of legitimacy after the recent clan conflict caused several of the Clans to pull their support. We are only able to regain popular support by appealing directly to the people and improving their quality of life. And of course winning the war." He seemed to preen for a moment, looking very pleased with himself.

From the reports I had read at the time, the Harswee Civil Conflict was started when every other major clan on Harswee joined together to create the Harswee MSDF division. In response, Clan Kregg declared war on all of them, effectively the entire planet, and somehow won. Tanya had attributed the victory to Kregg inducting thousands of Lapi migrants into Clan Kregg under half a dozen new houses, and had advised against levying punishment and sanctions against the Harswee Clans for engaging in the war. Given how the war had ended relatively swiftly, I did have to concede that Tanya made the right call. But that did not change the fact that almost a thousand people had died in a pointless conflict that I had gone to great lengths to obscure from the Republic.

"That sounds like the best possible outcome." I hesitantly agreed, not exactly sure what the problem was with any of the details so far. With Clan Kregg in charge of the Harswee capital city, it's expected that they would continue to be the head of the government.

The Kregg Patriarch nodded, "Ordinarily so, but as a result we have got a glut of soldiers, mercenaries really, in all of the clans of Harswee, and they have nothing to do."

"Is there a reason why disarmament is not an option?" I asked, confused, and now growing concerned.

"Well, we, uh, the government of Harswee is heavily subsidizing mercenaries as part of the peace settlement. And there are only so many positions within the MSDF to pay for their services..."

"That you have an overpopulation of mercenaries and don't know how to deal with them." I finished for him. A large amount of unemployment would usually result in increased civil unrest, but when that population is armed and dangerous, civil unrest could grow to rioting in the streets.

Jakelia's King Buika'ra stepped in at that moment, "Jakelia had also provided Harswee mercenaries with heavy armor, training, and logistical support for developing additional mercenary companies. We sent our top men to the aid of Clan Kregg, the rightful representative of the Mandalorian State on Harswee during the crisis."

"And that must have been rather expensive." I probed and watched as both men looked somewhat sheepish. "I assume you have already worked out a solution to solve both of your problems?"

It seems the military-industrial complex is alive and thriving in the Mandalorian sector again. A worrying prospect given the fact that Tanya might have missed Jakelian support affecting the outcome of the war. I sighed and wondered exactly how to get out of this mess without reigniting the Harswee Civil War. It seems that Harswee needed some way to generate income, to deal with the support they had gathered for the conflict.

Then, the Kregg Patriarch took out a datapad, and slid it over to one of my serving droids. "We have been negotiating with your niece to formalize a Mandalorian Mercenary Guild as a solution to the excess of idle mercenaries on Harswee as well as paying back Jakelia's support. She actually contacted us first. It seems that she anticipated a number of these problems eventually and decided to pre-empt them. We agreed that the Mandalorian Mercenary Guild would be chartered and headquartered on Harswee and that will resolve a number of our issues. Or at the very least, ensure there is oversight for so many mercenaries. Please take a look at our proposal, I think it might solve all of our mutual problems." I picked the datapad from the droid's grasp, and started skimming the abstract. When did Tanya have the time to work on this? It must have taken an enormous amount of time and dedication to navigate all the vested interests.

I looked back up after not spotting any immediate problems in the proposal. I'd need to give it a more thorough review with my council. "Everything appears to be in order, I'll have the council give this a review soon." I nodded towards the Patriarch, "On less serious business, I heard there might be a wedding soon?"

He chuckled, "Yes, Tabi has made me quite proud. Ms. Vai-Viktis Vizla is a lucky woman." We discussed a few more pleasantries about the wedding and Harswee fashion.

Tanya's report on Jakelia is a bit concerning to me. They seemed to have gotten the wrong idea and thought we're going straight to full militarization, which could be helpful if the CIS invaded our sub sectors but is unhelpful for maintaining the idea that we're staying neutral. As for Harswee, well, they had just gotten through another civil war, and I worried that the damage from their civil war might be used by the CIS to gain leverage in the sector. Hopefully, Tanya's proposal would settle the remaining issues on Harswee, although I am leery of embracing the military-industrial complex further than I have to.

Shaking my head absentmindedly, I wondered if I would ever see another peaceful day, or if I would be running around trying to put out the fires of possible war for the next decade.

Tanya's thoughts on how long the CIS-Republic civil war could go for are frankly terrifying to me. The notion that it could go on for a decade before the CIS is completely exhausted and ultimately crushed simply put a pit in my stomach. The Mandalore sector has already been through a decade or two of war, and so many people had died in that conflict. How many people would die over the course of the war between the CIS and the Republic? How many Mandalorians would be drawn into it, believing that there is an adventure on both sides?

It sickened me, and I hoped that it would not go beyond that point. I would hate to see the Mandalore sector drawn into a war again.

My thoughts are interrupted, though, as one of the server bots comes up to where I am lounging and says, "Duchess Satine, the ship has arrived in orbit." I looked over at the nearby screen where the Super-Kandosii is in full display, having been brought in by several tugs by the looks of it. I had originally wanted the ship brought to Mandalore first to show it off during the cultural festival before it would make its final trip to Kalevala, where it would be refurbished and made ready for use. What use it would have is still unclear to me. I'm hoping that it would serve as nothing more than a pleasure barge, but with the war around us, it's making me hesitate that I should not waste a ship made of beskar. It would be better served as the cornerstone of a defense fleet put together with the neutral systems to keep this sector safe.

The galactic naval situation has been summed up neatly in a Republic Intel report from Tanya. The CIS maintained a four to one advantage over the Republic in capital ships and general naval assets. It's a similar situation to how Mandalore maintained a four to one advantage over Anteevy in capital ships and general naval assets. But that could change rapidly as shipyards for mid-sized capital ships ramp up production. Ships on the scale of the Super-Kandosii however simply could not be constructed in a short time frame and would hopefully deter any aggression from outside powers, 'force multipliers' was the term Tanya used for such ships and wrote about how there are only a limited number of them in the galaxy.

I often wondered how Tanya was so effective at getting Republic intelligence reports, while Merrik provided very little in the way of information on Republic affairs. I suppose she just has a knack for it, but it wouldn't hurt to ask her later.

Smiling, I turned to the droid and said, "Thank you for alerting me." before adding, "Please inform everyone that I wish to hold a commemorative photo with all the planetary leaders here today to show that we are all in solidarity for the neutrality of the Mandalore sector."

The droid nodded its head before wandering off, trying to find all the planetary leaders. There are not just planetary leaders in this crowd, though; I had listed them all, and there are quite a few clan leaders as well. I'm sure future historians would find this commemorative photo fascinating. I couldn't help but envision this photo as one of the most peculiar of Mandalorian historical artifacts. Every New Mandalorian, including myself, is garbed in one form of armor or another. It seemed as if we're all bracing ourselves for the worst, and the few who didn't wear armor appeared to do so under false pretenses, mirroring past New Mandalorian attitudes to appease me. Yet, even this attempt at pandering fell flat, as it catered to an already antiquated version of New Mandalorianism. The photo captured a pivotal moment of political transformation, I suspected.

Perhaps I am only fooling myself by only wearing a part of my armor today. The New Mandalorians would come around to having a more open-minded view on Mandalorian armor. They just needed time. I'm sure they wouldn't fall for whatever Anteevy's political machinations are. Their comments and statements that are quite anti-clan would push away even the New Mandalorians, I am sure. The New Mandalorian way is to give up war, not to give up the family and clan structure that made Mandalorians Mandalorian.

The sector needed to be stabilized, and from stabilization peace would come naturally, not from demanding peace without stabilization. That's what I now believed the New Mandalorian way, altered, would do better in a sector that is at peace and not at war.

Mandalore, Near Sundari, Super-Kandosii Exposition

Tanya Kryze

Life is never simple. This is something I should have come to understand years ago. After all, I had a parasitic entity that claimed to be a god, trying to screw me over for decades. One would assume that at some point, I would have come to an understanding that not only is life never simple, but it's often unfair and came up with the most ridiculous plotlines that even a trashy shounen author could not write.

So, I should not be surprised by the turn of events that led to the news that my handmaiden and best friend Vai is getting hitched.

She said yes when he had asked, and now they are married and Vai was talking about how I am going to be totally involved in it. She's also bugging me about what sort of armor would be appropriate to clad her husband in, she's rather distressed that the vambrace Tabi had given her is so nice and that her own contribution to his beskar'gam would not measure up.

Something about that whole situation put me on edge and I'm not sure why. But anything that involved Vai's antics usually resulted in an embarrassing problem for me down the line. So I would rather push off dealing with it until I have no choice and have to deal with it.

Right now, I'm exploring the Super-Kandosii, with my older brother playing the part of tour guide. Hopefully, after the tour we will have time to talk about what happened during that dinner several days ago and sort through some, what I presume are, hurt feelings. I glanced at the two men, Korkie has been his usual self on the way over, but now he seemed excited once he has some other male company.

Now that the exposition is underway, both Korkie and Mr. Bresh has invited me to be shown around the vessel. Right now, we are outside the Super-Kandosii, standing on the viewing platform built around the ship's superstructure.

"I'm so glad you are also interested in this piece of Mandalorian history." Mr. Bresh nodded approvingly at me.

"It's an incredible find. A beautiful warship." I agreed. Korkie's smile dimmed a little at that comment.

"It's more than just a warship. It's a testament to Mandalorian engineering and material sciences, and to Mandalorian ingenuity and history. The curators are still finding completely original documents and references in the surviving computer cores." Korkie asserted.

I had, of course, been responsible for funding the expedition to find this ship, with Korkie being the one who had done the job, but instead of mentioning any of that, I nodded and smiled. "Lead the way, big brother."

Mr. Bresh pointed out the engines on the outside, "The engines are still mostly functional, but need significant repairs and are woefully inefficient."

I scanned the exterior. "The beskar held up pretty damn well under the ocean's weight. The constant pressure and weathering under seawater would normally ruin a ship." I noted approvingly.

"Let's continue inside." Korkie called from the head of our group, "There's not much more to see from the outside." We started towards the loading bay of the Super-Kandosii, which was converted into allowing tours temporarily. Korkie briefly spoke to one of the other attendants, before retrieving a special badge and handing me a small badge chip.

"Extra security, you'll need it to access anywhere interesting." He explained. I examined it idly for a moment before snapping it into a slot in my vambrace. Morson and Engiz copied my behavior as I followed Korkie further into the ship. The loading bay turbolift took us into the hanger bay, empty of any craft which could launch.

"Welcome aboard the Darasuum'orar." Korkie exited first and called to us, turning back to face us, hand on one hip. I walked out of the turbolift, moving past Korkie to get a look at the empty hanger. All the way across the hanger is another turbolift, and a well-marked path between here and there. Presumably, following the path would lead deeper into the ship.

"Fascinating." I said, I took note of the significant gaps and holes being patched in the ship structure as we crossed to the next turbolift, and then ascended up several lower decks.

"Thank goodness for beskar not being a natural mineral to the snapjaws." Mr. Bresh joked after noticing my attention. "Something tells me that if it had been, there would have been a lot more weaknesses in her and a lot more bite marks."

Nothing eats beskar, right?" Korkie asked, a bit concerned at the off-hand suggestion. Beskar is too complex for biological processes to consume, at least natural processes. However, the same could not be said of other heavy metals. Back on Earth, when a ship is sunk, it's likely not to remain there forever, as there are microbes capable of eating metal deep underwater.

Mr. Bresh shook his head in the negative, "Nope, not that we know of, anyway."

I wrinkled my nose. It stank.

"I know it doesn't look like much now, but you weren't there when we found it. We had to clear out the local wildlife from the ship, it was very infested. You can still spot signs of it everywhere." Korkie pointed out exposed power conduits and chewed-through power converts. Mud and traces of rotted vegetation are still visible, especially in the distant corners of each deck.

"Shouldn't we melt it down? Wouldn't that be simpler and save a lot of money in not having to repair it?" I asked. Fixing up this wreck of a ship sounded like an enormous and expensive task. Pragmatically, the beskar in the ship could allow Sundari to expand to several new districts. Thousands of new homes and businesses. It would be quite the achievement.

"What!? It's going to be made into a museum." Korkie insisted. I rolled my eyes. Not if I had anything to say about it. If we couldn't melt it down, we could at least make the ship pull its weight, and re-arm it.

"Regardless of her eventual fate, we are making progress analyzing the ship." Mr. Bresh said placatingly. He pointed at the end of the hallway, towards a larger command area. "We have cleared out the flooding of the upper decks using the turbolift shafts. Of course, decks one through fourteen are suffering from various states of flooding, and we are slowly working the water down through the ship to clear it out, using several freighters to dispose of the waste on Mandalore. She is just shy of two kilometers long, so you can imagine just how much work it takes to get through everything. The Ithorians have been begging to be let on the ship, as they claim it is a perfect chance to study a closed aquatic environment."

Korkie glanced at me, and paused meaningfully. "What?" I asked.

"I don't want to overstep your authority. You're the Representative to the Republic. Can the Ithorians study the ship?"

"I want to extract some additional terraforming concessions in exchange for access, but I don't see any reason to deny them their wish." I said seriously. Korkie frowned a bit at that statement, but nodded.

Mr. Bresh gave me a confused look, then a shrug. Korkie turned and led me deeper into the ship, past a series of blast doors using a hydraulic system.

"If you think that is wise. Anyway, we have found some examples of plasteel rot, but the beskar content in the superstructure has prevented it from setting in." Korkie said, continuing to walk through a reinforced and armored command level.

Mr. Bresh walked stopped for a moment to point at a particular gap in a section. "The silvery hull you can see on the outside? Near pure beskar, and it was meant to be an underlay; there are mounting points all over the hull where they would likely put hull plates over the top, but if this ship was equipped with any plating, it would have rusted away long ago."

Korkie waited for us to catch up, then he cleared his throat and glanced down at his datapad and paused awkwardly. I stole a look, and saw it detailed the weapons systems.

I pulled out my own datapad, and pulled up the relevant files. "The ship is equipped with forty-four mountings for medium turbolasers. We have no idea if any of that were ever mounted on her as those would have been the most exposed to the elements, and four of the hardpoints need a full restructuring before they can be used. Nine hardpoints for twin heavy turbolasers, of which two were mounted and seemed operational, and almost double that for inline heavy cannons." I recited the weapons system report.

Mr. Bresh nodded, "This shows an interesting design philosophy for the ship. Medium turbolasers are frowned upon these days since there are smaller ships having more heavy turbolasers, but nothing can brawl quite like she can." I gave the man a curious look, that sort of analysis is unusual. It's a fairly basic military analysis, but Mandalore didn't have many of those, at least not until recently. Engiz's older sister was appointed to organize the Self-Defense Forces only a few months ago. The enigmatic engineer smiled and seemed to tap the wall encouragingly. "Even without beskar, she was designed to take hits and dish them out. There are also fifty-four triple laser point defense cannons placed around the hull, providing full coverage that's hooked into an auxiliary reactor array that needs to be replaced entirely. These were top of the line several thousand years ago, now they're worse than most civilian models and eat through focusing lenses and power like you would not believe."

"You tested them?" I asked incredulously.

"We tested everything, for the historical record and to confirm our own understanding." Korkie smiled.

"When we dug her up, we conducted a weapons test which caused the auxiliary reactor to go into meltdown, which is why we need that one replaced entirely. The old models are very sensitive, and from what little documentation survived in the databases, teams of engineers are expected to monitor the reactors constantly."

"I am amazed any of you are still alive." I deadpanned, earning a laugh from the insane engineer before he continued.

"We're surprised to find that the twelve super heavy missile launchers are in perfect condition, as well as the magazine. She even has four Spiteful anti-ship missiles in the magazine, an interesting system that was not in the other Kandosii ships. The launchers could be configured to fire much smaller missiles and quickly return to their super heavy configuration in under four minutes. A very impressive design, revolutionary for the time. Oh, and there are still two super heavy nuclear warheads in the magazine too." WHAT?! I'm VERY surprised Korkie hadn't led with that important fact.

"This thing has ancient nukes on it?!" Sitting on a pair of Tzar bombs is the last thing I needed!

"Yes, but don't worry, we tested for any material fatigue, and both of them are in practically good condition." He smiled. "The fissile material and the internals of warheads has decayed to the point of being utterly inert after centuries and needs to be replaced, but the missile frames themselves are in fine condition. We tried to get schematics for the ship, but the computer systems are mostly rusted to dust by now. Other than that the hyperdrive needs to be replaced, the navigational computer is several dozen tons of rust and most of the conduits and power converters all over the ship are ruined or blown out, not to mention the capacitors."

"Nothing to do with your weapons test, I assume?" I narrowed my eyes at him as he looked at the ceiling, letting out a guilty laugh. Korkie chuckled a bit as well, so I refocused my gaze on him.

"Well, we did learn quite a bit from it, and we did get some data on her. She was commissioned near the end of the Mandalorian Wars, but she is not actually a Kandosii. It would be more accurate to call her a Super-Kandosii. She's bigger than a normal Kandosii, and the beskar content itself is off the charts, an entire layer of the superstructure being made of it as well as the inner layer of the outer hull." Mr. Bresh explained, reading some notes off his datapad.

He looked almost wistful for a moment. I carefully considered if the man is aware that the outer shell of Sundari is made from beskar plate, and how the city's structure alone have more beskar than this admittedly colossal ship. Korkie seemed distracted, typing out a reply to someone on his datapad.

"If she was finished, of course." I said eventually, drawing his attention back to his work. I put aside how the ship felt somewhat reminiscent of the greatest battleship ever produced in my first life, and just like the legendary Yamato, and how little she did to help win her war.

"Yes, we found the engineers that built her inside the bridge. As far as we can tell, after Malachor V, they commandeered the ship and crashed it into the swamps of Breshig, so the Republic couldn't get a hold of her. Then they committed ritual suicide so no one would know where it was. A sad fate for what was to be the Flagship of the Mandalorian Empire."

"Well, if we wanted to re-arm her, what is your estimated cost of that project?" I expected a high figure, but honestly, we couldn't afford even twenty-five million credits without taking out a loan from the Banking Clan, something Mandalore has avoided for decades. The budget for the sector isn't large, and the MSDF's naval forces commanded a vanishingly small amount. Mr. Bresh sucked his breath through his teeth as I asked and looked around as if he wanted to be anywhere other than in front of me.

"Going to need years of work and hundreds of bodies, preferably a few thousand, to rip out what needs ripping out and put in what needs to be put in. The expanded hangars are going to be a huge help in terms of refurbishment. If you want her to just move under her own power, we are looking at around two hundred million credits."

"Two hundred million?!"

"See? This is why a museum is a more realistic idea, Tanya." Korkie rejoined the conversation, no longer distracted by his datapad. "We won't need two hundred million credits to finish the analysis and set up a museum." He helpfully ignored that my suggestion of melting down the ship would also not require a large capital investment either.

Mr. Bresh nodded at me in particular, "Yes, if we want to fly and re-arm her. The cost is from getting new reactors in, replacing all the conduits, new navigational computer, and hyperdrive, repairing the bridge and engineering command center, as well as replacing a lot of the rotten plasteel. It's probably one hundred and twenty million credits in new structure and kit, another fifty to sixty in subsystems and the rest is labor. This is going to be a long project." I took a moment to digest just how much of a money pit I am contending with. The fact that putting a new hyperdrive in this ship would be illegal by Republic law is not mentioned.

"I'm not sure if we want to do any of that." I hedged. I would have to talk to Aunt Satine before approving any final outcome, and ideally, I'd sour her on the whole project. Mr. Bresh however seemed caught up in his analysis.

"Then there are weapon systems, putting in new turbolasers will cost around twenty to thirty million credits, that is if we keep the old turbolasers that still work too. Filling the missile magazine would cost around four million credits. The double-layer deflector shielding needs to be entirely replaced, and that will cost between ten and fifty million, depending on the quality of the shielding we go with. Uhhh, general supplies and refurbishment of the crew and life support will cost another few million. The hangar bay's ray shielding and blast doors need to be replaced, all of them. New high-grade durasteel armor plates to go over the Beskar hull would be very expensive as ships just aren't built like that these days, so we would be designing the facilities to build the plates from scratch. The main drives look to be in good shape, but if one of them needs to be replaced, it would just be better to replace the whole array, and the only ones who produce drives big enough to get her moving would be Kuat and that would cost..." His voice cracked and he shuddered, "A-anyway, the full estimation is around three to four hundred million credits to begin refurbishing the Super-Kandosii and that is what we know so far. We still need to see how bad it is on the lower decks."

He handed me the datapad, and I struggled not to shake in frustration. This dead hulk is already being celebrated as a sign of Satine's legitimacy, that the ancient Mandalorians are looking down on her with pride. There are celebrations from across the Mandalorian sector, and some planets are even paying taxes for the first time in several hundred years, if ever.

It's a perfect white elephant. Too useless to actually serve in the defense of Mandalore and too valuable to melt down for all the beskar the Mandalorian people could ever dream of! It's a disaster! A money pit! If I'm not careful, this blasted ship could sink the entire Mandalorian MSDF's funding. No wonder Satine had looked so horrified when it showed up in orbit! She could see it too! This useless hunk of metal would doom the Self-Defense Force before it had a chance to shine!

"I see." I struggled to keep my voice even. "We will begin refurbishment immediately. First, we will clean out everything that needs to be disposed of or replaced and then begin work on the drive systems, so she can keep herself in orbit. The weapon systems she has should be more than enough for the moment." Considering her only use is as a glorified space station!

"Great, what kind of initial budget can we expect?"

"What?!" Korkie looked more hurt and betrayed than angry, and that is an interesting reaction. Did he seriously expect to get his way? A Royal Academy student versus a Representative of the Republic?

Facing Korkie, I bit out, "A good compromise leaves everyone angry." I wanted to rant at him even more, but stopped myself. This wasn't the time or place, and besides, Korkie wasn't at fault either, not for finding the ship. The other clans would likely pester Satine into arming it anyway, and we need them to be unified to prevent them thinking of starting a coup or something.

I turned back to Mr. Bresh, "I will advise the Duchess to assign five million credits from the Self-Defense Force budget to the refurbishment." A substantial amount for the burgeoning Self-Defence Force, considering the struggles the MSDF has with stockpiling actually useful equipment like blasters, shovels, and training facilities. Better than leaving her as a useless beskar museum on the surface of Mandalore, either. "That should be enough to get a clearer picture of what needs to be done for her before we do any significant repairs."

Mr. Bresh looked awkwardly between the two of us, clearly unhappy with the compromise I had arranged. "That's um, well, I am sure we can get started with that. But we'll need much more to get the Darasuum'orar back to an operable state. Are you sure that is all the Duchess can spare?" No, it was more than she could spare. Aunt Satine is most likely banging her head against a wall at the fact we have the galaxy's worst star destroyer in orbit. I sent the proposal to Satine with the note to review the funding again in three months. I have no doubt that the project would suddenly need more than two hundred million by then.

"It's all we can afford at the moment, with the budget being what it is." I gave him a polite nod before I stomped away to the hangar loading bay, towards the turbolift. Perhaps Satine could get the Clans to donate to the refurbishment out of a sense of Mandalorian pride?

What a disaster!

I was about to enter the turbolift, which would take us the rest of the way to the exit of the Darasuum'orar, when I realized that Korkie and Mr. Bresh is no longer with us. I looked around, but they hadn't followed us on the way back. Korkie's probably angry with me again and is not in a mood for a conversation about anything at the moment.

Engiz pulled out his datapad, and answered my unasked question, "Your brother is back near the weapons systems, with Mr. Bresh and his guards." He turned the datapad to show a three-dimensional map of the ship structure, and it highlighted all the guests.

"Let's explore a bit on our own before we leave, then. Shall we?" I looked down another door visible from the hanger, which has a restricted access cordon across it. We have a special access badge chip for this, I recalled from earlier, and pushed against the door. It opened into a less-refurbished and dimmer deck level, clearly off the tourist path.

Having the chance to explore the vessel is an interesting experience. I always enjoyed visiting museum warships, and by all practicality, this is not all that different. I am quite inspired by our ancestors. The ship is not just a battleship, not really. It had the capabilities of transporting a small army wherever it needed to go along with a section of fighters. It also has, by some estimates, enough storage room for a four year campaign without having to resupply.

"Are you sure that five million is enough credits?" Morson asked, taking me out of my musings and towards my handmaiden.

"Not even close, but it should be enough to hire enough engineers to clean the ship up and get a detailed breakdown on the work that needs to be done. The MSDF has a limited budget, with most of it going to acquire equipment like blasters, boots, actual bases to station those that volunteered, and not to mention paying for their salaries. Dedicating too many credits into this project will leave shortfalls in other areas that are far more critical than this relic." Morson seemed to muse on that before nodding. The three of us continued to move through the ship.

It's frankly a masterpiece of war engineering, and now we have to figure out what to do with it. Hopefully, in a way that the sleeping warship would not simply eat through credits without pulling its own weight.

Personally, I suspected what we would end up doing with it is removing the hyperdrive, repairing everything, and putting some big guns on it. After all, the treaty that kept most dreadnoughts from being actual threats to their neighbors only stipulated that ships of certain sizes couldn't have a hyperdrive and some other features, but it didn't say that the other features could not be there. It just meant that if a ship is this large and has these big guns, it couldn't have a hyperdrive, or if the ship is this large and has a hyperdrive, she couldn't have big guns.

This was an old trick that everyone knew the point of: you build ships with the guns, and you leave room to install a hyperdrive at a later time if a war breaks out. Well, this ship was built with a hyperdrive in mind, so that's already sorted.

Obviously, that would be the best outcome. I'm trying to get big guns on this ship and get it ready to defend the sector if necessary. Even without its hyperdrives, it would still technically be hyperdrive-capable, using the same trick used to get it to Mandalore in the first place: a huge number of small hyperspace-capable tugs working in tandem. It heavily limited what kind of jumps could be made safely, but it's possible. It got here quickly enough. Well, the tugs could pull it into combat quickly enough if needed, though hopefully, it would have enough time to install some modern engines before that happened.

Turning a corner, I found myself in another hallway, well actually, not just another hallway. This one looked like it's a bit dank. Not very clean, obviously a section that hadn't been explored yet. Looking over my shoulder, I make sure Morson and Engiz are with me before moving further on.

"Tanya, is it really safe to explore?" Morson asked as she followed behind me.

I gave a shrug before saying, "It's safe enough. I'm sure if there is a dangerous creature on board, someone would have run into it by now, and if not, well, I think three Mandalorians can take on anything aboard this ship."

"You don't even have armor, though." Morson pointed out, which is true. I'm simply wearing my green dress, she herself is wearing a brown dress, and the only one among us who's wearing armor is Engiz, as he kept a good hold on his combat staff.

I shrugged before saying, "That may be true, but I think we'll be fine. Plus, I have a blaster hidden under my dress."

"You do?" Morson asked, confused.

I laughed before saying, "Better safe than sorry. It's mainly set to stun, though, so we should be more reliant on good Engiz here if a threat really presents itself."

"Will do." Engiz said, looking around as I came to a door. Something about it made me stop. It's a rather large door for a cargo hold area, but something just seemed off about it. There is signage around it that says 'Iron Beast Factory' in ancient Mandalorian. Now, that's an odd series of words which had me interested just on the premise. What factory is aboard this ship, and why is there a factory in the first place? From my understanding, droids had not been a major production point of the Mandalorians during the period of construction of this ship. Warriors are usually warriors, and droids are, well, droids. They existed, but they weren't front line troops as no Mandalorian would let a droid steal their glory in battle. Also, if memory serves, ancient Mandalorians used 'Iron Child' to represent droids, not 'Beast'. Tilting my head, I looked around to see if there's a way to open the door, rather than just pressing a button randomly.

Surprisingly, it opened, though it jammed halfway through. It seemed the automatic door's sensors still work.

"I got this." Engiz said, stepping forward and using the leverage on his beskar spear to pry the door open. Giving a nod, I said, "Thank you, Engiz." as I smiled at him before stepping inside and looking around.

As the writing had said, it's a spacious factory of some kind. Parts are all over the place, and it looked like it had not been in use for, well, a couple of hundred years. There's mud here, which indicates that there is a section that's open enough to allow debris to get in. Looking around, I quickly spotted an air vent above one wall, probably connected to the main air intake, which is likely where most of the mud and water had come through, from what I gathered.

Sighing, I looked around before noticing a rather large oblong shape in a corner, curled up and probably dead.

"What's that?" Engiz asked as I moved towards it.

"I think it's a Basilisk droid." I say as I get closer, seeing as the thing is covered in debris and mud. Out of curiosity, I pushed some of the mud out of the way, finding that it's covered in ancient paint that apparently had held up pretty well. A purple coloration came through the mud, though I also noticed it appeared to be the last layer of something once it's gone.

"Basilisk droid? I thought all of those were, well, destroyed." Morson asked, tilting her head as she looked around the room.

Engiz nodded before saying, "I believe the last one to be constructed was two thousand years ago. There are still, I think, a few reconstructed models hanging around in the museums on Ordo, I know that, but we don't have a full working model or know how the programming worked. So in essence, they're just dead creatures, an extinct form of droid that no longer exists."

"This thing's probably no better." I said, pushing the mud out of the way to get a better look at the ancient Mandalorian stenciled into the frame.

"Huh, Ori'Jorir." I said, amused as I read it. 'Ori' is, well, 'Big' in essence. You could connect it to 'ori'von' or 'big brother'. Which is basically the Mandalorian version of 'Onii-chan', although without the gendering since you could also use it for big sisters as well.

'Jorir', on the other hand, is a bit more confusing. In essence, it meant 'bear', not the animal but 'to bear', I believe. Though strangely enough, in this case, it would make more sense for it to be 'Big Bear'. "Funny name for a war machine." I said out loud with a smile before patting it on the head. I started to turn away before I noticed something change, primarily the glowing red eyes opening on the iron beast.

There's a moment of panic, I will admit, as I realized that I'm standing next to an active war machine that had just reawakened. That panic turned to absolute terror as the creature slowly got up, though that terror slowly subsided as I realized it's moving rather painfully and loudly with a lot of grinding coming from its rusted joints, like an injured animal more than an actual droid as it tried to stand unsteady on its two front feet. It turned to look at Engiz and Morson before turning back towards me, tilting its head, which I now see is made up of a Gatling cannon of some kind, which is pointing directly at me. As it looked at me, the urge to run away became quite apparent, but I kept a cool head and tried to figure out the best way to not get blown away. In the end, I came up with the best option I could think of.

In Mandalorian, I said, "Good morning, Iron Beast, Big Bear." Supposedly, these things are somewhat sentient, so I just had to hope that it was programmed to recognize Mandalorian and not shoot at it, at least not without commands to do so.

The large, almost starfighter-sized creature looked at me before tilting its head forward and opening a hatch.

The said hatch seemed to be an opening to a decimated cockpit. Water had gotten inside of it at some point, ruining the upholstery. The water is now flooding out onto the surrounding ground, but as it opened, a screen in the back of the cockpit lit up, and ancient Mandalorian writing started to cross the back of it.

"Young Rider! You have found me at last and this long night has ended. My blasters are unmoving, corroded, my joints are stiff, my batteries are low, and my reactor has long cooled. Regardless of the thousands of errors that plague me, I still serve. Command me, ride me, and let us war together."

I blinked before saying in Mandalorian, "There is no war for you to ride out to, though if you wish, we can have you looked over by a mechanic."

There's a momentary pause before the beast lowered its head again, and the panel at the back of the cockpit lit up, saying, "Young Rider, I beg of you not to judge me by my failings. My hide is strong and my will stronger. I shall carry you to whatever battle you command, through whatever skies you seek to conquer. But please, do not leave me behind again. My Rider."

"I promise you won't be forgotten or discarded. But you do need repairs." The war droid seemed to pause for a moment before lying on its front, looking as exhausted as any droid could possibly be.

"As you command, my rider. I pray that my refit and repair meet your expectations."

I blinked before saying, "Why do you call me your rider?"

Again, there is a pause before words appear on the screen, "You are the first to have activated me and spoken my name; we are bonded now. I shall serve you from this moment until the last."

"Crap," I said in Basic before facepalming and letting out a sigh, then saying, "this is going to be a pain to explain to Aunt Satine."

Turning, I said to the others, "Morson, can you go find someone in charge of the cargo ships coming in and out of the docking bay and see if we can find some way to get this Basilisk War Droid down to Mandalore without being seen?"

She nodded, her eyes wide as saucers, as she slowly backed away. Engiz, on the other hand, is taking it a bit better, just staring up at the droid in awe.

"A functioning Basilisk Droid. If we can get this down, we can get a copy of its programming, see how these things actually work, and maybe get some of the older models working as well."

"We're banned from making droids, remember?" I pointed out before shaking my head and saying, "Though, what does that mean, really, when the whole galaxy is going to war?"

Turning back to the droid, I said, "Well, Ori'Jorir, welcome to Mandalore. War is not a big thing nowadays, but I'm sure we can find something to do with you."

The droid made a noise that sounded like deep laughter before it displayed on the screen, "War is a constant; to think otherwise is to fail to be Mandalorian. It shall meet us in time, and I shall carry you to victory. This I pledge as an oath to you."

"Huh… a philosopher droid, not the worst thing to reawaken then." I said with a shrug, figuring I would deal with this in the future as well. Hopefully, X4 could find a translator module somewhere before my rusty Mando'a is misinterpreted any further.

Mandalore, Near Sundari, Seeker's Vigil

Korkie Kryze

I kicked a rock as I walked towards the area where the Seeker's Vigil is being stored. Nothing like being on the outside of what you thought is going on to make you realize you have no idea what's going on.

I'm still reeling over the fact that my entire family has backed off from our core pacifism. Does violence even shock Tanya anymore? I knew Aunt Satine and Aunt Bo-Katan had lived through the civil war, but Tanya was raised as a New Mandalorian, just like me. I mean sure she had been trained by Bo-Katan when she was a child, had been in a battle before on Geonosis, and gotten involved in gang fights on Coruscant, but she is still a pacifist right? And now she's advocating for rearming Darasuum'orar? Pacifism wasn't just a side tenant of New Mandalorian ideology, it's the central pillar. It wasn't optional; they sold out and are now fully on board with the White Silver's "aggressive pacifism" or whatever she called her propaganda.

And it's upsetting me to some extent. I'd gone from understanding my place in the world to understanding nothing in the course of a day. Now, well, now I don't really know what is going on anymore. For the past six days, I tried to keep to myself and not vent my frustration in Tanya or Aunt Satine's general direction. Mainly because I couldn't quite wrap my head around their motivations for doing this yet.

Why are they so intent on re-militarizing the Mandalorian sector this way? We'd come so far from the ancient days of barbarism that had seen our family fall apart and be destroyed, and now we are running back towards it at a breakneck pace.

Well, that wasn't fair, I guess. When I looked back, I saw the signs: a slow and steady movement in the general direction of being more accepting of ancient ways without condoning them. But still, it felt like the world had been turned upside down, and I didn't know where I stood anymore.

The only thing I knew is that I'd helped find a ship full of historical relics that would probably be used to try and push the White Silver's agenda on my own sister and Aunt Satine.

It… it's quite infuriating, and I just didn't know what to do about it.

Shaking my head, I looked around before walking up the ramp that led inside the ship. There's no reason for me to be outside, as no one had come by today. Everyone is out celebrating in one way or another, either to the arrival of the ancient star destroyer, the Super Kandosii, or the latest showing of The Gargon Girls.

Shaking my head, I wandered around inside, my thoughts dark on the matter. The ship is ancient but surprisingly well-designed, perhaps more so than some of the stuff that's produced nowadays. Somehow, I would have expected everything to be a lot more rough inside with more bulkheads, but no, there are some rather nice passageways throughout the ship. The relics on board, though, had not been as interesting as I had hoped.

Eventually, I end up inside its computer core, one designed by some unknown hands. And within this computer core is most of the information that we could save, along with maps of what the Mandalore sector looked like thousands of years ago.

I wondered what it would take to break that computer for a moment, but quickly dismissed the thought. Yes, I am upset, but I wasn't that upset. I wouldn't rob Mandalore of this significant bit of our history. After all, some of these are first-hand accounts of things that had only been talked about in third hand, at least that had been what I'd heard when speaking to some of the historians that had been invited on board.

Turning a corner, I saw someone I did not expect to see on board. "Soniee?" I asked, unsure as to why she's here. She's busy looking over something on the computer core.

She looked up, her cute brown hair framing her face, and she smiled warmly and waved me over, saying, "Korkie, you've got to come take a look at this." I walked over and took a knee next to her as she explained, "I think I just found something that really throws our understanding of Mandalorian history out the window. The Mandalorian Empire didn't crush the Basiliskans and loot their technology." The scent of her perfume is relaxing and it's nothing like the foreign smells I noticed on Tanya occasionally.

I blinked in confusion before saying, "What? What makes you think so?" She pressed a few buttons and a word appeared on a screen in ancient Mandalorian. "Iron beast?" I said with a raised eyebrow. "Basilisk. What about them?"

"Are you aware of the history of how that word entered our lexicon?"

I raised an eyebrow before saying, "Well according to the history books on this, the Basilisk War Droid was created sometime during the early Crusades. We conquered a species known as the Basiliskans and took their war droids for ourselves."

"Exactly, that's the story we all believe, but there's always been one or two problems with that."

I blinked, confused. "Problems?"

"Basilisk, iron beast. We also have a word for beskar'ad or iron child, which means droid. Even 'bas' is a representation of beskar. So why did we name our war droids after a species known as the Basiliskans when we already had the elements of the word in our lexicon?"

I blinked in confusion before saying, "I don't know, maybe we just stole it wholesale or changed it a little."

Soniee shook her head before saying, "That's the theory that some have, but then there's the other problem. Where's the Basiliskans? There should have been something to prove that the species that supposedly created these droids in the first place actually existed. These droids were created to have riders, but the creatures we refer to as the Basilisks were often quoted as being large enough to be ridden by Mandalorians. Why would they have created a droid meant for riding that they could not ride?"

I blinked before furrowing my brows in thought before saying, "I don't know, it makes no sense, actually."

"Exactly, and I think I've solved it." She pressed a few buttons, and the screen lit up with a bunch of words. I quickly started reading them and tilted my head. It's a strange story about Mandalorian Iron Beast riders working for a fallen Jedi. I shrugged my shoulders before saying, "I don't get what's so important about this story, Soniee."

She tapped the corner and drew my eyes to it, which immediately raised my brows as I saw that it listed this event as being during the contemporary siege of Basilisk. "How did the Mandalorians have the war droids before they supposedly took the war droids?"

I did a double-take before finally taking a step back, realizing that there is something off here. "What does this mean in the grand scheme of things?"

"It means, likely," she leaned back, holding her arms under her impressive chest, "that the Basilisk species is a lie. Another word for Basilisk is 'Lagartoz War Dragons'. I suspect, and this is going to be probably one of the more out-there takes when this information gets out, that Basiliskans never existed. Instead, we raided a planet full of creatures known as the Lagartoz and used them for mounts interchangeably at the same time we were developing the Basilisk War Droid mounts. Our enemies confused the terminology for the two but they kept better records than us. So, except for," she tapped the screen, "strange things such as the name obviously being developed within our language, and this story that predates the events that are claimed to have happened."

I shook my head before taking a seat against the nearby wall, trying to puzzle this through before finally saying, "So basically, all this means is we developed the war droids?"

"No, it means we developed semi-sentient AI independent of the rest of the galaxy, showing that our ancestors, though warmongers most of the time, were not complete barbarians. They have an understanding of technology, so they added to the progress of the tech fields of this galaxy through their efforts. Our history, as we understand it, is possibly not our history. Even White Silver believes the story about us conquering the Basiliskans and stealing their war droids, but this simple line here implies that the war droids were already in production before we conquered the supposed Basiliskans. At most, we could probably say that maybe we gained some technology from that planet, but there's no way to definitively prove it either way."

"Why can't we prove it?" I asked, not very familiar with the story.

"According to the story that we've been told for the last four millennia, the population of Basilisk turned their planet into a toxic mess, to deny us salvage and the tech on it. And the species supposedly degenerated, losing sentience and transformed into mounts for us.

That story always felt off to me. But now we have the counter-evidence. Perhaps the Republic saw that we were gathering quite a large amount of these war dragons from the planet for our own use out in the Outer Rim and decided to solve their problem by denying Mandalore access to Basilisk and its population of creatures."

"Would the Republic really destroy a planet to deny...?" I stopped there as I realized they would. They had pretty much done it to Mandalore, Kalevala, and Breshig. Why wouldn't they do it to some planet four millennia ago? There would be even less reason to have held back because, if Soniee's right and these creatures were never sentient beings but just animals that the Mandalorians were using for their own campaigns, it would be an easy question compared to what they did to Mandalore.

Again, my understanding has been flipped upside down, and I really have no idea where everything stood. Another world ruined by conflict. Shaking my head, I tried to get up and said, "Well, I don't know about this. I guess I'll leave it to the historians to figure out, right?"

Soniee nodded her head as she tapped a few things into the console before saying, "We'll have to leave it up to the archivists to figure out if this story is true or not. I mean, all they have to do is probably track down Jedi texts and see if they correlate that there was a rogue Dark Jedi in the core around that time who may have had mercenaries from Mandalore on their payroll. If they can prove that, it's a good step in showing that this story is real."

I nodded before saying, "Guess it's for the historians to figure out." Sighing, I turned and looked down the hallway, trying to decide what to do. The galaxy made no sense, and this had just further undermined my understanding of the universe. Maybe, maybe, I should stop making sense as well.

Taking a breath, I turned back to Soniee and asked, "Hey, Soniee, would you like to go out on a date with me?"

She froze as she looked at her screen, and as I watched, her face turned pink for a moment before she said in a very squeaky voice, "Yes, I'd love to."

Not really sure where to go with this, I said, "I have tickets to the Gargon Girls tonight. I don't really know what to do with them. Would you like to go see them with me?"

She nodded before saying, "Yeah, give me forty-five minutes, and I'll have everything packed up, and we can go."

"Cool, uh, I'll see you outside." I said with an awkward tone before walking into the passageway, letting out a deep breath of confusion and nerves, not sure how I managed to pull that off and not sure why I hadn't done it sooner since it was that easy.

Shaking my head, I stepped down the ramp from the spaceship, stretching my arms as I did, a smile growing on my face. That smile died as I saw someone standing by the booth with some of the samples of information that had already been gathered from the ship, such as several changes in armor style that had been cataloged.

The red-uniformed woman turned to look in my direction before smiling. "Ah, Korkie, good to see you. It's been six days already? Time sure has flown since our last meeting."

The smile on my face curdled. I frowned and nodded and agreed, "Yeah, six days."

"And how the world has changed in six days." she said with an eager shake of her head as she approached me. "In six days, the New Mandalorians have lost their greatest asset for peace, and the Duchess has thrown her lot in with the Silver Mandalorians."

I shook my head, wanting to deny that statement, but it's hard to do that.

With a shrug, she approached, "I would say I told you so, but I'm not here to gloat. I'm here to simply say you're not alone; there are others who are not happy with the current change in direction of the government."

"Not happy?" I said, as Natalya reached into her satchel, pulling out a little red book and offering it to me.

Confused, I took it as she said, "There may come a time when you need our help to bring back the New Mandalorian way. When that happens, I would like you to at least have an understanding of who your allies are in the universe." She tapped the book and said, "Everything we stand for is in here. Just give us a call if you ever need our help. Peace must reign."

"Ah, sure." I said, not really sure what to say. Sliding the book open, I looked at the title and the author 'Te Kommunist Borarir by De Liliya Vhekayno Shepest'. I wasn't much for reading political works, but I guess I would have to start now. Shaking my head, I slid it into my pocket before looking at her. "I don't think I'll need your help for this, but it is appreciated."

Natalya smiled before saying, "Young prince, comrade, just know the revolution is always willing to help someone bring about the pacifist way for the sector."

And like that, she turned and started to walk away, causing me to shake my head, trying not to watch her leave as closely as her form demanded. Soniee would be back in a minute, and then I could relax with her for the moment.

Mandalore, Near Sundari, Cultural Exposition Main Area

Tanya Kryze

Oh, what a day, what a day. At least it couldn't get any crazier than it had been. We managed to get the warbot down from the ancient Super-Kandosii and into a warehouse just outside Sundari, one that's owned by Mando Logistics. From there, my plan is quite simple: get it to Gargon, clean it up at Mandal Hypernautics, get it in working order, see what we could do with it, and then have it transported to Concordia where it would be safe. Or we could possibly leave it on Gargon, as it could be quite an impressive thing to have around for White Silver to use. Though, I would need to give it a paint job before White Silver can use it.

As for the "factory" that it had come from, well, quite simply, I didn't know what we're going to do with that. It's obviously going to have to be packed up and removed from the ship, brought down to Mandalore or Ordo to be studied. From there, well, I don't know. I would have to leave that to Satine. There wasn't much we could do with the factory. It's not like we could build warbots; that is kind of against the treaty, not to mention we are trying not to start a war. There's something to be said about the factory, though. This is probably one of the later model production capabilities, as this one appeared to have been designed to be used as a starfighter mixed with a surface gunship.

It should be possible to use the fact that the Basilisk doubled as starfighters to circumvent the Battle Droid ban, like how Japan got an Aircraft Carrier past their constitution by labeling it as helicopter carrying destroyers that just apparently can be used to house and operate the F-35. Since Aircraft Carrier has the connotation of being an offensive weapon, which is a big no-no for the JSDF, this was a fairly direct way of bending the letter of the law without breaking it.

From my understanding, a lot of the older models of Basilisks were just mounts to be ridden into battle, while later ones are like a mix of ship and mount. The technology involved in that is interesting, to say the least, not to mention the algorithms that gave it its almost analytic nature are interesting on their own as well.

I doubted I could get the factory disassembled and shipped to Gargon, where lax laws may have allowed me to test out exactly how far we could get it to go, but I am more interested in perhaps seeing what elements of the technology could do.

For instance, transformable vehicles have managed to survive quite far into the current era. Perhaps there are elements that had been lost over the years that could be useful with Mandal Motors and Mandal Hypernautics. If the technology could be copied and sent to those that could make use of it, it could produce some interesting ships as a result. As for the algorithms that made the Basilisks, warbots, well, all it does is just make them near-sentient creatures, which means it's possible to take that algorithm and turn them into quite a few other items.

If you built a droid dog and put an algorithm in it, all of a sudden you have an almost sentient robot dog that could make a good pet that could be considered something other than a droid, since droids tended to be rather logical in their way of doing things.

It's a field I would have to look into, that's for sure. Not to mention that the source code, as far as I am aware, had been lost for thousands of years. Damn the treaty, that was for sure. I'm sure that if we could implement that code in a civilian capacity, it would probably be a well-selling thing on the market. Most droids did not come off as pets, but as tools.

There's probably a good market for something different in the droid department if it could be done correctly. But unfortunately, with the treaty preventing the construction of droids in the sector, it's unlikely to happen anytime soon. Perhaps that should be the next thing I look into. After all, I had done a good job getting a lot of restrictions on Mandalore dealt with over the last couple of years. Perhaps finding a way to allow us to produce droids again would be a good move for the sector.

Though currently, with a war on with an enemy that is making massive amounts and use of battle droids, it might also cause problems. Nothing hurts your credibility more on neutrality than producing droids and then having them be bought by the enemy of the person you're not supposed to be building droids for.

Sighing, I shook my head and focused on where I'm going. I'm making my way to the exhibit of the Seeker's Vigil, hoping to speak with Korkie about what happened a couple of days ago. It has been long enough that I figured he'd cooled off, and we could have a civil conversation on this matter, hopefully come to some sort of agreement and maybe even deal with any hard feelings. After all, we are siblings; we needed to work it out sooner or later. Might as well fix it now before I have to return to Coruscant, at least that's my hope.

Unfortunately, I couldn't schedule a car to take me there as every vehicle is currently busy with one job or another. Since much of the city is alive with various activities, I didn't want to risk using my royal status to bump someone's ride. I had enough controversy for several lifetimes thank you very much. So, I'm forced to walk. Not exactly a fun activity, but it's not something I couldn't do. Years of hard training has left me with a body that wouldn't crumple just because I had to walk in a slight field down to the lower parts of the city.

And I have two guards with me. Engiz and Kastel are meant to keep an eye on me and keep me safe. While the veteran guards are spending their mandatory vacation times visiting family or enjoying the festival. All in all, I'm not in any danger or threat of danger, as far as I'm concerned. This is Mandalore, my homeworld, the world I understood the best, even if sometimes I wanted to be far, far away from it.

At least that's what I thought, up to about five seconds ago when I turned the corner in a street and came across one of the theaters playing a recorded version of the Gargon Girls musical ballet and found that I was mistaken in some of those thoughts.

The theater appeared to have been packed with youths, kids both from the higher districts and the lower districts, wanting to see the Gargon Girls perform. That is obvious by how many kids are going by. However, apparently, there's another group here, one that is being a little less friendly, to say the least. There's a large crowd of what I guessed are older adults, those who had either served in or seen the results of the clan wars, as they are protesting.

Anti-war slogans, anti-Gargon slogans, and anti-Silver Mandalorian slogans are everywhere. There are hundreds of them, and I walked straight into the crowd, not even realizing the problem until it's too late. Keeping my head down, I tried to push through, wanting to avoid getting caught up in this mess, as it's only a block or two until I got to the part of the city that would lead me to where the ship is being stored.

However, I didn't get that far, as a splash hit me in the face, causing me to stop and close my eyes to keep them safe.

"Silver whore!" someone yelled as another splash hit me and my two guards, who had been on either side of me, moved forward.

"It's the princess who sold us out to the Republic so that we can fight their war!" Another person called, and I heard someone throw a punch and immediately get smashed in the face by the hand of a royal guard, the tell-tale thunk of beskar ringing informing me of that detail. Moving my hands to my face, I brush off whatever the thick, viscous fluid is and finally get a look at what's going on.

The crowd have broken up into two groups. One group appeared to be the ones trying to cause problems. They are smaller than the other group, with one of them having thrown a punch, another calling out the insults, and a third throwing paint in my general direction. Looking down, I saw that my once-green dress is now stained with silver paint.

In a daze, in the sort of detached way when someone got smacked in the face with a pie, I looked around and wondered how they had known that I would be here. I decided that they must not have known where I'd be since this is likely a spur of the moment decision and that I had simply just been unlucky. They probably have been saving it for the teenagers when they left the Gargon concert, and I had just been a very lucky find. Like what had happened with the group that started the First World War and their attempt to assassinate the Archduke. A comedy of errors that had given someone a chance to get into the history books, which also made me worried that I might become under threat of someone wanting to get into the history books.

There are another hundred or so individuals who circled around us. They appeared to be blocking our escape, either on purpose or not. Either way, the fighting is escalating and beyond that is a group of individuals who either hadn't noticed what's going on or are too busy heckling the theater staff to care, though they probably would soon.

"Back off! Get back now!" Engiz's voice exploded out, amplified by his helmet, as he pushed forwards into the path of another paint-thrower, lifting his staff in front of himself with both hands. The protestor ignored the warnings and tried to throw the paint past Engiz and at me, but Engiz moved to block the paint before pushing the protestor back with his staff, causing the man to stagger backwards. Kastel moved to de-escalate the crowd and calm things, but as I stepped back and scanned the crowd, I noticed that we had drawn even more attention and his voice didn't carry over the growing clamor.

Engiz called Kastel back to my side after a few moments, it's obvious that the crowd couldn't hear him. Next, Engiz tried to coordinate to force a path through the crowd. However, the crowd failed to make a path for the two, instead pushing us back and boxing us into the center. Kastel, a few paces behind us, lowered his energy staff and set it to stun before poking a person who's going to smack him with a poster board with some anti-royal slogan. This caused him to collapse and twitch quite painfully by the looks of it. In response, the crowd started screaming intelligibly and surged.

"Move!" Engiz ordered, bringing his staff weapon back and forth as the staff crackled with energy to create space in front of him to create a hole for me to escape through. I felt him wrap an arm around me and shield me with his body as a so-called pacifist lunged forward and slammed a bucket into Engiz's helmet repeatedly before he too got poked by Engiz's staff. Excited by the conflict, the crowd surged forward, seeming to have not realized who started the brawl and taking the side of the civilians who are on the ground.

This is a problem. A crowd that's being urged on by violence and doesn't understand the situation is just as likely to trample me to death as kill me on purpose, and I didn't like either option. And I can't be seen carrying a weapon since that ban hasn't been lifted yet.

For a brief moment, I wondered if this was some grand joke that Being X had been building towards, waiting for me to fall into a position that's unexpected and would cause my death. I clung to Engiz as he did his best to shield me from the mob. No, Being X is too open for something like that. He would be more dramatic and...

My thoughts were interrupted as a woman in blue armor landed in front of me and fired off a flamethrower into the air, causing the closest individuals to jump back in surprise. The crowd did not disperse, though. They only got angrier. Someone shouted, "There's even Mandalorians wearing full armor and flamethrowers in their gauntlets! It's all a sham to bring back the old ways. Get them!"

Which really said enough about the individuals' intelligence that they are urging people to charge a person with a flamethrower.

However, the rescuer apparently wasn't willing to take chances. She reached out, grabbed my side. Engiz surrendered his staff to the mob and picked me up before thrusting me into the arms of the newcomer. Leaving me in what could best be described as a princess carry before the woman activated her jetpack and launched herself up into the upper areas of the nearby rooftops.

Carefully, she landed on a rooftop far enough away from the crowd that I couldn't see what's going on and thus safe from the protest that had grown out of control.

She let me down, and I said, "Thank you." trying to figure out who just saved my bacon there.

"No problem, Princess." came the cheerful voice of a rather cheeky-sounding individual.

Confused, I tilted my head and said, "Vai?" Cleaning muck out of my eyes, I took a quick look across her armor, trying to get details as quickly as possible. She's wearing her personal Mandalorian super commando armor, styled modernly and painted blue and gray with a black under suit. There's a splash of silver across it from where I had been carried by her, an imprint of my body on her armor.

Vai said, "Nope, can't be Vai. I used a flamethrower." she said, using her hands to get as much of the silver paint off my face as possible and filing it to the ground.

"Right." I said, understanding what she meant. It would be another scandal on top of the riot, if it got out that my guards are using a bit too much force. "I thought you had a date tonight."

"Hmm, yep. With the armor law relaxed, we were out enjoying our jetpacks while keeping an eye on you from a distance, just in case."

"Well, good thing you did. I seemed to have gotten myself in trouble."

"Mhmm." Vai said, moving from clearing my vision to checking over me to make sure I'm not injured.

"Wait, Engiz!" I felt my stomach lurch before the sound of a second jetpack activating drew my attention. I'm treated to Engiz ascending into the sky with his arms wrapped around a flamboyantly dressed Mandalorian that could only be Tabi. The two of them needed to cling to each other to avoid dropping the beleaguered royal guard, Tabi's jetpack struggling much more than Vai's had with me.

"That's kinda hot." Vai giggled, knowing full well the strange images she just planted in my head, I'm not a fujoshi dammit!

"I am just glad he is safe." I looked out over the edge and spotted Kastel standing in the middle of a group of teens with Silver vambraces looking rather unmolested. I let out a sigh and settled back down now that I knew my men are safe.

"Vai and Tabi are calling for an armored hover car now to get you home, so I have to be on my way. You should be safe till they get here, but I'll stay in range to make sure the horde doesn't try to climb up the wall to get to you."

"Haha, that would be rather ridiculous to watch." I said before asking, "So, if Vai did not save me, who did?"

Vai thought for a moment, nodding her helmet, then said, "Why not say some Death Watch girl did the saving? Perhaps they are trying to make peace with the royal family, since they were the one who had a fuck-up with Korkie. At the very least, it causes confusion in their ranks and makes them a bit distrustful of their own people."

I nodded my head at that. "On the plus side, it makes the flamethrower a Death Watch problem. Good idea." It seemed that Vai had learned something from her mischief over the years. I doubted that she would be so media savvy without the lectures I had given her over the years.

She nodded her head and jet-packed away, and I took a seat on a nearby bench, happy to have such loyal... friends.