Chapter 25: A streak of unluckiness

Vancil was not impressed. Far from it. He was incredibly disappointed and even shocked to some degree. Mandalore, the planet which had created one of the most martial societies in the galaxy… was a wasteland. Even from his view outside the atmosphere of the planet, he would bet money that nature and life would be more widespread on a planet like Tatooine. In fact, Mandalore resembled the desert planet like Tatooine somewhat.

The entire planet was just a near white sheen of sand and nothingness, with a few blobs of steel identifying the cities found on the planet. Reaching out with the force, despite the distance between him and the planet, the sensation hit him like a blaster bolt. As he suspected, the steel circles which he could see were cities, brimming with life and the force. Unfortunately, also as he suspected, the surrounding desolate wastelands were so weakened it might as well have been nothing in comparison to the beacons that were the cities.Shaking his head to stop another of his idle wonderings he flicked a few switches on the dashboard, enabling the radar, "Nothing. A couple civilian trading vessels but otherwise we're in the clear. No Republic, no Confederates."Kandria let out a sigh of relief at the news, "Thank the Force, I miss sleeping on solid, unmoving ground."Vancil chuckled lightly as he steered the ship to enter the atmosphere, aiming for the largest city on the planet, one labelled as 'Sundari' on the ship's logs. After experiencing minor turbulence due to a passing dust storm, the city came into full view. Well, as full as it could be. The entire thing appeared to be encased in a steel dome, shielding it completely from the harsh outside world with only a few visible entrances in the sides of it.As the ST-70 lumbered towards one of these many entrances, an alert sounded on the ship's console of an incoming scan. That was nothing out of the ordinary, scanning approaching ships was routine in all space ports and cities. A frown came onto his face when the scan did not end as they entered the entrance tunnel, which itself stretched on for quite a while.His eyes widened in shock as the scan ended only for another alarm to activate, one which worried him significantly more. He looked between Kandria and the console, comforted at least somewhat with the similarly shocked face she wore.WARNING: TRACTOR BEAM LOCKVancil licked his lips and leaned back in his seat with a resigned sigh, "Well. Shit."*****Duchess Satine Kryze sat at her desk as she massaged her temple with one hand while flicking through the lines of reports strewn across the screen in front of her with the other. Running this city alone was difficult enough, running the system in its entirety was a bureaucratic nightmare. Her eyes flicked to the separate stack of holodisks which lay on the floor in the corner. And then there was running a coalition of neutral systems within one of the biggest wars the galaxy had ever seen.Corruption paralyzed nearly every part of the Mandalorian government, and Death Watch was only growing bolder in its actions. The latter was what really bothered her. Corruption could be handled and dealt with in a somewhat peaceful and lawful way, even when it was as bad as it was now. Death Watch was another manner entirely however.That terrorist organisation left no room for negotiations, no room for a peaceful resolution. They had made that very clear when they started bombing civilian targets indiscriminately. The only way to deal with Death Watch was through a coordinated military action. This raised several problems. Firstly, Mandalore's military had been almost entirely axed, with the only real force that could be exerted being her Royal Guard and the police. The Royal Guard, while loyal and skilled were too few in number to launch such an effort, and the police forces were laden with so much corruption Satine wouldn't be surprised if half of the police force in this very city were Death Watch sympathisers or associates.That meant that the only ones capable of carrying out military action would be either the Confederacy or the Republic. Asking either of them would have essentially meant she had admitted to throwing her lot in with that chosen faction.Satine sighed and closed the screen, standing up and walking over to the window which gave her a view of the city of Sundari. The main thing they lacked right now was a lead on just about anything to do with Death Watch. Any bombers either killed themselves or escaped, and they would continue to do so the longer her forces were left in the dark.A light beeping at the commlink on her wrist brought her out of her thoughts. With an annoyed sigh she answered it, mainly out of obligation due to the caller id being the gate guard. As much as she would like to be left alone with her thoughts, if one of the gates was calling her directly it must have been serious."Gate 14, what is it?" She said, unable to keep the annoyance out of her tone."Sorry Duchess, Sergeant Bress said I should contact you immediately. We got a positive hit on an ST-70. It's the Hornets."Satine remained silent for a moment as she processed the words. Her eyes widened as the full weight of the words hit her and she spun around, heading for the elevator to the throne room, "Lock down all gates and secure the perimeter. I'm sending the Royal Guard to assist you."Without missing a beat, she hung up and dialled the line to Captain Ru-Saxon, speaking as soon as he picked up, "The Hornets are at Gate 14, I'm sending my Royal Guard right now. I want the police to set up a cordon on every city block within a 3-kilometre radius of it."Satine hung up again as the elevator to the throne room opened. With purposeful strides she walked to the nearest Royal Guard, who snapped to attention by his position at a pillar in response to his Duchess' approach, "Go to Captain Tryd, he should be enjoying his break in the barracks so he won't respond to comms."A satisfied smile found its way onto Satine's face as the Royal Guard immediately sprinted out of the throne room, without a question or moment to ponder. As soon as the man was out of sight, she took a moment to breath."Calm, Satine. Remain calm."Despite her words, she was anything but.*****"STEP OUT OF THE SHIP WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"Vancil pursed his lips as he leaned against the hangar wall of the ST-70, his gaze locked onto the closed hangar door, past which was around twelve of what looked to be policemen, or some sort of security force."I know what you're thinking, and no." Kandria said from her position standing in front of the hangar door as she tapped at her chin anxiously.Vancil groaned in frustration and through his hands up in the air, "Oh come on, we could totally take them. I could take them by myself if what you're worried about is dying. It'll be super quick, I promise."Kandria shot him a dirty look, "I know that. And that's what I'm worried about. We just got here, and in case you hadn't noticed, the gate shut behind us. So, unless you want to take on this entire city and probably the entire military of this planet, we aren't going to kill them."Vancil smirked triumphantly to himself, mainly at succeeding in getting under Kandria's skin, "Nah, I'd still win." His smirk dropped slightly, however, and he let out a dramatic sigh as he affixed his mask to his face and pulled up his hood, "But fine, I suppose we can do it your way."Vancil may have been an idiot, and irrational, but he wasn't dumb enough to take on an entire planet by himself, especially when he had just resolved to travel the galaxy, not reave through it as he had once done. He had no intentions of dying in glorious battle anymore. He had something to live for now after all.Kandria looked him up and down cautiously before nodding in thanks, pulling up her own mask and hood. Vancil pushed himself off of the wall with a foot and walked to stand beside Kandria, slamming his fist into the door control button as he did so. As the lamp lowered they both raised their arms, Vancil with slightly less enthusiasm than Kandria.As soon as the door was fully opened Vancil got a full picture of the situation. Two hover cars had been parked in front of the ramp to the ship, which had been pulled onto a landing platform by the tractor beam from before. Security of some kind, outfitted in grey armour was set up behind the cars with their blasters pointed at the ship, a few even being brave enough to stand out of cover and to the sides."STEP OFF THE RAMP WITH YOUR HANDS RAISED!" Came the booming sound of one of the security guards using a loudspeaker.Vancil scowled as he stepped forward dutifully, while Kandria winced at the volume of the thing. Something in the corner of his eye intrigued Vancil however. As his boots touched the hard concrete of the landing zone, he could see it fully. It appeared to be a large blue transport speeder of some kind, absolutely barrelling in their direction. Now this itself wouldn't be very interesting. What was fascinating however was the fact that there were no other speeders flying about anywhere. Unless you counted the security cars which turned a corner to give chase to the transport.Oh. That didn't seem good. One thing which definitely made it known that something was wrong, was that several Mandalorians streamed out of the back with jetpacks, half heading towards their assailants and the other half towards the dock. Ah, and that was the driver that just jumped out. Each of these new Mandalorians wore a blue painted armour not too dissimilar to that which belonged to the Mandalorians he and Kandria had…reappropriated the ST-70 from.A grin came onto his face as he lowered his hands and cracked his knuckles, thankfully being ignored by the surrounding security whose attention was focused wholly on the approaching foes as they scrambled about to face the attackers. Looks like he got to kill some people after all.

*****

Friendly reminder that this story is two chapters ahead on Royal Road so I'd recommend reading it there.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/77529/remains-of-an-era