Private Metallic Monks | Fett

[Trajan Fett]

ORD MANTELL SCRAPLANDS | 901 ABY
METALLIC MONKS
Hakon Fett ​

Too many roads led back to this place. It was about a decade ago that the once fledgling hunter, Trajan, wearing the armor of his forefathers embarked on one of his first hunts. He was in far too much over his head, no older than sixteen at the time. He was supposed to knock out the head of a spice smuggling ring and ended up surrounding and beaten to a pulp by the detail of gangers and mercenaries assigned to his protection. Each and every plate of beskar was stripped from his body, a defiling of his identity. It wasn't long after in an attempt to remake himself, he enlisted in the Imperial Army, completing an honorable term of service in its final days.

Back in the fray, back in the saddle, a simple man. For now, merely a hunter with no name...no face. Both of them, he'd reclaim today. He'd spent some time as a hunter, in service to various guilds and companies, riding along as paid muscle or a well aimed blaster. Now, he'd taken a hiatus from contract work. He was a lone wanderer with a single aim in mind. To take what was his.

Outside of the bustling Mantell City, much of Ord Mantell was dominated by the Scraplands. Heaps of broken steel of hundreds of generations of galactic conflict and civilization gathered here. In some areas, the scrap was consolidated into organized shipbreaking operations, many of which owned and operated by the Techno Union. Whilst other pockets were feuded over by smaller tribes and in many cases, the sprawl acted as enclaves from shadowy activities.

Fett had a lead on the last. He was finally able to close the gap between himself and one of the ganger's who taken his Beskar'gam, a once Mantellian mercenary who, through a lengthy and rather bloodladen interrogation which ended in the man plummeting into the Coruscant underworld revealed that the armor, along with a token haul of raw beskar had been seized and sold to a collector. Not a man who he'd ever expect to use the armor or metal but a man who seemed to have some fascination for the Mandalorian relics, regarding them as oddities display pieces. And in a more fascinating note, a man with connections to once Zambrano led Sith Empire whose occupation of the Mandalore Sector the most bloodied in recent memory.

And the crusade to drive them out, resulted in Trajan's namesake.

The door hissed open, the mechanism still somehow functioning as it led into the dimly lit cantina. The dining deck of a once lavish starliner which had been converted to serve the shipbreakers, settlers and criminals which dwelled in this podunk region of the Scraplands. When he entered, Trajan drew a few eyes immediately. While his garb wasn't overtly Mandalorian, it was certainly a decent impression. Certainly the guise of a man looking to inquire at best and spill blood at worst. Hardly one to stick around and drink. He made his way to the counter, a signature clink of each step like the rattling of spurs as he approached the bartender. A heavy-set Devaronian who tossed a rag over his shoulder, nodding upward to the man.

"What can I do for ya? Lookin' to drink, settle in for the night?" He asked, lofting a brow, expecting the best of the man.

<"Looking for directions...open ended job offer, supposed to meet with a man...some 'Director Klast'? At least, what was what he went by at some point or another..."> He asked, the Devaronian nodded.

"Yeah...yeah...he's got a- what um...what do ya want with him?" He asked, the alien seemed to grow nervous with the inquiry. Trajan was still for a moment, peering over his shoulder to see one of the tables eyeing him.

<"Had an offer for me. Said he'd been in this part of Scraplands. Can't get comms down here so I figured I'd ask around."> Fett explained in simple terms, his voice monotone and obscured with the overlay and vocoder presented by his helmet.

He nodded.

"Sure...he's got a compound of sorts, only way to get there is the train. There's runs back and forth twice a day. Can probably catch one here soon." He remarked to which Trajan nodded. He palmed a meager credit chit, sliding it unto the counter before he made his way out. Waiting for him, Hakon. Another disciple and clansman of Fett. Well in need of a face. As much as Trajan tread alone, he anticipated another blaster would come in use here.

<"Another lead. We're taking the train. You ready?">

 

[Hakon Fett]

Leaning against the makeshift cantina's outer wall, with his arms crossed, Hakon Fett thoughtfully examined his armor. Dents and scratches blighted the once-polished duraplast surface in contagious scores of rust, the bronzium finish of his chestplate had long withered to an off-beat white and russet color. The armor was well past the point of parading the visage of a battle-hardened warrior whose iron was forged in the crucible of a thousand battles. It blended all too well with the heaps of discarded metal forming the Scraplands for an armor fitting a Mandalorian warrior. The scorched scars of blaster bolts and deep cuts of vibroblades marring his flesh yearned for a reforged armor, a long due repair.

When the word-of-mouth of Trajan's quest for his armor reached Hakon's ears, he couldn't deafen his wounds' longing no more. Especially not when the prospect of procuring the extremely rare Mandalorian iron was on the cards; the coveted metal was part of their eons-old heritage that was stripped away with the desecration of Mandalore, peeled off layer by layer along with their identity until they became merely empty husks of their former selves. For a long time, Hakon had ignored the fact. Disregarded the truth with his unsated lust for sailing the stars until the day he came he opened an ancient, barely-functional, datacron of a past long lost, swept away like specks of dust by the winds of time. Months of unearthing knowledge of bygone days followed and he pieced together fragments of who he was, who they were. A past he now sought to reclaim.

<"Another lead. We're taking the train. You ready?">

<"Another?"> Hakon tilted his head, then silently sighed. <"Let's go.">

The loud zizz of industrial-grade saws cutting through metal and pounding of hydraulic compactors crushing husks of vessels and vehicles beset the Mandalorians' laconic amble towards the train's platform quarter-a-klick away. When the doors of the train finally shut behind them, dulling the clangor of shipbreaking operations, Hakon's T-visor curiously shifted at his companion.

<"A guy hoarding beskar right under the Dark Empire's nose? I'll be surprised if we don't find his skin flayed for it by the Imps."> he said. His own experience with Imperials was far more cursory than Trajan's was. Far more. If there was someone who knew how Imperials thought and moved, it would be the one between them who once bore their flesh. Well, a brand of them, at least.

Trajan Fett

 

[Trajan Fett]

He lofted a brow, a faint huff of amusement escaping him to Hakon's remark. <"More happens under their nose than you'd think. Empire or not, it's a nation at war...total war. Can only dedicate so many resources in any direction. Not going to see many Imp patrols in the scraplands, I can guarantee you that."> He explained, pulling one of the blaster pistols part way from his holster to check the power pack's capacity, slipping it back in with a slip of his palm along the interior of the holster. The train was an ancient fabrication, the mechanisms and thrusters humming to life with some laboured breathes before soon enough, they were riding the magrail deeper into the scraplands.

<"For our sake, I hope the Imps haven't gotten to him yet...it's our vengeance to enact, our legacy to reclaim...not their resources to hoard."> He said, letting off a sigh into the helmet as he settled into a corner of the car of the scrap train. <"I can't imagine its a short trip, get some shut-eye."> He suggested. His eyes fluttered closed before he'd found a few hours had passed when he opened them again to the sound of a torch cutting away at the durasteel roof above them. He was quick to his feet, quickly shuffling out of the way when the panel plummeted to the floor with a violent thud. Two armed men, mercenaries, thugs, whatever you wished to call them, they were hardly identifiable as any uniformed lot, faces concealed and bodies cover for protection from the toxic pools and fumes of the scraplands. They barked out in Bosche to one another before they opened fire.

There was a robbery...or worse, someone knows of them and they were being hunted. Trajan vaulted over a large crate in a well practiced motion, a hail of blaster fire burning into the opposite surface as he drew his pistol. He quickly brought himself to aim over the cover, delivering a burst into the chest of one of the gunners, leaving Hakon to kill the other.

ORD MANTELL​

<"Looks like our peaceful little ride is cut short."> He said before he made his way to the front of the car, pressing open the door to let in the ambient noise of the violence around them. Several skiffs have come to flank the train, mounted E-webs and other blaster rifles raking across the scrap train as boarders came unto the cars, small vessels lowering tow cables to bring the payload of various crates, high payoff items and any other pieces of loot they could come across.

<"We need to get to the front car, drop the rest of the train on the control panel. It'll make a quick getaway for us."> He said, gritting his teeth as he ducked behind one of the maintenance panels of the car's exterior before he peeled away to deliver another well aimed burst into one of the E-web gunners, sending him plummeting to his death.

He then trained his eyes forward and vaulted across the open gap between the cars, a quick pulse of his jump pack helping him along before he met even footing, pressed the door's control panel and continued forward.

 

[Hakon Fett]

Hakon settled down on the opposite side of Trajan's corner, swinging his EE-3 carbine from his back down on the floor and beneath the cautious care of his palm. He bent his knee up for additional comfort and his eyes dwindled into a light nap under his thoughts on Trajan's words: total war.

Lucidity barged in with the loud din of a sliced steel panel crashing down in the middle of their wagon. With his head still swimming to get above the drowsy haze, battle-hardened instincts were first to react. In one swift motion, the hand caressing his carbine lifted the rifle and pulled the trigger at the back of the last remaining interloper. His body fell limp on the floor with a bathetic thud.

<"Looks like our peaceful little ride is cut short.">

<"Took them long enough."> Hakon rose up, falling quickly into step behind Trajan as they hurried towards the front of the car. He peered over his shoulder to see armed skiffs lining the hovertrain spewing armed marauders into the train, and he quickly recalled why they hadn't come down the Scraplands with their own ship: it would've been like tossing a piece of food into a Neimodian communal hive.

<"We need to get to the front car, drop the rest of the train on the control panel. It'll make a quick getaway for us.">

<"Go!"> Hakon nodded in agreement and gave Trajan a soft shove at the back. <"I'll take the higher ground. Split their attention."> he said, then explained with a knock on his cuirass. <"It's a weathered duraplast, but it's Mandalorian forged. Can take a harder beating than whatever you've got.">

Without another word, his repulsor pack kicked in lifting him up on the roof of the car ahead. The moment his sabatons found their footing, Hakon dashed forward, firing his carbine left and right at the boarders. A few surprised marauders made easy, static targets that were flung off the train. The sound of bodies pureed between wheel and track were momentary in between the bustle of the moving train much like a fruit's short-lived, futile resistance against the blades of a blender.

Hakon carried onward, jumping over the next car under the heavy fire of E-web muzzles trailing his form. A few bolts grazed his body, but he gritted his teeth against the pain. He couldn't stop. Stopping meant dying.

<"Still alive?"> he called out through their comms before a loud hum from the skies took his attention. <"There's more skiffs inbound.">

The sooner they got rid of the wagons, the sooner they'd have these marauders off their tail.

Unless the train's loot wasn't their intended payoff.

Trajan Fett

 

[Trajan Fett]

The interior of the scrap train cars did well to offer some cover from the skiffs and transports hauling the pirates and their cargo. Another trio of them cut through and dropped into the car Trajan had just entered. He grit his teeth as he found himself within mere feet of one of them, grasping ahold of his disruptor rifle to pin him up against the wall with the rifle across his chest before he reared back his head, delivering a punishing headbutt into his skull. Were it beskar, a Keldabe kiss. Regardless, a spittle of blood splattered across his visor, the man concussed, unconscious, likely dead before he hit the ground as Trajan wrenched the rifle from him, taking aim down the crude sights before he fired a bolt into one of the other pirates, snapping quickly to engage the other, both of them disintegrated.

<"I'm up..."> He said in reply to Hakon after he cleared the last car, looking over his shoulder to see more of them on their way.

<"Yeah...let's hope it doesn't stay our problem."> He said before a punishing hail of blaster bolts from an E-Web crashed into the wall near him. He took up position behind the railing, using it to stabilize his next shot before he delivered another disruptor bolt to the man's chest, a shadow of his skeleton ignited in ember before he disintregated.

He jumped to the next car, the lead and forced open the door. Within, a protocol droid was at the controls.

"Oh dear! Please! Please don't hurt me!" It pleaded in its ever sophisticated, high pitched voice.

<"Move!"> He said, forcing the droid aside with a push at its shoulder before he lifted the cover to an emergency mag lock override, flicking down the switch to break the lead car's connection to the rest of the train and with it, the pirates. Given the now lack of drag, it sped along its course.

He offered up a faint sigh before he leaned against the control console of the train, listening to the invigorated maglifts of the train's propulsion. A faint reprieve for the moment.

<"Hate this place...how do we wanna approach this? Bastard is form Sith Empire, probably holed up in a compound, could have some droids or mercs for paid muscle. We wanna go in and coerce our Beskar from him...or take what's ours and leave nothing left for the carrion filth here."> He said, looking over toward the other Fett.

 

[Hakon Fett]

Upon landing on the locomotive's roof with a loud thud, Hakon reeled as the wagon shook underneath his feet. A loud screech of metal grating against metal resounded as lead car's maglock was unclutched and its wagons grinded against the locomotive rushed by the momentum of a declining slope. The railway picked upwards once more and with its newfound lack of weight, the lead car sped in an escape, leaving in its wake a trail of wagons slowly halting to a stop.

The skiffs broke pursuit and banked hard back towards their prey. As the Mandalorians gained distance from the marauders, their clear shapes and forms blurred into dark specks against the noxious horizon circling over the wagons like vultures a carcass. Hakon breathed out a silent sigh of relief as the cacophony of violence was replaced by the monotonous hum and throb of the hovertrain speeding along its track.

Slinging the carbine over his back, he climbed down the lead car's interior through a hatch on the roof. <"They're gone.">

<"Hate this place...how do we wanna approach this? Bastard is form Sith Empire, probably holed up in a compound, could have some droids or mercs for paid muscle. We wanna go in and coerce our Beskar from him...or take what's ours and leave nothing left for the carrion filth here."> Trajan asked and Hakon turned his T-visor at the locomotive's viewport. Their destination drew near.

<"He's holed up, alright."> the Mandalorian grimly muttered. Following Hakon's fixated gaze, Trajan would see what laid beyond the train platform they were approaching. A spire of scrap looming taller over the rest and far more upright than the leaning piles of scrap built by chance and time. Atop its rusted dome, a banner was unfurled with a symbol not too different than that of the dismantled Sith Empire. Droids and mercs in droves roamed its perimeter Those with knowledge of the Scraplands knew that only the gangs and groups at highest echelon of the food chain dared to mark their territory visibly.

Hakon shifted his gaze on his companion, an idea springing in his mind. <"Any chance he might be looking to hire? It's probably the best chance we'll get up to his face.">

They were a warriors people, but Hakon had found cunning went a long way.

Trajan Fett

 

[Trajan Fett]

<"Potentially..."> He remarked with a faint sigh, standing up fully from the console he was hunched over with a groan of pain and exertion. Though he was hardly an old man, his time in the Imperial army paired with grueling mercenary work had paid a toll already, even in his late twenties.

<"We've the look, for sure. Soon as the train stops we'll get a read on his compound and go from there."> Another hour or so and it did. It was a scrap palace if there ever was one, all constructed from a haphazard combination of starship sections, industrial storage containers and other chunks of the Galaxy's refuse which, by now, the group here had seemingly been well settled in, much of it all refined and fortified.

Two of the mercenaries approached the train as the pair of Mandalorians stepped off.

"Afternoon, you two...we were expecting a larger haul. Unless...you're here for something else?" The man asked. He was no younger than his fourties. Armed, but didn't seem battle hardened.

<"Pirates took the rest. We were passengers, supposed to be off at the next stop but...had to split away the rest of the track or we would've been gunned down. At least half a dozen skiffs and two airspeeders. We're capable but we're not gods."> Trajan explained, slinging his newly acquired disruptor rifle over his back.

"Goodness...alright, well...glad you two gentlemen are okay. Are either of you hurt? Needing anything?" He asked, eyes darting between them. Trajan glanced the way of Hakon before shaking his head.

<"No...who owns his place?"> He asked, lofting a brow to the man in an unseen gesture.

"My father...our family has been here for twenty years. We extract raw materials, rare metals, that sort from the shipbreaking yards in the scraplands. Sell it up to big time manufacturers through our distributor in Mantell City. Kuat-Entralla, so on...and what brings you two to Ord Mantell?" He asked, looking between them.

<"Work. Our ship was scuttled by some Black Sun gangers not long after we landed. Been trying to buy our way off world since."> He explained to which the man nodded.

"I see...so, looking for honest pay then? I- I could see if my father would be willing to hire you all on. You two seem competent." He said gesturing to both of them to which Trajan nodded, motioning for the man to lead them along. They passed through into the main manor of the compound. The interior was well organized and well kept. Whatever section cutouts they were moving through, the change couldn't truly be sensed before eventually they made their way to a main atrium where a far older man sat lounged in a seat. Attending him was a medical droid as breathing tubes ran through his nostrils, audibly pumping oxygen into his system.

Around the room, artifacts and oddities were on display. Old banners from the Sith Empire, Krayt Dragon bones, First Order relics and of course...propped up on an armor stand.

The Beskar'gam of Trajan's possession. His eyes immediately snapped to it, motioning to Hakon to take the reins as the older man set his focus on the two.

"Father. These two are mercenaries, looking for work in the compound." His son explained. The older man offered a nod.

"Yes...yes...can always use more good fighting men, here." He remarked as Trajan stood before the Beskar'gam, his eyes peering into the T-visor of his true face. He then looked back over his shoulder toward the pair.

He flicked his helmeted head to the side once, indicating to Hakon that soon, they'd make their move.

From behind the older man, he approached the conversation again, eventually drawing a blaster with a quick, deft motion before pinning the muzzle into the back of the older man's head.

"Ahh!" He said, losing his breath a moment later.

<"You were Sith Empire. Worked on Concordia."> He said, pressing the muzzle harshly into the man's scalp.

"Ahhh! Yes- yes! Decades ago I- I- I've been here...for a long time." He admitted to which Trajan removed the muzzle before whipping the barrel across the man's head, drawing blood.

<"Where did you get my beskar!? Where?!"> He barked out with the inquiry, the medical droid spouting some nonsense in binary to which Trajan iced it with a well aimed shot to its head before returning the muzzle to the man's skull.

"N-no! I- I...I collect these things f- from Mandalore. Such beauty-" He admitted before Trajan's finger curled over the trigger.

<"So what? It's just some oddity to you. Some fetish, ode of your time spent torturing my fucking people? Huh?! You waited a long time...and traveled a long way thinking justice would never touch you..."> He said, slowly rounding the seat to look the man in the eye, trusting Hakon would have a good hold over his son.

"D-don't! He- that's all in the past! He- we have a family here!" His son pleaded to which Trajan looked over his shoulder, taking a moment to exploit such weakness.

<"Saw a ship on our way in, freighter type...that yours?"> He asked to which the son nodded.

"Yes, its armed too...ah- I."

<"I'm leaving with it. My armor. Anything Mandalorian that this Rot-Wing has touched...it's leaving with me. Understand?"> He asked before looking back to the father, shedding a tear from the intensity of the situation.

"J- just give the men what they want I- I don't mean any harm..." He said before the son nodded a few times, reaching down to hand the control code over to Hakon at the behest of a sway of Trajan's pistol.

<"Good..."> He said, slowly holstering the pistol before he looked back to the once Sith scientist. A hand clasped on his shoulder before moving up to the side of his neck.

<"Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a."> He muttered in Mando'a before a vibroblade emerged from his vambrace and with a harsh cut, he sliced it through the man's neck, leaving a spittle of blood spurting out in a dark red ichor.

 

[Hakon Fett]

Deception went a long way. Some of his most extreme brethren may have their method cowardly, dishonorable even, but to them Hakon Fett would say they were too close minded.

Is the feign of the blade in combat dishonorable?

Is the Marg Sabl a coward's maneuver?

To find cowardice and dishonor one needed to look no further than the atrium built beneath a fortress of scrap and refuse. The pitiful sight of the old doctor wrought shackles of fear around Hakon's heart and mind. Fear that should he carry on his wayward path, this would be his own fate: an insignificant death on a bed.

Trajan's barely visible tilt of the helmet sponged the fears away, polishing his mind for combat. His stance shifted at the ready, unrecognizable to anyone but to those that had donned battle armors for most of their lives. To the untrained eye he simply remained static; a man drinking in the rich collection of artefacts lining the walls.

The two Mandalorians drew their guns in near-perfect synchronicity. Both son and father were quick to surrender, the latter raising his hands after a momentary hesitation; an echo of a youth now long past, tempered by the few gray streaks of content running across his hair. Years of settled life had dulled his pride into an empty husk of comfort, petrified by even the softest of breezes of change; a green pasture beyond the reaches of a dead sea.

But now the sea has stirred alive.

A storm has come.

And the waves cut through the pastures and hills in reckoning, drowning them into the depths of a retribution long coming. Inevitable as the ebbtide and the moon.

Blood splattered across the rusty floor.

"You should've bowed to no one and died a honorable death." in combat, in defiance.

But he was aruetii.

They could never understand.

Hakon blew a hole through the son's skull, the sound softened by the proximity of his muzzle to his head. No pleasure, no adrenaline, surged in the Mandalorian's veins. A coward's death brought no glory, the ancestors knew.

Dropping the son's body to fall limp on the floor, he looked up at Trajan. There was a glee to the man, concealed to the naked eye of the aruetii by a set of armor and a helmet, but clearly visible to a Mandalorian.

The shine of a new dawn rising.

Trajan Fett