Let Sleeping Bes'uliik lie...

[Shia Kryze]

Mandalore​

Somewhere in the northern mountains​

Shia was not entire sure how she'd gotten here.

There was the post-battle tea celebration with Baiko, she remembered that, it was deeply civilised and something the Mando'ade should do more often. Then she'd taken Baiko to quiet little place for post-battle drinks in a slightly more Mando'ade style. But nowhere that bad? Had it been? She couldn't remember. She really hoped she hadn't said anything too bad.

But somehow, somewhere she'd agreed to let Baiko have a few days off from her duties as Yasha Mantis' ward. Something that Shia had solemly sworn never, ever to do after that time she'd had to babysit her two younger cousins. Or for that matter, five minutes after meeting the littlest Wolf of Mandalor.

Regret, she decided, was not the Mandalorian way. But it was something she felt right about now.

A through technical inspection of Cin'tracinya had taken up half a day - Yasha had been interested before she combined it with an oral retelling of the suits deeds, it had slain at least two outright Lords of the Sith and one Jedi Master she knew of, after all. Not to mention that unfortunate period when it had claimed quite a few members of House Fett. But tinkering with that armour wasn't an ideal plan.

Another half day was taken up by shooting and some light hunting - mostly letting Yasha use her E-Series Handcannon, she should really get the girl one as a present. It was right up her street. All the firepower, none of the subtly. Shia approved in principle, but you had to learn to move as a hunter as well.

A few hours on teaching some of the old hand signs - not that 'Clan Mantis' didn't teach them, but they were first generation Mando'ade and Shia had been taught the very, very old ways, because house Kryze was like that. That had sort of grown into a day or so of 'the history of the Mando'ade as taught by Shia Kryze' which might give the kid some odd ideas, given she was Ra's ward and Clan Kryze... well, yes there was that period we'd encouraged pacifism. That was... hard to explain. Shia was, under the hood, a Protector, not Death Watch - although of course, yes, Clan Kryze had technically lead the Death Watch after that period as well. It was complicated, okay?

Half a day in Kryze Fang Fighters had actually been fun. Yasha liked mechanics, she liked things that blew up. Fang Fighters basically combined those.

Then... well then they'd both gotten bored. And a bored Shia was a dangerous thing. A bored Yasha... well, lets just say it had nearly come to blows with her charge and leave it at that. She wasn't Baiko, and Yasha needed to be treated like a fellow warrior to retain any control. And frankly, the kid had fought and slain with the best of them. Who was she to argue and act like her mother?

Which was why they were half way up a slightly irradiated mountain in one of the worst parts of Mandalore in full beskar'gam and packs filled with digging equipment and Bes'uliik hookup and teaching rigs that were at the same time the newest on the market, and equipped with hookup jacks a thousand years or more out of date.

Because House Kryze legend said that somewhere up here lay Ol' One Eye itself, the Red Scar, the immortal bes'uliik that had never been memory wiped - or fully destroyed - since it's construction in the Sith or Jedi War (no one was sure) alongside two or three other ancient bes'uliik that had been damaged beyond immediate practical repair. All of them had... unique personalities, none perhaps as uncooperative as the Red Scar, but all of them warmachines of legend that - in Shia's opinion, deserved more than to rest away the quiet centuries in an ancient mountain crevasse guarded by at least one nesting juvenile Sky Demon.

And of course, Shia and Yasha were more than a match for a single Sky Demon. Then Shia had the knowledge to wake the old warmachines up and... well... then came the hard part.

With resources at a premium on Mandalore, finding a new model bes'uliik for anything less than a fortune in favours and credits was... difficult and Shia had been telling Yasha about the legend, one thing lead to another, so then...

"Hey Yasha, are you okay down there?" She commed down to the small figure climbing the mountain face below her.

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

How could spending a day with [member="Shia Kryze"] not be amazing? Yasha was learning history and engineering and combat. She got to fire a blaster with enough kick back to make her giggle and hand signs that felt like her command whistles. It didn’t matter to Yasha that half the words Shia spoke in Mando’a required translation, the girl ploughed ahead with transcriptions veering along her HUD, first with her goggles and street clothes, then in her ‘gam.

“… and then I tried to fire my Daddy’s MT-45 and I went kafwoom zoom! And flew backward and Daddy had to catch me and he got that angry burble in his voice, but then I stopped trying to fire guns that had kickback more forceful than like, my weight and the force of fricthion or you know I dunno, I just gotta be taller and… and it's okay 'cause I used my beskad and I climbed up his back and sever-a-ver-ied his bert-ebrae and he went down like a stump, bled on my jacket but Baiko cleaned it and now it smells good and... ” The girl’s chatter punctured the mountain’s eery disquiet. If she wasn’t Force Dead, maybe Yasha would have some grand divine power to blame for the uneasy feeling in her gut as they wandered through Mandalore’s wastelands. As it was, all she had was the uncanny feeling that she’d been in places like this before, and it had been far from pleasant or safe. Safe… Safety used to be nestling beside her Daddy or Ra Vizsla. But then Daddy came back wounded and Ra nearly died keeping Yasha and her friends ‘safe’ from the Forcies who felled buildings on children, and destroyed a biodome for a terrorist-woman Ra eventually put down. Safe… Yasha didn’t know that word anymore, but she did know being around Shia helped. Shia had a confidence Yasha couldn’t dream up if she tried three times harder by Life Day. It was more than sufficient to pique the girl’s unending interest.

“I can climb! Mama and I used… Sorry.” Yasha had flitted and tugged her way up the mountain thus far, as regular to the steep inclines and jagged edges as a ram. Yet the slip of admitting her deceased mother’s existence stuttered her body like Mando’a stuttered her voice. Yasha’s buy’ce descended from looking up at her goal to down at her clenched crush gaunts.

“Not s’posed t’talk about Mama no more… I can climb. I’m good at it, I’m not useless or slow, just my beskar’gam’s new and I’m… I’m coming.” Yasha doubled her efforts of climbing to make up for her diminutive height and pre-teen musculature. It was worse on her for being a short Epicanthix, short like her petite mother, short from her first six years of the leanest times imaginable.

To the other children and teenagers in Sundari, Yasha Mantis was one of two things: a monster, or the gunk on their shoes. It wasn’t her fault, Mama’d say, that the kids didn’t understand Yasha, or why Yasha reacted to noises and bright lights and being tiny the way she did. They didn’t live in the Netherworld, they couldn’t understand…

And when Yasha started fighting in the Civil War, adults and children alike cast their noses and eyes down on the child, or worse, backed away like prey. What a freak of nature, only [member="Preliat Mantis"]’ daughter could be so vicious, a little girl shouldn’t fight… the arguments usually either doubled or died when she attacked an enemy position, or in the final battle of the Civil War, when she and her two teenaged friends single-handedly took out the shield generators so the Death Watch could take the Spaceport and Ra could kill Mia Monroe. They shut up when she got shot on the battlefield and kept fighting. They congratulated her when she was walking at the celebration, where she reunited with her father. His face was scarred by Ba’buir Jasper and Yasha didn’t understand why she couldn’t talk about ‘Grandpa Jasper’ either, like she couldn’t talk about Mama without her Daddy’s eyes staring into the distance and his hand going to a bunch of deathsticks or alcohol or cigarettes that made his daughter cough.

So Baiko tried to remove Yasha from Mandalore… but Atrisia wasn’t safe either, overrun with Sith and another Galactic Whatchamacallit, Empire or Alliance or, or, or… The pull of Yasha’s Guardian Ra Vizsla was too strong, her affection for her vode too pronounced for Yasha to do anything but constantly return.

Now, the girl was in a holding pattern of becoming Mando’ad or having the warrior’s way excised from her body like the scar tissue in her shoulder under Briika’s knife. Baiko kept packing and unpacking. Uncle Silas kept working with Kaden and his new mentee. Ra kept teaching Yasha about huge, unfathomable words like ‘responsibility to our people’, ‘diplomacy’ and ‘intuition’. Daddy started taking Yasha out in the Beskar’gam she wouldn’t have gotten if Ra hadn’t insisted. Named the Goran to make it from what was left of her mother’s seldom worn set.

Shia Kryze wanted to go wake up the Red Scar, to reignite the purpose of a machine built hundreds and hundreds of years ago? Helping Shia meant proving herself, being useful.

Maybe if Yasha made herself useful, she wouldn’t get thrown back into Hell, like Mama. Like Ba’buir Jasper or her little brother Eli. Maybe if Yasha was useful, Daddy would stop looking at her with eyes that turned glassy and wet. Grunting as she reached level with Shia, Yasha’s buy’ce turned to view the woman.

“What’s a bespaluluk anyway? Why’d you need one?”

 

[Shia Kryze]

Shia paused for a long moment, visored faceplate staring down emotionlessly at Yasha. Behind the faceplate she frowned deeply and bit her lip. If she'd learned anything in the last few days, it was that Haran Adika was a lonely, lonely girl. Shia could relate, although she had grown up Mando'ade, having the a large percentage of the hopes of a Clan with a less than stirling reputation amongst the new order thrust upon you wasn't exactly a cheerful childhood. Well, there hadn't been a new order on Mandalore back then, but Clan Kryze wasn't often at the top of peoples Lifeday Card list.

Note to self. Get her a lifeday present. She liked the handcannon and it probably won't snap her wrist. Nadir was making a fortune from Shia, but Kryze could afford it right now from the profits of the not-war.

She sighed, checking her mic was off. Aay'han. Make sure the girl - and her father - knows what aay'han means. Shia had lost her parents young, but aliit ori'shya tal'din.

"They're not gone." She commented softly, flicking her comm on so the girl heard. "Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la." A pause. "Not gone, merely marching away."

Then she swallowed hard - anyone who told you Mando'ade didn't feel fear or emotions was lying or a fool. Even the Undying felt doubt, she was sure. Fear. To be Mando'ade was to live in the moment, to accept that the universe could and would kill you today, tomorrow or in a decade. But it always won. That'd didn't make it easy, only right. She channeled the emotion into a single growl and an impressive one-handed pull to get her body up and over the final overhang and onto the ledge so she could pause for a moment.

"Bes'uliik." She repeated, making the pronouncation clear. "Mando'a is a composite language. So Bes, from iron and uliik, from beast. Iron Beast. The design is thousands of years old, we took it from a race on the planet Basilisk - a Basic bastardisation of what we called our prizes." She paused to think for a moment, explaining this to someone who wasn't an outsider but also hadn't grown up hearing the legends was difficult. "Why use them? Verd ori'shya beskar'gam, right? A warrior is more than her armour? But while that's all well and good, it's pretty damn poor when a Jedi, a Sith or a fifty foot tall war droid is trying to grind you into paste. So we even the odds with beskar'gam for some fights. For others..." Anyone listening could hear the open delight in Shia's voice. "... for others, we up the ante. A Bes'uliik is sort of like a war-mount in more primitive cultures, a semi-sentient - some even say the older ones are sentient, if they've not been given memory wipes - mount with a mouth full of shockwave generators and a back covered in laser cannon. Designs vary, but these ones we're looking for you ride, like... a Bantha! A very deadly Bantha that can fly, fight and - like we used to do in the old, old days, drop from orbit en-mass. The Undying is a traditionalist, so I suspect you'll see that again soon enough. They're not as good as a starfighter in open space, but they're not meant to be. You can land on the hull of a starship and blow your way in, or you can ride one down to the surface and achieve strategic and tactical surprise."

She waited a moment for Yasha to catch her, then started up further - no sense in making the girl think she was giving her a break, she wasn't - but nature simply determined shorter arms meant a longer climb.

"Why do I need one? I was trained to ride one more than I was trained to fight on foot. Clan Kryze is traditional too. But they're expensive and the new models don't have... the armour and guns. Oh sure, they've got fancy frames for those Mykyr lizards. But a true Mando'ade can take a Jedi without fancy tricks and with good, old fashioned force and dirty fighting. Besides, the Red Scar has been in the family for thousands of years. Honour upholds I get him back. And who knows? They say a lot of heroes died up here, we might find one for you too. Although it'll need to be quick and tough to keep up with you. Not an old man like the Red Scar."

A long, long pause.

"Just don't tell Mistress Baiko I had anything to do with it, ner vod, eh? She means well and she doesn't need the stress. And uh, I don't need her yelling at me about how a girl who's not yet technically an adult doesn't need a five meter high armoured war machine. But the way I see it, Mandalore is going to war - right or wrong - and when our foes come calling, fortune is on the side with the biggest guns."

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Loneliness merged with a childish sense of duty, which above all was built upon the fear of losing [member="Preliat Mantis"] & [member="Ra Vizsla"]. If she worked harder, if she earned her place, maybe the heroes in her life, her father and her Mand’alor, would let her stay. Maybe she could grow up without worrying that any failing would be met with disgust and the abandonment which was inevitable with untimely death. Maybe the kid just needed another hug and a cup of cocoa, or maybe the kid needed this.

A mountain to climb, a monster to kill and an old bes’uliik to conquer. That was what the ‘little wolf’ needed.

“I know that one… it’s the funeral saying. Always struck me funny when people say it, ‘specially when none of them have been there. You know, to the Netherworld. Sure, ‘hold the line’, wasn’t a line I could see. Blood rivers, creatures bigger’n [member="Aryn Spar"], things that made Mama and the others go nucking futz. There were others… when I was little. Let the dead march and keep marching. I didn’t march. Fought to the death seven thousand times over to get out of there.

“Besasulick… bless you li-urgh! Bes! U! Liik! Why’s Mando’a so hard?” Yasha climbed and listened, tales of Jedi and Sith and evening odds. Slim odds were something Yasha understood, unlike the majority of Mando’a. The Mantis Household was Epicant-speaking, due to their Panathan and Ordo Epicanthix heritage. Her father Preliat being the first Mandalorian of his family was but another cartridge of ammunition for the other children to harass his vicious, but tender-hearted daughter.

“I’d rather ride a war turkey than a bantha. [member="Joanes Quez"] taught me! If bes’uliiks are like war turkeys then that’s handy. I liked riding the turkeys, hated mucking out the stalls. Kinda had fun on that carnosaur I captured on Myrkr… till that fluffy cat burglar killed it.” Yasha grunted and kept climbing, digging into cracks for foot holds and pushing her way up the cliff face. The girl was huffing now, wheezing under her buy’ce. She gulped in air, arms clinging to the rock face in front of her. Pushing harder to keep up with [member="Shia Kryze"], Yasha fought to try and surpass Shia, even if it was an inch, she could try her darndest to beat Shia up the cliff.

The drive to do so was all Yasha’s muscles had left.

“You really think the Red Scar’ll be happy to see you? Gee… I’m twelve, not a gimpy eight year old… I’ll tell Baiko it followed me home… or might split the difference and Ra’ll probably let me keep it at the Palace. You know, like Black Sky. I’m trying to get Ra to let me go for a ride on Black Sky for my birthday… ‘cause that’d be awesome. Aw, Baiko’ll probably try and fix it up if there’s one up here for me, too. She loves tinkering. Kinda glad she’s around. If anyone can fix up old tech, she’ll probably do it for the price of tea… big guns… Daddy has tons of those… but I don’t want him fighting in any more wars… doesn’t feel right to make my Daddy fight anymore… so I’ve gotta get strong, and I’ve gotta get big… and I’ve gotta learn how to use those biggest guns.”

 

[Shia Kryze]

Shia isn't about to just let Yasha win any race to the top, but equally, not handicapping herself would be unfair - she can't do so obviously, so she shifts her climb to take the harder route, going over the overhangs, clinging on by her fingers in a number of places.

"I always figured we made Mando'a so hard so that we could set ourselves apart - but I'm not a fraking linguist, so best ask one."

If Yasha choses to follow her, then it'll be an excellent workout. If she doesn't, odds are she'll make it to the top first.

"I... don't know much about the Netherworld Crisis, Yasha. So I won't belittle your experiences. But I guess I have to chose to believe there's either nothing after death - we all become one with the Force - or that whatever there is, it isn't solely a hell. So... sorry, I didn't mean to drag up old wounds. But the point stands even if the Netherworld is like that, I guess. We have what we have and we live for how long we live for."

You can't shrug when climbing up a cliff that's several degrees past vertical, but the tone is in her voice.

"Everyone fights, Yasha. That's what it means to be Mando'a - to recognise everyone has to fight, even farmers and craftspeople. You've... you can't rush growing up, trust me, I was your age too. Yes, you've got to learn to fire big guns, but you've got to grow too and that can't be sped up - or shouldn't be - learning takes time and you need to live while you learn, because like we just agreed - this is either the only life you've got, or the best one, so enjoy it. Let the knowledge sink in - and I know that's frustrating, believe me."

She snorts in amusement at a sudden memory, then masters the overhang and pauses for a breath, locking the servos in her armour for a moment so she can take stock.

"Remind me, when I'm not most of the way up a cliff, to tell you about the time I tried to fire my uncles old railgun when I was... nine? Fractured my whole shoulder with the recoil and went head over heels backwards."

She looked up, not far to go now - legend said that a narrow valley, mostly covered in snow and ice, ran the length of the mountain range here - a cleft created by some ancient superweapon or other human made disaster, like the rest of the scars on Mandalor. It was impassable to aircraft - the winds were far too dangerous - but the extortionate orbital scan she'd paid for showed heavy refined beskar concentrations scattered through the valley. The combined clans had retreated here a long, long time ago, when the Galactic Empire turned against them, some said. Others said it was raiders during the dark days of the plague. No one really knew. What they did know, was that no one had survived, but that their families had been given a chance to escape to the shelter of fixed fortifications and other, uninvolved clans.

"And the Red Scar? No, it won't be happy. I don't think happy is in it's programming. If we're lucky I'll settle for grumpy. And one thing you can learn to do now is ride - if you've learned to ride animals, then that's half the lesson." She laughs. "The falling off part. The rest is very different, particularly for the hard stuff like landing from orbit. But it doesn't actually matter what size you are, or how strong you are. Your Bes'uliik does that for you."

Not far now, they'd be at the top in minutes, assuming neither slipped. Or the Sky Demon didn't notice them early, that... would be bad. She hadn't totally considered that until now. Way to go, Shia. Reckless as ever.

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“I was a baby during the Netherworld Crisis… rescued Mama and me six years later. Nobody came to rescue us, Daddy was getting loaded on stims and booze to ease his grief… Mama’d got wounded… started smelling funny and wouldn’t wake up… fought my way to the Warlock Gate, tugging Mama on her cloak. I was six, but I did it. Gets a bit fuzzy, I remember Metus, and the voices at the gate… then I don’t remember anything before Daddy picked me up and started crying.”

The young Epicanthix wondered if everyone should fight. Aditya fought in Hell, but not once they got out of it. Watching both parents go through the after-effects of trauma made the girl wonder even more if the Mandalorians were right to expect everyone to fight at all. “Been a while since someone’s told me it’s okay to be a kid. Everyone might fight, but Baiko says mercy means ensuring those of us who’re too broken can heal. They can’t heal if they’re pumping blaster bolts and scatter shot at more enemies than we can count.”

Yasha’s eyes went wide under her helmet, and she giggled. It was far too childish a sound, Yasha thought, but an honest one. “Deal! You fired a rail gun!? That’s so cool!”

Maybe the kid shouldn’t have exclaimed so loudly. Maybe she should have remembered there was a possibly unhappy monster at the top of the cliff. “I’ll take grumpy over killy. Does falling hurt? Like more than usual? I can ride a turkey! I can! It’s fun… well, until I ran my turkey into the barn… rebuilding it wasn’t fun… so I’ve got another half a lesson? That’s so cool! You’re the best, [member="Shia Kryze"]!”

Yasha gasped as a very unnatural and not Shia voice shrieked above them. “Um… Shia? What was that thing we were supposed to be careful about?” Yasha stopped climbing as she got beside Shia, glancing upward as the thrusting of mighty wings rocketed the cliff around them.

“Oooooohhhh smeg-booties.”

 

[Shia Kryze]

"That," Shia replied the the didatic tone of someone scared enough to be processing tactical options with 80% of their brainpower, and maintaining required Mando'ade banter with maybe 1%. "would the Catra’diamtr," she even slowly sounded out the syllables. "or Sky Demon, in basic."

Shia stared up at the beating wings - a mere 14 meter wingspan on an adolescant, eyes narrowed. "Quick tactics lecture. Normally we hunt the adults in groups. They're solitary hunters, using dive tactics - upper scales can take blaster fire, undebelly can't. The claws can go through even beskar'gam, and the bite can as well if you get unlucky. They hunt partially via the Force," which means, although Shia doesn't know it, she's brought the ideal hunting partner. "but also via eyesight. On the ground, it won't view us as a threat. But it won't let us climb to it's nest there either. But the second we take to the air... well, they rule the skies on Mandalore, even today."

She nodded to herself, time to play the odds. Yasha's entire family would kill her for playing the odds with their darling girl, but frankly, their girl should just have been given the verd'goten already. Ke barjurir gar'ade, jagyc'ade kot'la a dalyc'ade kotla'shya. She grinned, then started talking.

"So we're going split up and use our jetpacks to get us up onto solid ground, race is over. It can only go for one of us and we're small targets who're ready for it. It's probably young enough never to have seen a hunter, let alone learned from killing a few. Get to the ground in the valley as fast as you can, clear?"

She paused for a moment.

"Oh, and try not to harm it's upper scales. If we can skin it, they make great cloaks."

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Carter diameter? Oh right… the death bird.” Yasha quipped, voice level and calm for the immediate threat above them.

“[member="Shia Kryze"]… if it hunts with the Force, I left that part of me in Hell. The Gatekeeper asked me what I wanted… power, or my Mama… I chose Mama and it made its’ price.” Yasha dove off the cliff face, letting the bird come. Giving Shia the chance to move with tact. “It’ll go after you… don’t be scared. I’ll hit the underbelly. Promise.”

In reality, Yasha’s muscles shook too hard to hang onto the cliff. Her beskar’gam was made to sustain her throughout her entire life, it was heavy for a child. Yasha would grow… her father had faith her Epicanthix genes would kick in and Yasha would become the 6’2” woman she was meant to be. Free fall meant little now that she had a jet pack on her back.

She heard nothing but her own exhales, as she waited for the seconds to pass as she cleared the cliffs, and fired her jet pack for the first time. Yasha bit her cheek hard enough to taste copper to stop from screaming at the thrill of fear in her spine.

Uncle [member="Silas Mantis"] lost his arm the last time Yasha fought in free fall… this time… would Yasha lose something too? Her innocence, perhaps, as paltry as it was. She let her auto-targeting take care of trajectory as Yasha targeted the belly of the gigantic killer sky demon screeching in their direction. The muted sun glinted off Yasha’s golden armour, finished with pride over her Mand’alor, and matching his beskar’kandar.

Stay clear of the talons. Stay clear of the beak. Stay clear of the wings… Yasha soared to the ground and kept going, watching as the bird careened for Shia. She slid to a stop on the ground as her jet pack powered down and Yasha sprinted back for the free fall of gravity on her weighted body.

She landed on the beast’s back, feet first. Her left foot slid to the side, and she followed it, waiting until she saw the underbelly before punching into the creature’s gut.

Her Katar extended with a cold snap and the tortured shriek of the suddenly, unexpectedly wounded creature. Yasha used the Katar of her right fist as a balancing act, shoving the blades between where she expected ribs so she could hold on. Her legs wound around the talon and Yasha started stabbing wildly with her left gauntlet and its’ katar.

Throughout the attack, Yasha kept silent, her teeth clenched and all extraneous noise or grunts dead for the pristine clarity of a quiet kill. If this was refined Yasha, cautious Yasha… what had the girl been? What would she become in the eventual future, which crept upon them all?

 

[Shia Kryze]

It was, Shia reflected, becoming one of those days.

She'd had a lot of 'those' days recently. Not the nice days where she woke up next to a lovely young woman, went downstairs and fed the kids, then did a little light mercenary or hunting work. For starters, she'd never woken up in bed next to anybody, man or woman, she didn't have kids and there was a Crusade on - perhaps not an official one, but they'd kicked down the doors of the major galactic powers and put Manda'yaim back on the map.

Gave up power? What made her part of the Force? Shia didn't understand - the dead returning to life was quite enough of a problem without teenage girls who'd fought their way out of Chaos.

Yasha could fly though, Shia would give her that. It looked like she'd never flown before - another thing it would have been nice to know, since the suit was running on auto, any decent anti-air would pluck her out of the sky. Shia ignited her jetpack, closing her eyes and offering a prayer to hunter gods she wasn't sure she didn't believe in anymore, then screamed directly at the giant reptile-avian, broadcasting the challenge-roar of Sky Demon over her speakers.

Which had exactly the effect the pair wanted, the Sky Demon turned to her. She plummeted earthwards, landing with a thump that planted her waist-deep in snow. Chit. This was exactly how Uncle Jard died. The talons swept down towards her, even as she saw Yasha leap fearlessly onto the creatures side. When Shia Kryze thinks you need to learn caution, you probably need to learn caution. When Shia Kryze is impressed, you should worry for your own sanity. Shia was very impressed.

Also, her Aunt Vidi had lived to 120 and died with seventeen children and uncountable grandchildren, and Vidi had hunted reptiavians all her life. But she had always said 'watch out for the ta...'

*CRACK*​

​

Shia spun sideways as the hopping, angry Sky Demon sought to free itself of it's burden, caught her with its tail then leap for her. She rolled to avoid the talons and fired a rocket-dart into it's armoured face, just to keep it honest. The creature howled, the blast strong enough in the Force to send Shia skidding further through the snow, crashing into the bulk of ancient bes'uliik which sadly did not animate and come to her rescue, like in the holos. Then it leapt skywards, in rage, scattering gore everywhere from the wound in it's flank - the wound might be fatal, it might not - it probably wouldn't come back. But Yasha was still on it's side and those things kept their vital organs deep.

"Yasha!" She called as her shoulder-mounted railgun powered up and target tracks appeared, the weapon was affectionately known back in the days of the Jedi war as 'pastemakers' for what they did to Jedi who tried to parry their supersonic slugs, and known today as a (lot) louder, less efficient, but longer ranged and probably more powerful shattergun they had long ago gone out of vogue as vulgar, loud and too much like overkill. Shia didn't believe the word existed in the basic lexicon. "I don't have a clear shot!"

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Had Yasha been dead? It was a question she asked herself more as she got older, as she grew and her mind expanded. She never received a fatal wound, nor had Yasha expired in some fit of sickness or terror… She merely survived the Netherworld…

While causing death and seeing it, Yasha was sure she never died herself. Hanging off a sky demon in Manda’yaim’s nuclear skies, however, might be how she discovered her own death…. naw.

That was, until Shia’s rocket hit the sky demon’s face. “Funny bunnies!” Yasha yelled, gripping onto the demon’s side and holding on as the reptavian pitched and threw itself into a full winged thrust further up into the air.

[member="Shia Kryze"] needed a clear shot.

“Heard.” Yasha whispered, into the open comm link between Shia and her buy’ce’s. Skimming closer to the centre of the flying beast, Yasha unleashed both katar gauntlets and stab-crawled her way through the ribcage, digging her feet into the joint, where the Sky Demon’s talon-ending leg met with its’ torso. Stabbing once with the left, then with the right, Yasha aimed her wrist knives as close to the meat where the wings of the creature met with the torso… planted her feet…

And pulled. Tired muscles surged as Yasha pulled for the Sky Demon to end up swooping closer to land, closer to the rail gun. Twisting one arm closer to her body than the other, Yasha tried to guide the Sky Demon, swerving until its’ roaring, screeching body presented its’ tortured underbelly for Shia.

Then Yasha jumped off, and tumbled in a roll to the ground beside her elder and new friend. Panting, Yasha shook her wrists, and the blades sunk back into the forearm sections of the gauntlets. Red stained the ground.

“Need me to go again?” Her arms felt like they were in a gravity well, and the girl could use a moment to catch her breath, but no Mantis stopped before the battle was done.

 

[Shia Kryze]

*HMMM*​

​

Capacitors charged.​

​

*CLUNK*​

​

Autoloaders engaged. Round designation: Agol'shuk'a.​

​

Target locked. ​

​

Firing.​

​

*CR-ACK*​

​

One of the several reasons why man-portable railguns went out of fashion (while the hyper-velocity shipboard or ground-based capital variants didn't) is that when fired, they make a godawful noise. When fired two inches from your own ear, it makes you very glad of the buy'ce and the selective audiofeed, as Shia's whole body vibrated with the sound of the round going hypersonic and the snow around her flew up into the air with the shockwave.

The Sky Demon, it's belly perfectly exposed... just... came apart in a streak of gore, before crashing into the mountainside.

"We... might be able to make you a cloak from it." Shia commented, looking at the mess they'd made. "Maybe two demi-cloaks, we could bring them back into fashion." The satisfaction in her voice could be heard. Shia loved that gun. It was completely impractical, had a recharge time measured in tens of seconds and was good for nothing except sniper-range heavy support fire, which a hand-held weapon could do better. But it was, she felt, a satisfying weapon.

"Good kill." She said with a nod and the sound of someone who was impressed. "The trick with the wings was kandosii, yeah?"

She turned to survey the valley - which aside from an immense and now vacated nest built out of broken durasteel, branches and the odd bes'uiilk part - seemed to consist of a narrow, highly defensible gap between two peaks which only the desperate or the foolish would choose to make a last stand in. Given the broken suits of armour, bes'uiik carcases (was that shells, in Basic, she wondered?) and obvious signs of battle damage that even many hundreds of years later marred the landscape, it would seem this was the right place.

"But maybe - and this is me saying this, so feel free to ignore it, because I never listen to me - maybe you might want to get some practice in with that jetpack before you use it for real?"

She paused, looking out over the ruined battlefield, then let out a long sigh and when she spoke her tone was a little darker.

"You, uh, probably don't want much to do with death. But I really should honour the dead before we take anything from this place. Their families will have taken aay'han'a - tokens of rememberance, look, you can see all the armour suits are missing something. But... even so. I was always taught the way you keep the dead alive is by remembering them, anything else is just letting them fade away."

Of course, Shia doesn't know that's gone into a sore spot between a man grieving for his lost wife and his daughter, but even if she did, she'd probably say the same thing again.

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Two cloaks… one for both of us.” Yasha was glad for her buy’ce, when the rail gun went off. She was also glad there wasn’t anything bigger than a Sky Demon which could beset upon them in the quiet after the enemy turned to pink goop.

“Kandosii! I know that word! Yes! It was kandosii… kinda small, don’t-cha think? You know, for a death bird?” Yasha panted and put both hands on her upper thighs, bending over to remind her ribcage that it knew how to expand and contract.

“Uncle [member="Silas Mantis"] promised to teach me. I just got my beskar’gam like last week or two, so… yeah… that was pretty freaky… I almost screamed like a five year old.” Yasha panted, letting out a laugh, which turned into her flopping over on her back on the snow. When [member="Shia Kryze"] mentioned the Mandalorian way of keeping the dead in memory, Yasha rolled over and pushed up on her elbows and knees.

“Mama wasn’t Mando. She was a Panathan ballerina. We didn’t honour the dead like you… we took what we needed. Daddy didn’t have much to remember us, when Mama and I were gone. He left the estate, turned to killing, alcohol and stims. Uncle Silas made beskads. Took Daddy weeks to realize Mama and I weren’t hallucinations… when I wasn’t dead after Monroe killed Mama, Daddy didn’t know I was real. Thought the Stims made him crazy. That’s why Ra looked after me… I had no one else, when Uncle Silas was away… adults don’t always take care of you. They love you and they need you more than ever… but take care of you? They don’t. So no… Shia… I don’t think every Mando should fight, ‘cause I’ll conquer the Netherworld with a paper clip, two grenades and a ball of yarn if my Daddy ends up where Mama is now… I’d beat an army down with a rock to stop Daddy from hurting when he wakes up in the morning, drinking stimcaf that smells like exhaust fumes, and going glassy around the eyes while he rubs his leg where it got amputated in a crude Sith Prison, while I was in Mama's belly. You want to honour the dead, do it. Whatever makes you feel better, Shia. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it… but speaking for the dead, I’d rather my Mama fades away. I’d rather she become One with the Force, or whatever [member="Baiko no Kaho"] says she’ll do once she’s moved on from waiting for Daddy. Like my brother Eli did, when Mama got dead and he was in her stomach… but I won’t. I won’t see her again, ‘cause I came back wrong, Shia. I came back wrong and every Force User in the Galaxy knows it after two seconds of looking in my direction and feeling nothing… like I don’t exist… you want to honour the dead, pitch a cargo freighter of ammunition through the Warlock Gate, and while you’re at it, send some Manda danged elba water and straws for Ba’buir Jasper… nobody talks about how Daddy killed Grandpa Jasper… not like it was. They don’t mention Ba’buir Jasper was the closest Daddy had to a father, that Jasper's the one who gave me those lollipops I tape to bacta patches… Don’t take trinkets from icy corpses thinking somehow it helps. It doesn’t… Nothing helps but cover, ammo, and the ability to kill, then fade into your surroundings while the others quote-unquote bravely hold the bleeding line.”

Yasha crept back to her feet, shaking arms holding to her knees as she caught her breath and stood tall as a twelve year old could. “Sorry… talk about funeral rites and doing things for the dead changes after you’ve seen where they go. All your little rituals… you think they make our lives on that squiggly line better? All they do is comfort the living… remind the kids how not to die. Let's go wake your droid.”

 

[Shia Kryze]

Shia listened to Yasha with the same air she'd give an expert in their subject, and when the time game to respond, she did not for a moment consider dismissing Yasha's pain. But she did give Yasha an honest response.

"Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum. I am still alive, you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal. Look - I don't know about the Netherworld, I really don't - I just know whole planets vanished one day and the kriffing Sith or Jedi probably had something to do with it. I do know that Chaos is a real place - you've been there - but... if it's real, then the Afterlife is probably real too. But that doesn't really matter, does it? Of course all those rituals are for us the living, as much as they're for the dead. Until I came back, I just figured we all became one with the Manda, no continuity. Our continuity is in our words and our deeds and in the memory we leave with others."

Shia pauses, struggling with to find the words. She's not a natural leader, or a speaker. She's certainly not a religious or spiritual woman.

"So if you're right, then I'll be right beside you when we scourge Chaos to the bedrock and kill everything that lives there or die trying, because I won't have my kinsmen - and that includes you, ner vod and your kinsmen ending up there. I'll change the whole shape of the galaxy if I have to. But while we do, we need to keep alive the memories of the people who've gone ahead of us to fight. And if there's something else to the whole thing, then we still need to keep their memories alive, for us. Because either you're right and the dead do matter, then we need to conquer hell, or the dead join the Manda or the Force and it doesn't matter, except to the living. So those people who don't speak of the dead? Who don't remember your mother, or your Uncle Jasper - they're wrong, that's not how the Mando'ade do it. We keep all the memories alive, heroes and villains. My greatest ancestors were two sisters who brought Mandalore to ruin and saved it, respectively - and I honour them both for their deeds and remember them, so they will never die."

She shrugs.

"Chit galaxy either way, to some degree. It's what I don't get about the Jedi and all their optimism. At least the Sith you can sort of understand the fight for eternal life. But there's a third way, and we chose it. The practical way that lets your heart survive along with your body. Because you can be walking wounded without taking a single wound, like your buir."

A long pause as if Shia is really not sure she should say what she's going to say next.

"Aliit ori'shya tal'din, ner vod. You've had a chit childhood and nothing will change that, but don't push people away just because they pushed you away. You can't expect to win every battle - and the ones of the heart are the hardest, so they tell me. I wouldn't know - I don't exactly have a fabulous track record there myself. But don't give up on yourself - or them, mando'ad draar digu is said for a reason, and it's not just old grudges. And what you gave up? I'm not a frikking Jedi, but if it's all real - then you can take it back. We're the wolves here, Yasha. Not the sheep."

Shia shrugs, coming to an end of her emotional rant - it sounds an awful lot like she's crying behind her buy'ce, but she doesn't remove it to wipe her face. The tears would freeze solid, after all.

"Right, lets go get us a pair of droids, ner vod."

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

"The Netherworld is where we end up. We don’t return to the Manda, we either go there, and fight for eternity, or become one with the Force and end up as shaky visions at the Oasis. Got to get through the Blood Plains to find it… rained blood, it’s where I grew up. Mama said the blood hid our scent and the bones and terrain gave us enough places to hide… in the middle is the Oasis, where souls make their peace, see their loved ones… Mama kept looking, we circled it for ages. I’ve killed horrors with a broken vibroblade wrapped in leather. Taken terror birds apart by digging my nails into their underbellies and gnashing my teeth. I’ve sat at the entrance to our hidey-holes while Mama slept, quaking like she always did, mumbling about what Daddy would do if he were there, I’ve slept on my Mama’s back as we moved through hell, only Daddy to remember me… honour who you want.”

Yasha kicked at a rock and let the sound of it pinging off debris cover her sniffle. She moved to the wreckage of the Sky Demon, pulled a beskad from her thigh holster, and started skinning what was left of its’ wings and body.

“I don’t want to remember Mama. I don’t want her to live scared and alone for eternity in a horrific place. Eternal life is meaningless when it's only filled with fear.” Yasha whispered, her throat choking up, growing tighter as she admitted what had kept her so distant from the others. “Does that make me evil?”

Her beskad shook, then steadied. [member="Shia Kryze"] would be there beside her? Yasha remembered when there were people beside her and Mama. She remembered their weary faces when Mama repaired their gear as best she could, cannibalizing off the dead. How they held Yasha in turn, how Yasha learned which ones were going next by the relative strength of their arms, when she curled into them, a young child, for warmth and comfort. One by one. By one.

By one…

Shia wanted to stand? Defeat the Netherworld? Tightening her grip on her beskad, Yasha cut around the joints and head of the Sky Demon, stripping the hide from the carcass.

“Ra called me Little Rekr (wolf) the day he gave me his mother’s necklace… made me proud… Maybe it’s like the other kids say. I’m dead, and I clawed back to the living, but I’m dead… dead like my eyes in daylight… sorry. Daddy doesn’t like to talk and Kaden doesn’t understand any of this. None of it matters much. I’ve got my vode… and we’re gonna get a couple of war droids and be the coolest people on Manda’yaim.”

 

[Shia Kryze]

"Well... if you ever want to talk about it, you know where to find me."

Shia bumps a closed fist into Yasha's shoulder, not pulling the blow as she might with a child.

"It's what vode are for, right?" A pause. "Well, that and superior firepower. Speaking of that..."

Shia triggers her thrusters to hop up onto a decaying remnant of a siege-model bes'uliik and scans the surrounding area with a somber expression.

"What we're looking for will be... more... intact... like that." She points to large mound of ice surrounded by the carnage of battle, then leaps down and slogs through the snow towards it. "The self-repair matrix will have run until it ran out of power, which won't have been long in the cold, but we can tell by..." She extends her blades and starts to scrape ice and snow off the uneven lump that is indeed roughly the size of an immense war droid. "So the head should be here... which means."

A single clean cut reveals a glassy plane of ice, from within which the upper face of an ancient bes'uliik stares back through dead, scared photo-optics, the wound that took it's sensors on that side extending all the way down it's flank. Even though it has no power, and cannot see from that damaged scar of red and black, the blue-painted war droid seems to merely be sleeping between battles, it's forelimbs resting under its head in the same way a bear sleeps, the muzzles of its shattercones silent and still - unlike many bes'uliik, this one has a sharp, almost ursine jaw that protrudes below the muzzle array of it's main weapon, which gives it an even greater impression of a sleeping giant, not a battle damaged droid.

"Well." Shia seems stunned to actually have found the sleeping giant. "Su cuy'gar Ruug'la'solus'sur'haai. I see you've had a good long nap. Hey, Yasha, your fancy modern beskar'gam have something practical on it like a flamethrower, or did we screw up and we're going to have to scrape this ice off?"

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Thanks. I think I got most of it out… kind of.” Yasha kicked at the ground, and an empty ammunition clip skittered into the glass-like ice around [member="Shia Kryze"]. “We going to power them up somehow? Let their self-repairing mechanisms keep going, or do we want to make repairs once we get them d-um… how are we getting them down?”

Yasha picked the clip up and turned it over in her hand. Rusted, battered, something about it made Yasha pause. She put it in her small pack, a memento of battles survived and enemies left unconquered.

“I’ve got a plasma torch… haven’t had the chance to use it yet... but you know how, right?” Yasha stared down at the old beast, the ursine war droid and peered through the ice.

Behind, deeper into the ice in a crevasse, a flash of grey metal caught her eye. Twisted and bent, it craned over another form. Supine. Curled of spine, hugging itself. “That one… what’s that one? Gee, guess we’ll find out… here goes nothing.”

Yasha keyed up her plasma torch and skittered back a few feet as the plasma sheared into the ice. “Ooo! Oh that is cool!”

The ice around the plasma torch veered from solid to gas, as the child tried to avoid the bes’uliik in the ice pocket.

 

[Shia Kryze]

"Yes and no, this suit mostly comes fitted with overkill, not useful gadgets. Just try to avoid the sensor arrays - the rest of him will survive a little plasma, even with the thermal change. Besides, you're the engineer here!"

Shia watched as the massive, metal form slowly became visible, dripping with the water run off, as it became accessible, she slowly attached repulsor pads to it's extremities - as if afraid of waking it.

"I'm going to move it down so we can get the others out first, then hopefully we can just give him juice and let him self-repair until his primary cortex comes online. The others... I don't know, some come with self-repair units, some don't, some might not even be damaged, tag one with drain net and it'll short out after a time like any other droid."

The repulsors have to take a lot of weight - the ancient bes'uliisk was built in the days when alloy was a fancy new word for Mandalorians, and it's additional weapons - including what looked like a particle cannon attached to it's scorpion-like tail unit, similiar to Dark Sky, in fact - added weight, but between them and the water providing a fast freezing ramp, Shia manages to slide the immense bulk in a somewhat controlled fashion to the open low point of the ravine, then once she's certain it's secure, hurries up to help Yasha dig deeper into the ice.

Turns out, beskard's make perfectly servicable ice swords - if not ice axes exactly, if you're willing to put enough force into hacking at the larger blocks.

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“I kinda not really but maybe wish we brought Baiko.” Yasha continued to use the plasma torch, wincing, when the plasma torch scorched part of Red Scar’s old scar.

“If I’m the engineer, we goofed.” Yasha laughed, a much more childish sound than her earlier tirades. The sound was comforting, even for the mostly dour girl. As [member="Shia Kryze"] worked on the repulsor pads, Yasha kept cutting out the ice, digging her feet into cracks to reach further in. The further in she went, the closer Yasha got to the twisted, but protective still body of another gigantic war beast.

“I see one… it’s protecting a dead Mando.” Yasha spoke with an affirmation, as if the idea of a protective droid somehow made her feel better. She worked to cut through into an air pocket, and inspected under the gigantic war beast.

“Its’ arm is stuck up high. See? There’s a rock fall.” Yasha peered up, then stopped short. “Shhiiiiiaaaaaaa?”

A creaking sound tugged into Yasha’s ears. The job she’d done cutting through the ice was destabilizing large boulders holding the bes’uliik’s claw-like arm above them.

“How fast can we get this guy out of here?”

 

[Shia Kryze]

They weigh up to fifteen tonnes Yasha. Shia did not say out loud.

"Catch."

She threw the repulsor pads to Yasha without looking to see if they were caught.

"No need to be neat, the field just needs to cover all of it."

She forced her way further into the crack with sheer brute force and ignorance, drawing her blaster and using it on low power to shoot away some of the final pockets of ice, ignoring the potentially dangerous backwash. She felt Yasha squirming around below her, her smaller frame letting her get deeper into the crevice and place the repulsor disks further down. But Shia really doubted they'd get a field effect large enough to let them pull this beast out of there. But, you had to try...

"Okay, right... use your jetpack on reverse thrust, and PULL!"

There was an ominous, terrifying creak that was louder than the roar of two thrusters and two women straining to their respective limits against a weight they couldn't move, then a sudden give in motion that caused Shia's heart to leap, only for it plummet as an even more terrifying creak above the announced the falling boulders. Chit, she'd left it too lo..

*WHUMP*​

​

Shia could never remember being pushed aside by the bes'uliik she'd been trying to excavate, the space in her memory was a blur of motion and noise too loud to really interpret. All she remembered was finding herself under an armoured body, then being scooped up alongside Yasha and deposited with more haste the grace into the snow and ice outside, before the immense bulk of the armoured war machine tore itself free from it's icy tomb and collapsed next to the pair of Mando'ade it had saved, looking for all the world like a loyal canid - a weird, heavily armored canid - settling down beside it's masters. It clearly still had power - both optics glowed dully and were clearly observing the Mandalorian women, but if she were any judge that had been most of it's primary reserves.

"Vor entye." She said to the machine.

"Grumph." It rumbled in a voiceless robotic affirmation fit to shake mountains.

[member="Yasha Mantis"]​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The repulsors were caught, placed and Yasha rolled as boulders began to fall around them. Dangerous creaks and pick-pock rocketing noise were her anthem as Yasha grabbed on to the bes’uliik, fired her jet pack in hopefully the right trajectory and tugged. Inches gave way to falling stones.

“Come on! Please, big guy! Don’t... stay stuck.... we... need you, buddy!” Yasha tugged and breathed, grunting as with a woosh and the caterwauling of her body over the jet pack, Yasha was clutched in a gnarled left ‘paw’. She hit the ground with a large enough huff to sting, rolling into her side to cough it out, clinging to the bes’uliik with the faith of a child who temporarily knew no reason to distrust or feel wronged.

“I like this one.” Yasha grinned under her helmet, back on the snow. Cuddling into the bes’uliik’s front arms, Yasha hugged the ancient machine. The Bes’uliik’s one ‘arm’ was curled in a wayward position, metal groaning on the ground. “Baiko can help fix you, right buddy? You got a name? Or do we call you Grumph?”

The old machine seemed to shiver, tendrils exiting its’ inner casings and expanding into backup solar recharge panels, which unfurled like flowers. “Dude… cool… [member="Shia Kryze"]? What now?”