Fire's Reckoning

[Arage Bao]

Mandalore's Orbit

Clan Vizsla had not been hit as hard by the vulcanic activity and earthquakes suddenly erupting across the surface of Manda'yaim. At least not in comparison to the other Clans who had made it their home for years. A single enclave of Vizsla vod near Keldabe itself, but they managed to evacuate without many in the way of casualties.

The benefit of not being based on Manda'yaim itself, Ronan mused.

When Vizsla had just rejoined the ranks of the Mando'ade after leaving the Crusaders. After saving the collective asses of the Mandalorian troops on Agamar, by breaking the Death Watch assault on their position.

Calls had been made to settle on Mandalore itself.

Ronan had ignored them. With good reason, it seemed. Wayland was secure and the cooperation with the Witches settled there was strong, but it probably did help that it was a death planet regardless. To simply survive there was already an accomplishment... to thrive? That was an entirely different story all together.

"Brother Vereen." Vizsla greeted the fellow Mandalorian as he entered the observatorium deck. From here, they could see Manda'yaim. Such a distance... it almost seemed as if the planet was normal, but looks could be deceiving.

"I am glad you decided to join me here."

--

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Clan Vereen had abandoned Manda'yaim a long time ago, making their home elsewhere in the galaxy, in a place less famous, less populated. At the time it had been intended to allow the people of the Clan to return to their roots, to live with their planets, farming, hunting, mining with their hands in the old ways, before the comfort of technology had become too much of a crutch. It had been ironic that not long after he began living in a palace alongside his Princess.

The volcanic ash in the skies were thick around the equator. It would be a cold, cropless couple of years. Species on Mandalore would go extinct or adapt to the new climate. The people wouldn't suffer the after effects all that heavily. It would be cold, they would survive. They lived in an age of faster than light speed travel, hover cars were abundant, and food processors.

"It wasn't something I wanted to do, but I came when I was called." Mandalore wasn't his home anymore. In truth, it never really had been. It was a world from which his culture originated, from which his people were born millennia ago. It had been through nuclear devastation, vong-forming, purges. This was a drop in the bucket for Mandalore's history.

"What do we know?" Draco didn't care about the planet being scarred for the umpteenth time in its history. He cared about the thousands that died in the immediate fallout. The orphans that were made.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

"Verd is dead." Ronan responded as a matter-of-fact. Little love for the man, but Isley Verd had always been an accomplished warrior and for a while had forged an expansive kingdom for himself out there in the wilds without the Clans backing him up. Such things had to be respected and so Ronan did. But other than that, the entire thing was still shrouded in shadows and mysteries.

"Reports are still trickling in. Lots of chaos, as you might expect."

He crossed his arms and studied the surface.

"Verd's estate was in the mountains, close to a dormant volcano- didn't stand a chance."

It was senseless, but wasn't natural. People were still discussing and yet the common consensus was already made. They had been attacked- the Sith? The Jedi? No, not the Jedi, no matter the feelings Ronan had about the Silvers... they wouldn't have done something like this. The Sith was plausible, which only made him wonder more what the goal had been.

If it were them? Any possible chance of co-existence would be thrown out of the window. Even he wouldn't try to cooperate, before he got his pound of flesh.

"We are setting up zones, shield generators to keep the ash out, the warmth in, stabilize the immediate surroundings so they don't get wrecked by earthquakes. MandalMotors and Hypernautics have been a great help."

He turned around, looked Draco up and down. Seemed time had done him well, didn't look much older than he remembered him from the meetings.

"Our people deserve to know who did this, Brother Vereen."

[member="Draco Vereen"]

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Isley's death was a blow to the Mandalorians. The Warmaster dead so soon after the new Mand'alor had been named, with so little fanfare. Isley had been Draco's friend, mentor in some ways. His death would harm more than just Clan Verd. His death would embolden their enemies and empower their dissenters. "Verd will be missed. He was not always the best Mandalorian, but he was always a warrior. He deserved a better death."

"ArmaTech will provide some atmosphere processors to help clear the ash. Some atmosphere filtration turbines. It will shorten the time span of the long winter." Average temperatures would drop significantly across the planet, snow lines in the mountains would plummet towards sea level, and creatures that weren't already adapted to the freezing winters would push closer to sea level than ever before. The faster the ash was cleared from the skies, the shorter the little Ice Age would be. Then again, the arctic region suffered near indefinite winters and there were dozens of ice age type creatures on Mandalore.

Shields and domes to keep the ash out was a minor fix. A band-aid to keep the bleeding from getting too bad. It was not permanent, but then again, Mandalore was broken physically in many ways well before this.

"They do deserve to know who. Where did the disturbance originate?" Where? The epicenter of an earthquake of such magnitude would be easily located by seismic sensors and detectors.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

Had been days before they could start tracking it.

No wonder, there were bigger priorities first. Get the zones in place, so people could actually survive down there, followed by assessing the body count, which of the prominent names were missing and what it meant for the Clans as a whole. It wouldn't cripple the planet in the long haul, Mandalore had been through much... it would be fine.

The Clans? That was a different story and Ronan wasn't sure if they would be able to survive.

It wasn't about the death count. That was a drop in the bucket, in the end. Thousands died, but many, many more remained. No, this was about morale, it was about in-fighting as people started to shift blames. Was about their enemies seeing this weakness and exploiting it.

"Here." Vizsla picked up the datapad from the table and passed it over to Draco. "Site of a volcano, though I have never been there myself."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"Of course you wouldn't have." Draco stated emotionlessly. There was no one there, never had been very many attendants or apprentices on the Iron home. "It's mine." The words laid claim to the small island that had been formed in the caldera of the dormant volcano.

"Its the Iron Home, formerly owned by Ijaat Mereel." He wasn't worried about Ijaat, his friend rarely visited the island anymore, having grown bored with the craft and having grown distant and detached from the Mandalorian people. Draco had been shocked when Ijaat had laid claim to the rank of Mand'alor, a surprise given the normally outcast demeanor of the Iron Father.

"You and I should visit the epicenter. See if we can unravel some of the mysteries surrounding this." It wouldn't have been Sith, they wouldn't have been able to infiltrate this deep into Manda'yaim and they would have caused some sort of commotion. The few droids there would have alerted him to a Sith incursion. "I doubt the Sith would have went there." No, that would have been the greatest of coincidences for the Sith to gravitate to the island of Ijaat Mereel and Draco Vereen. And it would have raised some form of alarms. "We can take my shuttle to the surface. I need to see what happened."

The Orar'uliik was a rugged warship, built as a heavy transport for substantial numbers of Mandalorian raiders, but sometimes people like Draco used them as shuttles. Below them rumbled ashclouds and violent volcanic storms, lightning streaking through the soot, heat radiating through the atmosphere.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

His?

Ronan wasn't the man to make rash conclusions though. Vereen hardly came to the capital these days and he wasn't the kind of man who would do such a thing, no, it wasn't Draco. But the responsibility... it was tricky, if this was his home to begin with, but they could get to that once they had the full picture.

"I think we should." Vizsla agreed with a nod. The departure didn't take long, soon enough they were on their way and even sooner they were circling the place of origins.

It was a gorram crater now, lava vents, the entire business.

Without their readings they would never have assumed it was the place where it all had started. Hell, Ronan had no idea how they were gonna figure out what had happened here, except if Draco had some force tricks up his sleeve.

"I assume you have an idea to get the information we need?"

 

[Laira Darkhold]

The crater, partially filled with seawater, partially with ash, vents of lava and magma boiling up from the rents torn into Mandalore's crust could be seen. It was broken and shattered. Gone. Smoke and ash clouded the sky above it, steam and soot filled the air around it. Poisonous fumes and sediment filled the water around the former island. Nature could do terrible things, but this was not nature. This was man. Only man could do such destruction deviating so far from the natural order.

"I do. Have you ever heard of Flow-Walking?" Draco asked, though to some it was a mystery, to many Force Users the name was familiar though not always the how to preform it. For Draco, its use was limited. Trying to watch things from centuries before was difficult if not impossible. Trying to go forward distorted his senses and left him in agony for days. Draco, despite all his skill was not all that powerful and relied on close bonds in order to affect others through the Force. Without a bond with Alor Vizsla, he would have to go alone.

"Its a technique in which the Aing-Ti learned how to view the past. I'm moderately learned in its use." He had once wanted to Flow-Walk back into his parent's home before they had died in the First Order's attack on his homeworld. He had considered talking Faith back to see her first born, Bud. In the end he decided that some memories didn't need to be seen, somethings were private or too hurtful to see.

"I need to be where it happened. Not the vicinity, the actual place. It may take a few tries to see who did this to our home depending on where we are when I travel back and I may require your strength if I miss the mark too many times." Indeed, attempting to Flow-Walk back several times in a row was exhausting for the Mandalorian, but it needed to be done.

Once the ship settled, hovering above the boiling sea Draco steadied himself by sitting crosslegged in the middle of the troop bay. "We are right where the main complex used to be, Alor." The pilots voice echoed mechanically over the comlink and the Warlord's eyes closed, drifting into the back of his head.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

"I had not, but that seems very... handy." Vizsla wasn't like some of the other Mandalorians. He didn't truly mind forcers, he himself had a certain strength and affinity with the Force. But neither was the man all that knowledgeable on the various practices and rituals that the these forcers could use.

It was concerning, at least a little bit.

To know that a man such as Draco could have access to such fantastical abilities.

"Very well." The acknowledgement came easy and moments later they landed. Ronan stayed a fair amount of distance from Draco, giving him the space he needed to do his thing.

"Acknowledged. I will be sure that no bird lands on your head."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Draco sat motionless, mostly unaware of his surroundings in the vessel. Smoke and ash billowed from the crater rocking the ship slightly, but the rugged vessel was designed to take turbolaser strikes and keep trucking. Some atmospheric disturbance wasn't the end of the road for it.

Time flowed around Draco, the strands and flow swirled past him as he dove backwards through it.

His vision blurred and spurned around him until he came to when he sought. About a half hour before the first seismic distortions had been detected anywhere on the planet. He had a feeling what he would find there, given the ripples in the Force that were present, but Draco needed to know for certain before he acted in any capacity, before he even hinted to anyone else what he had felt, what he suspected in the farthest reaches of his mind.

His vision returned, like starring through murky water, but he could see it. There wasn't much, silence around him. Nothingness. Time seemed to drag on until he saw them. Two figures walking through the main corridor. They weren't very surprising figures, but they had been unseen since the occurance of the storm, and he had heard nothing of them or from them. His friend and his fellow Cuir Rekr.

It wasn't out of place for them to be on this island. Perhaps they were here when it happened, when everything died. The coincidences were strong however in the Force, he knew what he felt. Eventually the truth would come out, or a version of it and if his friend and compatriot were blameless, his would be the word that declared them so.

His eyes snapped open again. "Move us further. To the furnace itself's location." Draco exhaled slowly. "Nothing yet." No doubt his companion would be able to tell he was withholding something, having little control over his facial twitches while in the past.

The pilot slipped the vessel deeper, magma spraying up against the bottom of the hull, red hot rock sticking and dripping from the beskar hull of the Orar'uliik. "Position Confirmed Alor."

Draco disappeared again into the Force, his eyes rolling back away once more.

When he returned, he stood alone, a blurring of light off to the side of the furnace room. Here had been where he, Ijaat, and Ulgrom literally created Void Steel, Trakar. It had been where Euk'gar had been created for the first time. The room was empty for what felt like ages, but before long the man and the woman entered the room.

He stood back he listened. He was distraught at what he heard, how far they had fallen now that Ra had left. They weren't wrong in their beliefs that the Council was weak and the Mand'alor weaker, but they were so misguided. He kept wanting to yell out and stop them, but there was no stopping them. The past is the past and so it remains. Only the future is fluid. Only the future can be changed.

What caused him the most pain was what they had done hadn't killed the Sith influence that may or may not exist within the Mandalorian people. It hadn't carved the weakness from their leaders who Draco had already largely disowned. It had only slain those that were innocent of these matters. Old men seeking their rest after a lifetime of war. Children who hadn't yet been given the chance to prove themselves. And honorable warriors waiting on Manda'yaim for the call of war again. No, all that they had sought to kill had only been bolstered and reinforced.

He waited and watched from his corner in the shadows. Watched as a third, another former Mand'alor entered. Draco's thoughts turned to that of darker means. Did all those who had been or tried to be the Sole Ruler turn on their subordinates when they could not rule them? Was the title cursed that a Mand'alor either disappeared or turned on their own people?

Draco sat there and watched it a dozen times. Each time the fire in his heart died a little more. The people who had adopted him into the fold, who had helped mold him into a warlord, helped make him into the man he was today. They were broken.

After what seemed to Draco to be hours, his eyes rolled back to their normal place and he sat there quietly, contemplating what he had heard.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

Silence filled the room.

If there was one trait Ronan possessed more than any others, it was a patience that rivaled that of most saints. He let Vereen process what he had seen and it must have been quite something. Because the emotions roiling away from him, the emotions displayed in every single facial twitch... it spoke tales.

Spoke of stories that concerned the Alor of Vizsla immensely.

Eventually, maybe it was seconds or maybe it were minutes, Draco looked up to him and Ronan nodded.

"What have you seen?" The Alor finally asked.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"Arrogance." He muttered.

"Mereel. Monroe. Horak. All of them misguided, insane. And arrogant." Draco's expression changed to one of anger. "There are your three names, Vizsla. I'm afraid your word holds more weight than mine these days. I am just an old dragon asleep on his hoard, me and my people have long since left Manda'yaim." Clan Vereen had left to the wilderness a while ago, and they no longer visited the home of the Mandalorian people, tending to their crops, their mines, their families in their own villages.

He didn't know where they had fled to, who else had helped them. Only the three who acted, or by inaction had allowed this world to burn. Draco didn't know why they had really done this. What they had hoped to gain, how they had hoped to help. Only that they had.

Draco's mind turned towards what he had to do next. What his people needed of him. He had been dormant now, but did they need his return to the fore? Did they need his guidance to see them through this darkness?

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

"What." No. That was all Ronan had to say. What. What? This wasn't about his own familiarity with those names. In truth, he cared quite little about Monroe, Horak and even had a mild dislike for Mereel. But this wasn't something he had been expecting, not from any of the three.

Especially not from Mereel.

Not after the tirades and bloviating about his higher moral ground. What?

"You would not joke about these matters. Why? Where they under compulsion? Sith? Mind control? What was it."

Vizsla had a hard time wrapping his head around this one.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"No they weren't being manipulated by anything I could see." He wasn't perfect, but he doubted that Monroe had a weak enough will that she could be dominated. Much less so that all three could have been, whatever Verz Horak's role was in the plot he didn't know for sure.

"Pilot, take us out of here. Back to the station." Draco was done with this world. Largely with these people. These three were just the currently most radical zealots.

"No, it wasn't manipulation. It was self-righteousness and fear. When one can not rule, they must either follow or get out of the way. Their pride prevented them from getting out of the way and they see our leaders as weak and easily influenced. They thought this would cleanse our people of that." Draco wiped his eyes and regained his composure, standing up to his full height. If that was the case, why did they not try to lead the Mandalorians? Certainly someone with the arrogance and self-righteous streak wide enough to mass murder their own people, people almost exclusively innocent of the crimes they felt were being committed would have also assumed themselves strong enough to lead. It baffled Draco, enough so that he was for the first time in his life ashamed of being a Mandalorian.

"They were wrong. Whatever they thought to cleanse will only grow stronger." If weakness was a sickness, it had taken root in those three strongly.

The shuttle lifted out of the clouds and ash, tearing itself out of the atmosphere back for the fortress that hung in orbit around Mandalore. "Talk to Rekali. They have much better trackers than I and you will need them to find these three." Draco actually hoped Vizsla would be unleashed after this, that the bloodlines of those in question would be purged, that any that bore their name willingly died alongside their masters, but it was a hollow hope. The hope of vengeance of a man whose culture had betrayed him, who struggled with his own darkness for years before now.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

Vizsla thought about that.

A good long while. This complicated matters in more ways than Draco could know. If it had been Sith or even somehow the Silvers? It would have been no issue to convince his people of that. They already hated the Sith and had a mild dislike for the Jedi. But this... this was different in so many ways. Horak, a former Mand'alor, Monroe as well - even if she was dar'manda before returning - Mereel...

Mereel was a difficult one. There was respect for him, but also dislike and grudges. He was not an easy man to like.

"Show me." Ronan finally said. It was the only way, he had to see it with his own eyes if he was to convince his people of this... thing. "I need to see it."

Then, then... then he'd act.

Act as only a Vizsla could.

 

[Laira Darkhold]

Draco turned his head, arching his brow at the other man in the shuttle as if the man had questioned his honor, questioned his word. As if the man was daring to spit upon his words.

Disdain turned to understanding in Draco's heart and his breath escaped his lungs, as though the warrior's body was exhausted and that he lacked the strength to carry himself with the same conviction as before. And he did. All that he had believed was in question now.

Was his culture as stupid and evil as the Republic had always claimed, or was this the act of but a few, a rare few who could act in such away? His mind ached over the thought of it, but of the three involved, there was but one constant.

Mand'alor.

They had all held the rank or coveted it at one point, and had all lost it. When Ra came, and with his might lead the Mandalorians into the light, crushing their enemies, they had fallen into line like the rest of their people. And with his passing, it wasn't Mandalore's weakness they saw, but their own. That they could not rule for they would forever be in the shadows of their betters. Pride had a way of turning a man into a monster if they let it seep into their souls, and Pride was their Sin. Theirs had been injured, and so they could not stand for their people to continue, knowing that Mandalore's strength was a stain on their pride, that it had been strong without them, because it had been without them.

"Fine." Draco said turning solemnly to the other man, placing a hand on his forehead.

Draco was 'competent' in many fields, but only truly skilled in a very limited number. It was easy to try something and learn how to do it okay, another animal to master a skill. The Force was no different. In this, he could only emit glimpses of his memories of the events that had unfolded in the Iron Home, not true visions.

Ronan's mind would become filled with short images of fire, magma, earthen walls, jungles and greenery. The occasional glimpse of a silhouette for a time. The only true visions he would see would be of a woman with short brown hair, a hazy visage of Mia Monroe cloaked in a red sheen, speaking.

"For us to survive, we must first be destroyed."

Hatred and loathing boiled through Draco's memories, supplanted by the next three or four second glimpse of Ijaat, standing, proud of himself.

"We cleanse the filth of the Sith from our people."

Betrayal and disgust filled him and the visions returned to that of fire and blood pouring from altars. The short specter of Verz Horak turned towards something out of sight.

"Of... of course I trust you, ori'vod. I trust you with my life."

Fourth, the image of Mia returned, uttering a sentence with a tremble in her voice, as though she was clearly struggling with its utterance.

"We raze Mandalore."

Finally the image of bloody hands, haze behind them as though nothing was in focus but the crushgaunt covered hands of the person with the memory. The haze faded as the hands fell out of sight and revealing a long corridor of shattered and broken bodies, T-visors broken, helmets crumpled in, breastplates fractured, blood streaked and sprayed upon walls. That vision was less a memory, and more his imagination. A thing that would come to pass.

The images stopped and Draco spoke, his voice cracking as though dry. "I have things to think about Alor Vizsla. I need to consider my people." I need to consider myself.

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Draco Vereen"]

"Vereen." Something in his voice would stop Draco in his tracks. Ronan looked up, there were no tears, no sadness, just focused purpose after what he had just witnessed in the... flesh.

He did not want to believe.

Not about Monroe and Horak, at least. Mereel? He cared little about him.

"I know you are retired- and while it doesn't happen often, I am happy you found some peace with your family." Vizsla shook his head. "But our Mand'alor is young and rash and reckless. I need men and women I can depend on in the time to come."

"Consider leaving retirement, at least for now, until we have made sense of this... thing."

 

[Laira Darkhold]

"I can't tell you yay or nay right now. Not after what I've seen today. Mereel was my friend, one of my mentors. His was a way of honor." Draco was taking that betrayal a bit more personally than the others. He needed time to make sense of it all. That in one act his mentor could betray all that he had preached, that he had taught Draco in the last years was devastating to his sense of honor.

"Our Mand'alor?" He mused at that thought. Did he respect Vilaz Munin enough to follow him? To call him a friend yes, that much was certain. But to follow the redneck Mandalorian as his leader, he had thought he could. He had thought enough to give him his blessing at the council meeting, but things had changed.

"I'll think about it Ronan. Don't come to Alderaan without calling first. I just don't know who is a friend anymore." His people were tearing themselves apart over petty bickering about who got to have the fanciest title, while he sat peacefully on Alderaan. His clan's Jarl's would hold a moot soon to decide what to do about all this.

"Just, hunt these bastards down."

[member="Ronan Vizsla"]