He had fought by then in virtually every conceivable type of terrain. Ice worlds, deserts, volcanic slopes, forests, jungles, rolling plains, even the cold void of space. He knew how it felt to be on the front line of a massed charge across open ground, and to hunt and be hunted through the alleys of a vast city, fighting building to building and block to block. From Coruscant to Korriban, the bright center of the galaxy to Known Space's dark edges, he had killed.... and commanded killers. He had a wealth of experience to draw upon in any engagement.
But all that hard-won skill and cunning fled him for a moment when Mercy came to greet him. He hardly heard her
physical voice, hardly noticed the sharp military salute and deferential bow that kept up the appearance that their differing ranks divided them. He was waiting for the voice that came in his dreams, the voice he now saw as Mercy's
true voice, the whisper in his mind like silk over bare skin.
Mongrel. It was an ugly name, a name that fit his broken, twisted form... but when she spoke it, she made it intimate, even somehow
beautiful.
Only
she could bring beauty into his life.
I wish we had a few hours together in private, came her mental whisper, filling his mind with desire for the things she could show him, the things she could make him
feel. And she shared those things, just a taste of them, for they had little time and many enemies. He felt hands woven from pure thought run across skin he no longer had. He felt
softness, the warmth of her tender, tantalizing touch. Before her, for all the long years since his biological body had been carved away, he had lost those things. Without her he was cold, rigid,
pained.
Rationally, The Mongrel knew that it was just an illusion. She was
not standing before him, pressing her lips to his, letting her soft form press against him. He was
not holding her, hungrily returning her kiss, desperate to touch and caress the shapely lines of her body. There was only her mind, her powerful thoughts, stimulating the long-neglected nerves of his damaged brain. He was still just the last remnants of a man who ought to be dead, held together by metal that buzzed and hummed and flickered with electrical current. This wasn't real.
But for a moment, he could pretend it was.
I yearn for you, she told him.
I want you.
~ And I want you, ~ his mind whispered back, consumed by longing. A tiny voice, built of the fragments of his old self that Mawite torture had locked in the furthest reaches of his mind, cut into the moment.
Why? it asked.
Why would she love you? Who could? You are a torturer, a killer, a destroyer. You turned your back on love when you started down this path. Either she does this because there is something for her to gain, or because you have made her just as broken and lonely as you are.
That isn't love. That's the legacy of your cruelty.
He tried not to hear that voice, but it lingered.
All good things must come to an end. Mercy pulled back from his mind, and it was like rising from a pool of warm water, feeling the cold air on his skin once more. The dark, numb void that surrounded him without her touch descended once more, leaving him with only two emotions to feel: desire for her, and hatred for
everything else. The Mongrel focused on that hatred, on his burning desire to bring this wretched galaxy to a new beginning. This battle would be another step along that long and twisted road, the passage lubricated with blood.
He listened carefully to Mercy's
outer voice, to the information she had gathered, and nodded his approval.
"Agreed," the warlord boomed.
"The wolf droids will hunt well in these woods. The Mandalorian scouts will die screaming." The droids were an Eternal Empire design, but sold on the open market; it was easy enough for the Maw's network of smugglers and black marketeers to acquire some for the Scar Hounds. Armored, shielded, and quick, they would be elusive and deadly monsters when unleashed in Roon's jungles.
But before the full mobilization of the Mawite force could begin, The Mongrel detected an all too familiar sound howling over the trees.
"Take cover!" he barked, moving his own towering metal body in front of Mercy to shield her from any incoming fire. It was an instinctive move, one he did not even think to question, but a meaningful one. She was the only person in the galaxy he would have put himself in danger to protect. And he would have fed a
hundred thousand of his own warriors into the meat grinder before he considered losing her.
The first missiles struck well ahead of the Basiliks' arrival, throwing up clumps of dirt and shattered tree trunks, engulfing tents and shuttles in fiery explosions. The long-range fusillade, of course, was only the beginning. The Basilisks themselves came into view shortly after, opening up with their
many mounted weapons, picking off target after target in the chaos their missiles had created. By the time the Mawites brought PLX missile launchers and heavy flak cannons to bear, they were already wheeling away, leaving behind fire and death.
The Mongrel had seen the power of these Mandalorian war machines on Nirauan, when they had ravaged the ranks of Bloodsworn and Scar Hounds alike from the air, hunting marauders and their smuggled speeders through the winding streets of New Carannia. He had known that they would be here, in the Enclave's zone of influence, and he had known that there was no Mawite close air support that could match their versatility and power. That was why he didn't intend to
try. If the enemy owned the skies, so be it. He would adapt.
"Deploy the tunneling machines!" the warlord ordered. At his command, a force of
Groundborers began to trundle down the ramps of their transports, heading for the still-burning edge of the jungle clearing. They had been brought to dig up Sith artifacts, archaeological tools rather than weapons of war, but they could be turned to other purposes. It would be easy for the titanic burrowing devices to dig a network of sheltering trenches and tunnels through the jungle, ready-made defensive positions to help the Mawites hold ground.
Though the Mandalorians might scour the jungle with flame, burning every last leaf to ash in their quest to eradicate the Maw... but the Brotherhood would still endure. Like the prophesied worms of the apocalypse, wriggling in the fertile loam beneath the scorched surface, they would rise to inherit the earth when all else was dead. The
Legion of the Leech, of course, already resembled such worms. They were
ideal tunnel fighters, needing no light to navigate and capable of fitting through incredibly tight spaces with ease.
"Go forth," The Mongrel commanded.
"Undermine them!"
Khamul Kryze
, Mand’alor the Unchained. Sith Lord and Mandalorian Warlord, Master of the Dark Side. So it was his followers, the Death’s Hand, gathered alongside their master and his allies in the New Sith. So it was they were here aboard these shuttles, enroute to uncover what truly awaited them down below.
