Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Forgive me for the walk," the Armorer starts, a few minutes into their trek through the forest. She still hasn't dropped Fennec's hand. "But I didn't want to worry the others with an unfamiliar ship landing nearby."

"I don't mind. My visit won't upset anyone?"

"No,” the Armorer responds. “I can think of one who might be rather… combative, but that's more just how he is rather than a reflection on you. He takes his role as our guardian quite seriously. Though I would keep your helmet on. It's more familiar to them."

Fennec nods at that, understanding.

Within a few minutes, a shape looms in the distance. It's a domed, circular structure of some sort, with the top adorned in interlocking triangles of solid glass. Some of the panels have been shattered, and the entire thing looks as if it's been abandoned for some time.

The inside of it is in a similar state of disrepair. Unsalvageable machinery lines most of the walls, buttons and dials long since missing, and displays cracked and broken. Rubble fills the room, and Fennec steps around it carefully as she follows the Armorer through the seemingly abandoned facility. And there, across the room, is an unassuming access hatch. It's cleverly hidden amongst the debris but in such a way that doesn't seem to block the hatch from actually opening.

The Armorer starts down the ladder first, flicking on a light on her helmet that seems to be purely for Fennec's benefit. Fennec follows afterwards, carefully stepping off the last rungs at the bottom just as a steadying hand finds her waist, helping her down, which really only serves to destabilize her thoughts more than anything.

The tunnel she finds herself in is in significantly less disrepair than the facility above. The unpainted walls are still cracked and crumbling, and there's not much else to the space other than the occasional dull, flickering overhead lights. They add a faint, dissonant hum to the air. The rest of the walk is in silence, and Fennec tamps down on the apprehension she can feel building in the back of her mind about seeing the covert and the Mandalorians within it. She really didn't expect that she'd be going inside the covert.

It's not a long walk before they come to a choice of doors. They're all thick durasteel and nearly identical. The Armorer turns towards the leftmost one and inputs a code to open the door. Fennec then notices some small painted script on the wall in a language she can't read. It must be Mando'a.

When the door opens, again they're met with another tunnel, and the Armorer only leads her through a few more twists and turns before Fennec can see two Mandalorians standing guard at the end of it.

"Who is this?"

The large Mandalorian in front of her is an imposing tower of a man. He's much taller than either her or the Armorer, enough to feel more like she's looking at the humanoid embodiment of a tank rather than a person. Large, thick plates of beskar make up the bulk of him, painted a dusky gray-blue with highlights of yellow. She can see some type of major artillery over his shoulder.

He looks more like someone ready to jump out into the middle of a full-scale war, not simply guarding a bunker in a buried hallway. Fennec doesn't waver as the helmet tilts towards her.

"An acquaintance of Din's," the Armorer answers his query on Fennec’s behalf.

The blue Mandalorian shifts his weight to his other foot, the armaments on his back clinking against his armor. Despite the layers of beskar, it's easy enough to read his body language as someone who very badly has something to say.

"And mine," the Armorer adds firmly.

The Mandalorian straightens up at that. "Very well," he says, and lets them continue onwards.

Within, the facility looks much neater than its exterior. The walls are stark and professional, despite the evident decay. "What was this place?" Fennec asks.

"An observatory. The planet has a number of biological and meteorological oddities that a group of scientists were studying in the past. I do not know what became of them, but their facility remains."

"It's pretty secure, for just research."

"It's fortified for weather, not artillery, I'm afraid. The winters here are harsh, and it seems they built quite the facility to retreat into during the winter months. The mountain under which it sits should give us some protection from a bombardment, but it's not a theory I'd like to test."

"This is all one large bunker?"

"Yes. It's been some time since we've stayed in a place intended for long-term living. We've mostly gotten by with what shelter we could find. We were fortunate to find this."

They round the last corner, and Fennec sees what she can assume to be the actual covert come into view. There's an archway in the center, made of mostly destroyed marble and tile, but adorned in the center of it is a skull of some kind. It seems like the same creature on Boba's pauldron. The archway has a tattered cloth draped over its entrance, shielding the rest of the covert from view, but she can see shimmering light escaping through the fibers in some places.

The armorer steps up to the archway and turns to Fennec, seeming to give her a moment before they step through. "Ready?"

Fennec takes a moment to breathe and center herself. This is Din's tribe. The closest thing he has to a family. She's surely intruding by being here at all, but she hadn't exactly been planning on an invitation. She isn’t going to turn it down. So, she braces herself for whatever's to come, and nods.

"Yes."

The Armorer sweeps aside the cloth, stepping inside, and Fennec follows her into a large, circular living space. What greets her is like nothing she expects.

Where she'd previously seen stark, white hallways devoid of anything to announce it as anything more than a scientific facility, this space is full of warmth and life. Candles and lanterns line the walls, making the space welcoming and homely.

Tapestries and quilts that look handmade adorn most of the wall surfaces, hiding the clinical, stark-white walls beneath and providing a gentle sound dampening effect, as their steps sound quieter here. More tunnels branch off of the back of the room, leading further into the mountain, with more tapestries hanging over those entrances as well.

This isn't just a hunter's respite meant to serve merely as a safe place to sleep. The Mandaloians have made a home of it. And something about that makes the stories of their near constant upheaval seem all the more heartbreaking.

The space is also, of course, filled with Mandalorians. There's only half a dozen in this room, but it's more than she's ever seen together in her entire life. And they aren’t all adult-sized humans, like Din. Some have the gangly limbs of children. Some have extra limbs, indicating alien species. 

A few Mandalorians glance up when Fennec and the Armorer enter, straightening at the first sight of the Armorer, but reeling back at the sight of Fennec.

Fascinatingly, all it takes from the Armor is a hand raised placatingly. It's okay, her body language seems to exude, everything is under control.

And everything is. The tension in the others eases immediately. 

It feels perhaps a little belated to realize that Fennec was definitely not the only one who found comfort in the Armorer's calm presence.

"Would you like to see the source of your intel?" the Armorer asks, drawing Fennec back to the moment. She nods, and the Armorer leads her further into the covert.

Fennec still feels visor-covered gazes burning into her skull, but nothing tells her it's from hostility now. There's no tense shoulders, no weapons being reached for. Only curiosity. Most of them turn back to whatever they were doing before she walked in after only a moment of consideration.

They continue down one of the deeper corridors, and Fennec can hear the hum of the electricity in the air before she even steps into the room. It's filled with machines in myriad states of repair yet all functioning. Between the comm panels, recording devices, terminal displays, and various other tech, it seems to be a communication hub of some kind.

"And here is where we monitor it all," the Armorer says, gesturing out towards the room. "Not just the Hutts, of course, but they're certainly a large part of it."

It's a much bigger operation that Fennec had realized. Most of the machines are manned by a single Mandalorian, bringing the total to a little more than a dozen of them in this room. And dozens more out in the field, according to the Armorer. So many cogs in the machine of their intel, and Fennec had never even known.

The Armorer leads Fennec away from the room and down another corridor, continuing to explain how the communication hub used to serve as a comm room for the science base to contact its sister facilities. It served as a good basis for them to begin their reconnaissance work on the Imperial remnants and other concerning factions, updating the tech as they went.

The hallways she walks down seem even cozier now, more personable and warm as she passes rows of doors. They're decorated in colored, draping fabrics, and some even have letters of Mando'a etched into them. The door the Armorer stops in front of is barren though, and she turns to Fennec again. "This is where you'll be staying." 

Fennec tilts her head curiously at it, pushing open the door to find a guest room of sorts. Aside from the simplistic bed set up in the corner, and a small storage locker at the foot of it, there’s nothing personalized about it like the decorated doors in the hallway.

"Is this just for me?"

"Just for you," the Armorer confirms, a smile in her voice.

"I wasn't expecting a whole room," Fennec responds, maybe a bit warily. Maybe something more like a couch in the common space. She wasn’t a Mandalorian after all, she didn’t require the privacy to function like they did. Hopefully she's not putting anyone out of their own room. If she's not, then either this bunker is larger than she imagined, or there's less Mandalorians in the tribe than she initially thought. The second one isn't something she likes to dwell on. "You all have your own rooms?" she asks instead.

"Privacy is important to us, if you couldn't tell," the Armorer explains, bringing up a gloved finger to tap at the side of her own helmet. "You're welcome to store your things here. Make yourself comfortable."

"I haven't brought much."

The Armorer laughs, nodding towards the single rucksack Fennec now holds near her hip. "I can see that. I mentioned you were welcome here for a standard month, did I not?"

Fennec can't prevent the smile on her face from growing a bit bigger at that, under her own helmet. "You did." Maker, a whole month she'd get to be here. A month. It's not often one can claim to have vacationed with Mandalorians. "I pack light."

"Mm. Are rations included in that?" the Armorer asks.

"Of course."

"Not needed, I'm afraid, unless you plan on hiking through the wilds anytime soon. I believe you'll find our kitchens to be adequate."

Fennec almost reels at that. Everything she'd heard of Din’s covert painted a picture of a group of people permanently on the run. A strong-willed, proud people, but nonetheless still only hardly staying above water on a single bounty hunter's income. She didn't even know what they were doing for income now, come to think of it, with Din no longer supplying them. Did a new hunter take his place? Fennec couldn't ask them to share their limited supplies when she'd brought an ample supply of her own.

Except, when Fennec goes to open her mouth to decline--

The Armorer shifts forward, one gloved hand now placed gently on Fennec's arm. She has that same calming, centering energy about her as earlier, when Fennec first ruffled feathers by stepping into the covert, and Fennec wants nothing more than to melt into that warm presence. "Please, you're our guest."

Still, Fennec hesitates. It doesn't feel right. Not even as a hospitality. Unless she’s just way off the mark from the hints she’s picked up from Din about the state of affairs here.

"A trade, then," the Armorer counters softly. "Drop off your rations in our food-stores, where they'll find a use during our missions. I'll ensure you receive a warm meal for each in return."

That... doesn't sound like too bad of an idea, actually. Enough at least that she doesn't feel the bite of regret at taking whatever they had. Leave it to the Armorer to propose a sensible agreement. It was the basis of their initial partnership, after all.

"Deal."

The Armorer straightens a bit, but doesn't pull away, and the tilt of her helmet almost seems to imply a smile, if Fennec had to guess. Maybe she's getting better at reading that unique brand of Mandalorian body language after all. "I'm glad we've come to an agreement, then," the Armorer says. "The next meal is in an hour, if you'd like to join us."

Mealtime with a group that only ever kept their faces safely tucked away? That should be interesting.

After Fennec confirms that she would, the Armorer explains the directions to the mess hall, only a short few hallways from here. It's then as she nods her head and turns away in a temporary farewell that the warmth of her hand finally leaves Fennec's arm.

Fennec glances around her new, temporary living space. It's not large. Perhaps only a few feet across, with some room to maneuver around the bed and the storage locker. The bed itself is a standard size to fit a single adult comfortably. On top of it rests a neatly folded blanket that looks carefully handmade.

There's no windows or daylight of any kind, as to be expected in a subterranean bunker. Overhead there's another dim fluorescent light. She's more interested in the candles, though, arranged throughout the small space to provide a cozier, more natural light. The Mandalorians seem greatly fond of them for how many she's seen so far, and she wonders if maybe there's a cultural reason for that.

As she closes the door behind her, setting her bag on the floor, her thoughts turn to the Mandalorians that stared at her when she'd walked in, and the gruff, guarded welcome from their protector at the entrance. A stranger in their space. Perhaps the privacy given to her isn't just for her sake alone.

Fennec meets the Armorer in the mess hall an hour later on the dot. It's another large, circular space, the same as the first main room she'd encountered.

The first thing that hits her is the smell of spices. The unfamiliar but pleasant aroma wafts from the far side of the room, where there sits a long table piled high with food and spare bowls.  From what she can see between the Mandalorians currently filling their own bowls, the main course seems to be a deep crimson curry of some sort, alongside a massive mound of rice or similar grain, and a few other dishes that she's unable to name.

The second thing that hits her, perhaps a bit late, is what the few Mandalorians that haven't filtered out of the room after getting their food are doing. The ones who had stayed, pulling up to a table with a friend or two, and were now eating.

Wait.

She's glad she'd put her helmet on again before stepping out of her room, if only for the ability to hide her shock.

The Armorer, of course, still picks up on it. She feels a padded elbow knock into her. She looks over at the Armorer, who simply nods towards the table, past where the bare-faced Mandalorians are digging into their food with gusto. "Make yourself a bowl, then walk with me."

"Are you not getting any?"

"I've already eaten."

That... made sense, given her helmet. Fennec nods, but she can't help staring at the helmetless Mandalorians as she crosses the room. They look comfortable, at ease here. No worse for the wear without their helmets. The conversations they hold between each other are full of smiles and pleased expressions as they tuck into their meals.

Is this the direction the covert is headed now? Do they all take their helmets off now, at one point or another?

Would the Armorer?

The questions continue to bounce around in her mind as she fills a bowl. The smell of the curry contains a rich, hearty array of spices that she can't quite place.

As part of their aforementioned deal, she makes a stop at the storage unit behind the table to drop off a few ration packs before making her way back to the Armorer. The Armorer doesn't say anything as Fennec approaches, and Fennec follows her silently as they make their way down more unfamiliar hallways.

They're quite a distance from the main bunker by now, and the corridor the Armorer has led her into seems to stretch on for much longer than any of the others she's been in. The Armorer hadn't exactly told her where they were going, and just expected Fennec to follow, which she had. Fennec decides not to dig into that line of thought just yet.

Without the bustle of the mess hall and only the found of their boots on the duracrete to keep them company, Fennec decides to voice the question at the forefront of her mind.

"Why don’t all of you still follow the helmet creed?"

The Armorer turns to look at her. "We do," she says, without an ounce of hesitation.

Fennec's brows furrow behind her helmet. Then why--

"The ones you saw eating are from a different tribe."

"Tribes visit each other?" Fennec asks. Everything Din had told her seemed to imply tribes and coverts were solitary. Self sufficient from one another. But maybe that wasn't quite accurate. She was beginning to find that much of her second-hand information wasn’t applying, anymore.

"It’s a bit more permanent than that."

Fennec doesn't have the time to ask about the nature of the tribe’s relationship before they're approaching a new set of bunker doors, and Fennec watches as the Armorer swipes something on a nearby panel. There's the click of a hefty lock unlatching in response. The Armorer pushes those doors open, revealing--

Daylight.

The soft, gentle daylight of an oncoming sunset.

The Armorer holds the door open for her, and she steps out into that dusky sunlight. She finds herself on a balcony of sorts, overlooking the lush blue forests from before, though not entirely above it, as some of the trees reach up high enough that Fennec has to crane her head upward to see the tops of them. It makes the little alcove they're in feel almost secluded, hidden and tucked away in the mountain that it's been carved into.

She can still see the sky clearly between the trees. There are bands of orange just beginning to form across it, as the sun nears the bottom of the sky.

Fennec is struck again by just how beautiful the planet that the covert had chosen is.

"Do you come out here often?"

"Very."

"I can see why. Din told me that the last covert was on Nevarro. Can't imagine there was much to see there." Fennec looks around the balcony as she says it, finding a pair of dusty chairs and a small table. This must have been a recreational area for the bunker’s previous residents. Perhaps they came out here for the view, too.

Fennec brushes some of that dirt off of the chair before sitting down and giving her attention to the meal on her lap. She’d covered it with another plate before she’d left, so it's still remarkably hot despite their walk to get here. She simply stirs it for now, letting the steam trail up into the air.

“No, no there's not much to see on lava planets. Even less still to see in the sewers," the Armorer says, moving to lean against the balcony’s rail. "We rarely ventured out because of the town's population, but the children liked to pretend the ashfall was snow."

The visual tugs at Fennec’s heart. Of children, mostly hidden away, taking advantage of their short time outside to still find wonderment in it. 

"They much prefer the real thing," the Armorer concludes.

"It snows here?"

"Quite a bit. Soon, actually. The seasons are not much longer than a standard month here, winter will be the next one."

Fennec deems her food cool enough to eat, slipping her helmet off, and silence falls over them as she eats. It tastes just about as spicy as it smells, and the Armorer only glances at her for a moment at Fennec's initial cough. It’s not the kind of spice that burns tastelessly simply for the sake of being hot, but instead the kind of heat that only seems to complement the flavor of the dish, to give it that extra emphasis. It’s good.

It does feel a little awkward being the only one eating though. In-between mouthfuls she gets the Armorer’s attention again, prompting her to say more about the aforementioned tribe. It’s also just nice to hear her voice. “Tell me about them,” Fennec asks.

The Armorer falls into an explanatory mode, as seems to be her comfort zone. Perhaps it has something to do with her title as a leader. The need to absorb information, to retain everything, and disseminate it just as freely.

She explains that they’d found the other tribe in bits and pieces, as they tried to pick up their own scattered members after the attack on Nevarro. They weren't quite of the same sect, but they didn't sound as…  intense as Kryze's squad, nor as culturally distant as Boba. A middle point of sorts, but one wherein they removed their helmets freely. 

The initial interactions between the two tribes had been anything but positive. Cutting words like cultist and heretic had been bandied about freely. Tensions had been high in the covert during those first few days. But with their low numbers from the recent attack and their uncertain new location in the bunker, bringing the newcomers into the fold seemed like the wisest decision at the time. They’d been lucky to find a base large enough to defend and house so many, so they may as well make use of it.

And so, their tribe became two. 

And later three. 

A few scant remnants of a fourth were now trickling in. So far it was only a few lost and dazed younger members, but the rest would surely follow soon. 

Presently, the Armorer says, a little under two hundred Mandalorians currently reside in the covert. Fennec reels. She’d assumed most coverts were hardly more than a dozen or so Mandalorians, but a hundred? Almost two hundred?

From what Fennec can understand, none of the Mandalorians from Din’s tribe had removed their helmets in the presence of others yet. They seemed to have no intention of breaking the creeds they’d originally sworn, regardless of their introduction to other creeds, other ways. 

But they were beginning to understand the concept.

“It’s a different kind of war, nowadays,” the Armorer says.

Fennec doesn’t know if she’s talking about the Empire, or the civil wars for which Mandalorians were famous, or the creed at this point, but she doesn’t push the Armorer to clarify. 

The rest of her meal is spent in companionable conversation, even after the sun has descended to little more than a faint blip on the horizon. Upon their farewell the Armorer doesn’t provide her with any Mando’a, only a gentle nod and a ‘goodnight.’ Fennec tries not to take it as a loss.

She turns into her room just in time for her scheduled call with Boba, to help settle a few syndicate-related things and check in with him. He is, of course, still concerned about her welfare after the string of assassination attempts, and curious about the planet she’s chosen as a brief haven, but Fennec’s lips are sealed on the matter.

“Well,” Boba’s voice filters through the static of the comm, “whatever you’re doing, I’d assume it’s better than dodging Hutt calling cards.”

She goes to bed with that comment at the forefront of her mind. What is she doing?

The thought is enough to carry into her next day.

A small portion of her morning is spent addressing some of the things that had been sent to her datapad overnight. A few reports from Boba. A few automated security readouts that she’d set up before she left. 

There’s also a photo of Din’s kid, who appears to be visiting them currently. She’d never gotten a good look at him before, but he’s cute in the sort of wrinkly, smushed-face way that massiff pups are cute. In the photo he’s holding onto the antenna of Boba’s helmet like it’s a toy, with a very blurry Din attempting to pry him off. 

Fennec makes her way back to the mess hall to grab breakfast a little later. There’s no sign of the Armorer. She elects to eat her meal there, despite the occasional glances her way by the other curious Mandalorians. It’s some sort of flatbread, honey-sweet and folded over some type of seared meat. Whatever it is, it’s good.

By the end of it, her vambrace tells her only an hour has passed. She drums her fingers on the table. 

She kills another couple hours wandering the halls of the bunker, attempting to memorize its surprisingly huge layout. 

It’s around lunch when she finally runs into the Armorer again, in one of the central communal spaces.

“Give me something to do.” Fennec requests. The other Mandalorians sharing the space watch her warily. She hasn’t quite earned their trust yet, isn’t sure if she’ll be here long enough to try. But it doesn’t matter right now.

The Armorer simply tilts her head at her, and Fennec feels like she’s won something by being the one to read her reply first this time. 

“I’m aware I’m a guest,” she continues. “But I need something to do while I’m here.”

She gets what she feels like is an appraising look from the Armorer for that. Eventually, the Armorer seems to settle on a simple: “You’re bored.”

“Very. But I’d also like to earn my keep.”

Again the Armorer simply stares at her for a moment before rising from her seat. “Let’s see what we can find for you, then. Follow me.”

A couple hallways later, she’s led into another circular room, though this one is maybe half the size of the communal spaces. In the middle of it rests something that can only be a forge.

Well. That is certainly something to do.

As it were, it seems that the Armorer’s title is well-earned. There are no others, even amongst their combined tribes. She isn’t just an Armorer, but the Armorer. Just her, alone in a forge, crafting day in and day out to preserve the traditions and wellbeing of her people.

Fennec spends most of her time that day watching the Armorer forge more than actually assisting. The help that she is allowed to give seems to boil down to grabbing a nearby tool to hand to the Armorer, helping her carry items, or watching a display for various temperature readings while the Armorer works on something else. 

It doesn’t really feel like helping really. She wonders how much of it is the Armorer’s apprehension on putting a guest to work, or some cultural boundary in having an outsider work so closely with their precious metal. Or a little of both.

Currently, she’s holding down a chestplate for the Armorer to hammer out. The tongs are unwieldy in her grip, but she’s able to keep it steady with both hands. It’s hard to imagine doing it one-handed as the Armorer seems used to.

Fennec had worn her helmet to the forge, to help keep away the heat of the flames, but she can still feel the sweat building on her temple.

It gets a little worse watching the Armorer beat a chestplate into shape purely by force of will and the strength of her arm, and the knowledge required to do so properly. Despite the padded layers of her flightsuit, Fennec can still faintly see the way the muscles of her arm shift each time she raises the hammer.

Fennec feels her face heat further, despite the already high temperature of the room. She almost misses the Armorer asking her to flip the chestplate over.

By the end of a few hours, though, it leaves her with more of an understanding than she’d initially had on the elusive culture of the Mandalorians. 

New beskar was extremely rare. None of the armor being worked on in this room is of blank ingots or new material, and Fennec watches as piece after piece of existing armor becomes molten in the forge. Some of it is damaged beyond recognition, some pristine and without a scratch, and almost all of it is covered in some amount of paint.

Fennec knows some of that armor is simply being re-forged to fit a growing child, or a change in preferences for armor types. But not all of it. As the newfound tribes trickled in, so did the possessions they’d carried with them from location to location as they avoided the Empire. Stacks and stacks of armor from those they’d lost. Those they’d grieved. Without an armorer to forge the armor down, it had simply followed the surviving members of their covert like ghosts of their own making.

Now, those ghosts can rest. 

Those particular pieces of armor are set aside carefully to be forged separately, so that specific pool of beskar can remain within their families, kept close to the descendants of those who had been lost. As a comfort, as a reminder, and as a way to continue forward.

She watches the Armorer stack up all of the molds for the littlest pieces of armor first. Small helmets first, small chestplates next, followed by fractionally larger sizes of each depending on the amount of children in need. First in line, to ensure any shortage of beskar did not affect them.

There’s only a single moment where Fennec sees the Armorer pause. When her visor is trained on the molds laid out and ready on the table, at the pool of molten beskar within the forge, and at the stack of armor left to the side to be honored later. And sighs. Fennec can’t hear it but she can see it in the way her fur capelet shifts.

Fennec wonders, faintly, how many ghosts the Armorer carries herself.

---

Eating together becomes a daily custom from that first day forward. Only for the dinners it seems, while for the others Fennec still heads back to her room to skim over the reports Boba sends her.

But for dinner, she always finds herself wandering back to that little balcony among the trees. 

She finds that the Armorer loves to talk as Fennec quietly finishes her meals. She doesn't quite… babble. That's not really the right word for it. But she seems to jump at the opportunity to just discuss almost anything and nothing. She talks about the planets they've been to, the planets their covert liked the most, and the ones they hated. The bizarre intricacies and cultures of each, and the flora and the fauna she'd grown used to before abruptly relocating and needing to learn another planet all over again.

The Armorer seems to feel it's her duty as alor to understand the risks and challenges of every one of the covert’s new locations, but Fennec gets the impression it's just an aspect of her personality as well, to ravenously explore and learn, to notate anything and everything there is to learn.

She talks about this current planet and the odd biological quirks of it that she's learned. The way that the purple tint in the water comes from a type of algae, which becomes absorbed into the plants and eventually becomes the blue tint seen in all of the foliage. The way the little foxes, the eyay'la, use water absorbed into their fur to mask their appearance from predators, by electrostatically discharging it into a fine mist.

She gestures with her hands as she talks, the leather of her gloves creaking softly with the movement as she attempts to describe the bizarre water cycle of the planet.

It's a side of her that Fennec hadn't ever imagined, and it's endlessly endearing.

It continues that way for a few days.

Now, Fennec opens the door to the balcony and finds the Armorer there, as to be expected. What isn’t expected is the plate of food she’s carrying herself. Fennec stares at it for a moment before the rest of her thought process catches up to her.

“I’ll leave, I can go back to the–” she starts, but the Armorer is already waving her hand as if it’s a non-issue. Which it’s not. It’s very, very much an issue. Has the Armorer even eaten yet? No, of course not, or she wouldn’t have a plate piled high with food still. Fennec just simply stands in the doorway.

“I was delayed by my duties,” the Armorer explains.

“I can leave,” Fennec tries again. 

The Armorer only hums thoughtfully.

After some rearranging and shuffling, they sit back-to-back on the floor, cross-legged with their plates in their laps. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but the novelty of possibly sharing a meal is more than enough to make up for it.

“Are you sure this is alright?” Fennec asks. The Armorer had explained that the creed only dictated that a Mandalorian’s face shouldn’t be seen by another, and nothing about the removal of the helmet in another’s presence altogether. Still…

“I trust you,” is all the Armorer says before Fennec hears the click and hiss of her helmet being removed. Fennec’s heart feels like it's in her throat.

All she’d have to do is turn around. 

She doesn’t.

They eat in silence for some time, just sharing the space. It’s another curry today, more of a pastel green than the vibrant red from before. The spice is no less intense, but it’s a wholly different flavor that intertwines with it this time.

As simple as the gesture of sharing a meal with someone is, it still fills her with a sort of easy contentment. And the gesture of the Armorer taking off her helmet isn’t lost on Fennec. The Armorer’s back is a warm weight against her own, and Fennec wants to sink into it.

She misses hearing the Armorer’s voice though. 

Not long after Fennec finishes her own meal, she hears the hiss of the Armorer’s helmet being fit back into place. She makes no move to get up though. Fennec doesn’t either. They stay there, back to back, with nothing more than the faint sounds of the wildlife in the forest below to fill the air.

The sun sets at some point, highlighting how much time has passed by now. Or perhaps the days are just getting shorter—the Armorer had mentioned the winter season starting soon. She’s usually back inside before the stars ever have a chance to come out, but now that they have…

It feels impossible to look away.

The entire sky is alight. Dipping and swaying among the dense swath of stars is a translucent glow, brilliant and vivid. It seems to almost dance along the night sky. The color of it is hard to place, as it drifts between a bright green, a rich purple, and a few others. 

An aurora. 

It’s not too far off from the way the Armorer described it once. It feels so long ago now.

“Is this where you were? When we commed that one night?” Fennec asks.

She doesn’t specify which night. It already feels oddly like overstepping some delicate, unspoken boundary by bringing it up at all.

“Yes. I come out here when I’m unable to sleep,” the Armorer responds, voice wistful.

“Is that often?”

“Occasionally.”

A breeze strikes up, and Fennec sinks back into the Armorer, chasing the warmth at her back. She doesn’t miss the way it's reciprocated a moment later.

On the fourth day of assisting the Armorer’s forge work, sifting through the finalized pieces of armor and the little metal symbols that would grace them, Fennec feels a question burn at the back of her throat.

She sets down the rag in her hand. She hadn’t been given a bottle of polish or sealant or anything, instead told that that was a task typically reserved for whomever the armor was going to. A tradition of sorts. A way to learn one’s armor for the first time. But a quick cleaning went a long way toward ensuring nothing on the armor was faulty.

"Why do some of you have these... symbols?" Fennec motions at the spot on the pauldron she’s holding where the little raised emblem on Din’s armor would have sat.

"Signets,” the Armorer responds, not looking up. She’s carefully inspecting an item she’d just dunked into a vat of water to cool, holding it up to the visor of her helmet by the tongs. “They are indicative of a clan affiliation. Barring that, a house or a family. Most Mandalorians have them."

"Do you?" Fennec asks, turning to face her fully.

The Armorer glances over at her, turning back to her task again before responding. "My duty is to my tribe."

"That's not what I asked."

"I... do, technically, but I do not bear the signet of my house on my armor."

Fennec sits up at that, frowning. "Not a clan?" Wasn’t a clan essentially a family? Did the Armorer not have one?

"I have never forged one."

"And what does that entail?"

There’s a pointed silence after her question, as the Armorer meets Fennec’s gaze.

"Having someone to forge it with."

"...Ah."

Sufficiently embarrassed, Fennec turns back to her task. It’s easier than staring at the Armorer’s impassible visor right now. The silence after it hangs, though. Not even the rhythmic thud as The Armorer begins hammering away at the item in her tongs seems to fill it.

 “Have you ever considered what you’d use, if you did? For a signet.”

“They’re typically animals. Native fauna.”

“Like the eyay’la ?”

She hears the rhythm of the hammer falter, only for a moment, before it resumes again.

The hulking blue Mandalorian who’d guarded the bunker doors approaches her, eventually. 

He’s still clearly distrustful of her, but he comes with the offer of a spar, a chance to prove herself. The latter part isn't explicitly said, but it's implied easily enough.

She takes the offer with a shake of a hand that almost fully encapsulates her own, and hopes that it's not a mistake. He’s easily three times her size. But, Fennec will delight in proving to him that size isn’t everything.

They set up in a large rectangular room, down one of the hallways of the main covert space. It looks like it may have been a gym in the past. It's seen better days, as has the rest of the bunker, and the mat in the center of the sparring ring has deteriorated in some places. But it'll work.

The Armorer attends as a referee of sorts, and Fennec is both endlessly thankful for her watchful eye and nervous to have her as a spectator. She has no lack of confidence in her fighting ability, but she hasn't exactly been in a spar with a fully armored Mandalorian of this size before.

The rules, as the Armorer goes over them, are thankfully simple. Fennec's just glad they exist at all, and that it's not a complete free-for-all. No blasters, nothing sharp enough to maim. Any of the training weapons -- mostly blunt staffs or various lengths, dulled swords, and knives -- in the room are free to use. Avoid broken bones if possible, anything that might require a dip into their limited supplies of bacta. 

Fennec winces at the mention of it, thinking of the gratuitous supply they have back at the palace, excessive even for the size of their outfit. She'll have to see if there's any way she can discreetly bring some next time.

Next time? 

Fennec’s distracted thoughts are pushed aside in favor of paying attention to the rules. 

Interestingly enough, it seems that Mandalorian sparring relies almost entirely on a yield. Disarmament was not enough, as a Mandalorian with no weapons was still themselves considered a weapon.

Regardless, the rules seem to follow the same basic theme: Fight well. Fight to win, but not to permanently injure.

Everything else is fair game.

She readies her stance, and watches the Mandalorian do the same through the narrow slit of her helmet. The blue Mandalorian has picked out a robust quarterstaff, and now hefts it steadily in a two handed grip. She'd decided on a short durasteel spear of sorts, light and sturdy. The tip is dull, blunted for the purpose of training, and flanked on each side by a hooked sickle pointed toward herself. It's clearly a more defensive weapon, meant for disarming more than dealing damage.

The Armorer shouts something in Mando'a. The spar begins.

Within the blink of an eye, he charges at her with a speed she'd never expected from someone so heavily armored. It's easy enough to dodge the first swing of the staff, but she winds up having to block the second attack as the Mandalorian strikes out at her shin. The force of their weapons colliding rattles her teeth. He's clearly not holding back by much in deference either to her lack of armor or to her place as a guest, and Fennec hadn’t expected him to.

She takes a few steps back to put some distance between them, weapon raised defensively, and the Mandalorian lets her.

They trade blows and swipes for another few rounds, neither gaining much of an advantage, but the Mandalorian isn't pressing forward as much as she'd expect. He's biding his time, learning, reacting. Just like she is. She lands a few good hits that fill the room with the resounding tone of beskar being struck, but nothing in-between the plates of his armor yet. He's protective of those gaps, and for good reason.

She glances over and sees the Armorer leaning against the far wall, observing the fight.

It's all the opening the Mandalorian needs. He uses her momentary distraction to gear up for a more powerful overhead attack, bringing it down hard onto the spot Fennec barely vacates in time. The messy dodge leaves her off her guard, and the Mandalorian's quick follow-up jab connects against her side with a spark of pain. Fennec hisses. It'd landed a little too close to her cybernetics for comfort.

She reacts by throwing out a jab of her own before the Mandalorian can fully pull back, hooking the edge of her weapon over his staff, right between his two-handed grip. She tugs sharply, as if to disarm him with the motion, but his grip holds fast.

Oh, fuck.

Before she can unhook her weapon from the other, the Mandalorian uses it to yank Fennec forward, meeting her forward inertia with his own in a skull-rattling headbutt. Her own helmet protects her from the worst of it, but the force of it still ripples down her spine as durasteel meets unforgiving beskar.

She's able to dampen her reaction to nothing more than a startled grunt, but she can still see the way the Armorer pushes off the wall in her periphery, taking a step forward.

She darts away from the Mandalorian, putting more distance between them again. He's aware of his advantage now, though, and presses forward continuously, leaving her constantly on the back foot as she uses more of her time to simply block and evade.

Her helmet sits askew on her head, one side of the hinge holding together crookedly. Probably damaged during the headbutt.

The few hits she does manage to land find their mark between the plates of his beskar, one of them even drawing a surprised hiss as the blunt spear glances off his shoulder. With less energy put into blocking, it's easier to land her hits properly, but she still finds herself barely blocking in time when the Mandalorian attacks in turn.

The longer the fight draws out, the more she comes to terms with how few options she truly has to win, going up against such an armored individual. Sparring with Boba --or, on the rare occasion, Din -- had left her with some understanding of the weaknesses and strengths of being so heavily protected, but neither of their kits came close to the armor she faced now.

His footfalls are heavy on the mat as he follows Fennec around the pitted and torn-up sparring mat. He carefully sidesteps most of the damage as they circle each other, anything that might send him and his hundreds of pounds of armor tipping over.

An idea forms in her head. All she has to do is stay on her feet long enough to put it in motion. After all, there was nothing in the rules against using their environment. She only hopes the Armorer might forgive her for the additional damage to the sparring ring.

They trade blows again, the Mandalorian aiming high for Fennec's shoulder as she blocks it. He has a pattern she's begun to notice, and her prediction lands true as the quarterstaff whips toward her shin next.  She darts to the side instead of blocking it, allowing the force to carry the Mandalorian forward as she circles to stay behind him.

He turns, takes a large step forward. At that moment Fennec reaches out with her spear again. Not to attack, but to catch one of the hooked edges into the mat below, and yank it towards herself. The Mandalorian stumbles slightly in his attempt to avoid the new obstacle of unsteady matting, and Fennec uses the opening she's finally been given.

Her spear slams into the side of the Mandalorian's helmet, disorientating him further as the sound of beskar rings out again. The hook catches into the cuff of his flightsuit, and Fennec throws as much of her weight to the side as she can, hoping her inertia will make up for the difference in weight.

With the Mandalorian's uneven footing, it does.

He hits the mat. Hard . Fennec dodges a frantic swipe of his quarterstaff, blocks another, as she launches forward. All she has to do is get to the right angle while he's still down.

There's a metallic ping as her spear's hook catches again–

Just under the lip of the Mandalorian's helmet. She pulls on the weapon, enough to prove a point as the helmet shifts, but not enough to pull it off his head. Fennec's heart pounds in her chest. The Mandalorian goes very, very still.

"Yield," she insists.

The man mutters something in Mando'a under his breath, likely a curse, but slowly drops his weapon.

“I yield.”

Fennec lets the breath she’d been holding out in a woosh. 

She unhooks the spear from the Mandalorian’s helmet and offers to help him to his feet. Surprisingly, the Mandalorian accepts. It's not without some effort on his part, given their difference in height, but the symbolism of it is enough to ease some of her anxiety about the outcome of the fight.

The Mandalorian, instead of letting her go once he's up, tilts her hand and brings it upward, into more of a traditional warrior's greeting.

"Well met," he says, in an out-of-breath voice that’s entirely too chipper for someone just handed a loss. Fennec lets the pride in hearing those words fill her, she turns to glance at the Armorer, to see her take on the outcome of the fight–

She’s clapped on the shoulder with frankly alarming force by the blue Mandalorian.

"Paz Vizsla."

Is that a phrase in Mando’a? Fennec starts at his words, and turns back to him. 

"My name," he clarifies. "Consider it something you've earned. You’ve given me much to think about when fighting un-armored opponents of your size. It will do well for the protection of the tribe. "

Fennec inclines her head, glossing over the maybe unintentional backhanded compliment. "Fennec Shand," she offers in return. He nods in acceptance.

The Mandalorian -- Paz, she reminds herself -- steps away to put his weapon back on the wall. It gives her a moment to fuss with her helmet. She can feel the loose hinge on the side, the way it doesn't quite catch when she tries forcing the visor to close a bit more.

Fennec watches through the slit of that slightly lopsided helmet as the Armorer steps onto the sparring mat herself. The buzz of nervous energy under her skin doesn't feel like just leftover adrenaline anymore.

"Still have enough energy for another fight?" the Armorer asks.

Fennec swallows thickly, and prays to all the small gods that it's not a visible reaction. Maker. What made her decide to spar? Was she curious about Fennec’s mettle now, having taken down their protector? Perhaps she wanted to test if it was a fluke. Or perhaps she just wanted a spar for the sake of a spar.

"Just go easy on me," Fennec says. Truthfully, she is still sore from the previous fight, though the adrenaline still coursing through her system is enough to make up for most of the exhaustion.

"We'll use something a bit lighter, then," the Armorer responds. She grabs two of the lighter, thinner quarterstaffs from the rack, tossing one to Fennec.

She can hear Paz snort from the sidelines.

Her full attention is on the Armorer though, now, and the way she readies herself with the same careful aptitude that Fennec has come to expect from everything the woman does.

"Same rules?" Fennec prompts.

"Same rules."

The Armorer looks over to Paz pointedly for a moment, and they seem to share a look of some sort. A lifetime of reading each other without facial expressions has probably led to an entire realm of body language that Fennec would never be able to scratch the surface of.

After that, the Armorer readies herself again. Fennec does the same.

When Paz shouts in the same Mando'a as before, marking the start to their fight, Fennec feels even less ready this time.

The Armorer doesn’t throw herself at Fennec the way Paz had, but there’s a shift in her body the moment the fight begins. A readiness that wasn’t there a moment before. She circles the mat, circling Fennec, and Fennec gets the impression of an anooba out on the prowl. 

The first minute or so of attacks is spent more as an attempt to learn one another. There's no genuine effort to land a hit. It's more of a test, a way to learn how the other reacts. It's methodical. Scrutinizing. 

The intensity ramps up as they continue. The attacks come in faster, the dodging and blocking become more difficult. 

It's exhilarating. The Armorer is certainly unlike anyone she's fought before. There's a carefully reined-in power to her. 

The quarterstaff thuds against Fennec’s side, protected by her padded armor, but still close enough to her cybernetics to draw a loud wince out of her. 

The Armorer noticeably hesitates.

An opening is an opening though, and rather than focus on the meaning of it, Fennec uses it. A delayed block and a flourish later, the Armorer’s staff lands against the mat with a soft thud. She hears Paz spout something in Mando’a in a jeering tone from the sidelines.

Just because Fennec has disarmed her doesn’t mean The Armorer is out of the fight, though. She hasn’t yielded. The Armorer launches forward, dodging a swipe of Fennec’s quarterstaff, and grabs it. Fennec tugs back sharply. The Armorer’s grip is strong though, and there’s no give. 

Fennec does the only logical thing and moves with it. She springs forward, letting her momentum carry her. 

A brief scuffle ensues. After a few rough jabs from the Armorer, and an elbow thrown by Fennec, the Armorer relinquishes her hold on the quarterstaff. Fennec darts back to put space between them again. They circle each other once more, Fennec keeping herself in between the Armorer and her dropped quarterstaff.

That dance continues for some time. The Armorer takes the blows of the quarterstaff on those padded forearm-length gloves, unaffected.

Fennec realizes she hasn’t heard anything from their spectator in a while, and a quick glance around reveals that Paz had left at some point.

It’s just them in here now.

Fennec’s heart thuds in her chest. She attempts another hit with the quarterstaff but winds up overextending herself, and the Armorer retaliates by grabbing the staff again. Fennec expects it this time. 

The Armorer, in turn, seems to expect Fennec to throw her weight forward. She’s prepared for it.

What Fennec isn’t prepared for is the way the Armorer kicks her weight out at the back of her ankles, sweeping her off her feet. She goes down. The Armorer goes down with her.

Fennec’s back hits the sparring mat, and the Armorer’s weight settles on top of her not a moment later, pinning her. Fennec still has both hands on the quarterstaff, but so does the Armorer. Fennec holds it defensively, trying to throw her weight to the side to knock the Armorer off, but the Armorer has more leverage from her position. She presses the quarterstaff up and down, and suddenly there’s a pressure at Fennec’s throat. 

It’s still enough to breathe. It’s still enough to swallow thickly as the reality of their position settles into the forefront of Fennec’s mind.

“Yield,” the Armorer demands.

There’s no way out of the hold. She feels the quarterstaff press down fractionally. It feels like a monumental effort to find her voice, but– “I yield.”

The Armorer drops her grip on the staff instantly, leaning back up, still sitting astride Fennec’s waist. But she makes no effort to stand.

Fennec drops the staff above her head, letting it roll away. She makes no effort to get up either. 

Neither of them say a word as they both catch their breaths from the spar. From the exhilaration of it. From whatever’s happening now, happening between them. 

The Armorer is the first one to break it. “Your helmet is broken.”

“It’s been through worse.”

“It’ll need a repair.”

“Good thing I know just the person.”

The Armorer laughs, charming and pure. Familiar, captivating, and so, so close. Dizzyingly real, despite the distance it took to get here, the distance that had initially separated them. The lightyears and words and stars in-between them. 

Fennec watches as the Armorer brings up a hand to the side of her broken helmet, watches her lay a gloved hand where Fennec’s cheek would be underneath it. It shouldn’t feel like a caress, but it does. The tenderness of the gesture threatens to choke her. 

“It shouldn’t be difficult to fix,” the Armorer says.

She brings up her own hand to lay it over the Armorer’s. She can feel the way the Armorer’s thumb is moving back and forth over the smooth metal of her helmet, a gesture she wishes she could feel directly. “No, it shouldn’t be,” Fennec responds. She gently rests her other hand on the Armorer’s leg. 

The Armorer shifts after a moment, putting her other hand on the opposite side of Fennec’s helmet, framing it in her hands, and leans down. Fennec’s heart feels like it’s going faster than it ever did during the spar, during both spars combined.

The beskar of the Armorer’s helmet and the durasteel of Fennec’s helmet clink together in a sound that seems to echo through the quiet air of the sparring room. Fennec has seen this gesture before, by now. She knows what it means. She knows what this means for them.

She frames the Armorer’s helmet in her hands the same way, pressing back, reciprocating culturally in the only way she knows how. She wants, more than anything, for the Armorer to understand.

“I-” she starts.

She hears the sound of boots on duracrete. The Armorer sits up, leaning away.

“ Alor. ”

Paz stands in the doorway.

“Yes?” the Armorer asks, voice the same authoritative cadence it’s always held, as if she hadn’t just been caught kissing on the floor of the sparring room like a rowdy teenager. Paz, to his credit, doesn’t seem to react visibly in any way to the sight of his leader sitting atop of their guest. 

“We’ve found another outpost,” he says.

Fennec learns rather quickly about the interesting solution the Mandalorians have found, for dealing with Imperial outposts.

Whereas in the past only one Mandalorian had been permitted to the surface at a time, the growing threat of their tribe being found out regardless had caused a somewhat desperate changing of tactics. 

Outposts are hit quickly and efficiently, destroyed with carefully covered tracks, and with a slightly less well-covered false trail left in its place. Deployed ships return purposefully late, bouncing from planet to planet before finally returning to the covert.

So far, it's worked.

Paz fills in the Armorer as they walk. Their target is a new outpost that had been sighted on Ryvellia. It’s a mostly desolate planet, located only a single sector away. 

Fennec wants to offer to join, to help, but she knows this isn't her fight, and she's not sure the assistance would be welcome, really. If it would just be considered an insult of some kind. Still, she can feel the restlessness in her bones as the Mandalorians around her begin to check their gear and suit up for the fight.

So when the Armorer strolls up to her afterwards, a hunting knife held out toward her hilt-first and an invitation in the tilt of her helmet -- well, how could she refuse?

She readies herself for the trip with the same militant efficiency that those around her employ, finding a corner to sit as she unhooks her rifle and checks it over. A quick pull on the charging handle and a glance into the interior of the blaster, followed by an inspection of her plasma charge packs to ensure they're stable, and finally a confirmation that her scope seems to be secure and properly set up. Everything moves, clicks, and slides the way it's supposed to, and the way it should sound. It's a familiar routine, and all in all only takes a few minutes before she moves onto her other equipment.

She tucks the little hunting knife given to her by the Armorer into a spare compartment on her rifle. 

Her helmet, battered from the previous spars, still sits a bit skewed on her head. There’s nothing she can do for it right now.  Looking around as the other Mandalorians ready themselves, it’s hard not to feel like the visorless slit of her helmet doesn’t offer the same protection as them, the same privacy. 

She’s always done her missions alone, ruthlessly efficient, with nothing but the dead silence of a solitary cockpit to offer her respite on her way to and from a job. Her partnership with Boba had changed that, as much as it changed the both of them – but it’s still no substitute for gearing up with a team, something more damn near like an army preparing for war.

The Armorer, however, keeps glancing over at her. She'd finished her own prep a few minutes ago, and was now keeping a watchful eye on the others in her usual authoritative regard, but her helmet keeps slipping back to look at Fennec every now and then.

"How do I look?" Fennec asks, if only diffuse the tension she feels like is only in her head.

"Like you belong on this raid," The Armorer answers easily. She tilts her head though, following the skew of the broken hinge on Fennec’s helmet. “Could do without this hindering you, though.”

The Armorer’s hands come up, to frame each side of Fennec’s helmeted head, and Fennec’s heart is suddenly leaping in her chest all over again, thinking of what happened in the sparring room. 

Instead, all the Armorer does is gently tilt Fennec’s head this way and that, inspecting the damage to the helmet. Misunderstanding aside, Fennec’s heart rate still hasn’t exactly calmed down at the situation. At the proximity, at the delicate manhandling.

The Armorer takes a tool out of her belt, holding it up for Fennec to see. It’s a miniature arc welder. “May I? It won’t be a permanent fix, but it should work for now.” 

Fennec nods, and feels her helmet shift between the Armorer’s gloves. She wonders what this must look like to the rest of the Mandalorians in the room. The Armorer doesn’t seem to be worried about it. 

The electronic buzz of the arc welder resonates oddly in the space of her helmet as the Armorer works on the hinge. It only takes a few moments before the Armorer finishes her work, testing the hinge. It doesn’t budge. 

“I’ve just fused it for now,” she explains. “We can give it a proper fix when we return.” She pats Fennec’s helmet on the side softly before stepping away, going off to assist in the rest of the raid setup.

We.

It’s such an everyday little word, in such an unassuming sentence. But it feels like the moment something clicks, some imperceptible shift that tells Fennec where her heart lies now. Where it’s probably been lying for a while now, if she’d happened to notice it.

The trip directly to the outpost is short, only a mere half hour before they arrive, but it's enough time to check over their supplies one last time. To prepare themselves for the fight they may have the moment they step off the ship. She’d been told they may be landing pretty close to the base.

Sitting next to her in the passenger area of the ship, in the corner of her eye, Fennec can see the Armorer turning a weapon over in her grip, over and over again. There’s a dull metallic shine to it. She recognizes it as the hammer from her forge, the same one the Armorer used to relentlessly bend beskar to her will. Apparently it served as a weapon, as well. There’s a rifle hanging off of her hilt, a battered old carbine of some sort.

When the planet comes into view, it's another densely packed forest. The plants here are a more familiar deep green, though, and the humidity somehow feels even more oppressive in comparison, as Fennec steps off the ship.

The fight doesn’t start the moment they disembark. It doesn’t start as the ship takes off again, to be safely tucked away in a safer location until recalled. But as they trek through the forest, one of their own calls out a sighting–

The forest erupts into activity. 

The first few seconds are spent scrambling for cover as the patrol they’ve come across does the same, and the hail of blaster-fire rains down from both sides a moment later. There’s ample cover for their group among the trees, but that same cover applies to the Imperial remnants as well.

For as much of the Imperials seem to have the advantage in numbers, the Mandalorians more than make up for it in sheer power. The blaster bolts bounce uselessly off of beskar, sometimes catching on durasteel with a little more impact. Fennec hangs near the back of their group. It’s easy enough to pick off the occasional stormtrooper whenever she gets a clear shot. 

The first patrol is overwhelmed fairly quickly. 

Now onto the base.

It’s easy to find, located in a clearing a bit further into the forest. From the outside there’s no outward sign of an alarm system going off. There are, however, more stormtroopers pouring out of the main doors of the base. The volley of blaster fire starts up again.

Fennec drops to avoid it, pressing herself up against a fallen tree. She listens to the sound of the blasters, the sound of the shouting Imperials, trying to place their exact locations so she’ll know where to fire. The Armorer appears, snaking her way through the trees in a low crouch to come share Fennec’s impromptu barricade.

“How are we doing?” Fennec asks her.

“Good. Nobody is down,” the Armorer responds. “This is going much faster than our last raid.”

Hopefully this will be over quickly, then. Fennec nods as she checks her rifle’s charge pack, swapping it out for a fresh one. The Armorer stands from her crouched position, peeks over the tree, and readies her rifle. She lets off a few measured bursts of plasma, and Fennec hears the responding shout of a couple Imperials meeting their fate.

Fennec goes to do the same, preparing to prop her rifle up on the tree–

Her comm goes off. 

Fennec glances at it. The small display on the vambrace reads off the familiar code for Boba’s comm. Really? Now, of all times?

The Armorer drops down to crouch behind the tree again as the comm continues to go off, and she glances over at it. “Is everything alright?” she asks.

“It’s Boba. Not sure why he’s calling.”

“Could be an emergency,” the Armorer responds. She stands again, returning to her previous task of picking off the stormtroopers with frankly alarming efficiency.

Good point. But was being in the middle of an active warzone not also an emergency of its own?

Still, she taps the button to accept the call. The volley of blasterfire hasn’t died down yet, and it’s certainly audible in the call. 

“Bad time?” Boba asks by way of greeting. Despite the joke, despite the quality of the comm, there’s still a sharp edge of concern to his voice. 

“Not at all,” Fennec retorts.

“I assumed you were going on vacation to avoid being shot at, Fen.”

Maker, she can practically see the raised eyebrow she’d be getting from him, even with the holo turned off.

“Just a little imperial cleanup.”

“Well I’m glad you’re having fun at least,” he says dryly. 

As fun as banter is, Boba still hasn’t confirmed why he’s calling, and she’d prefer breaking into the base sooner rather than later.

“Why the call?”

“Nothing major. Just wanted to confirm-” another volley of blasterfire impacts on the tree then, drowning out the sound of the comm. “Should I be sending help somewhere?” he asks. The concern in his voice has ramped up noticeably. 

“No, we’ve got it handled.” And what a nightmare that would be to explain to almost everyone involved, if he did.

“We?”

Shit.

A shot whizzes by her then, passing by harmlessly but still colliding with the Armorer's chestplate with a force that makes her wince. It hardly even slows the Mandalorian down, much less stops her from firing back, but Fennec doesn't have to speak Mando'a to know that whatever's falling out of the Armorer's vocoder in a seething, biting tone is a swear of some sort.

Evidently, Boba agrees.

"Fennec." The comm crackles over Boba's warning tone.

Fennec inhales at that, resisting the urge to just slap the call off of her vambrace immediately and deal with it later. The Mando'a must've been just loud enough for Boba to hear. "Yes?" she asks, dodging another onslaught of blaster fire behind the tree. And also, hopefully, Boba's next line of questioning, if she's lucky.

She is not.

"Tell me you're not exactly where I think you are right now," Boba says. And it really has more of the tone of a statement, than a question.

"I'm-" She glances around the unfamiliar terrain of their combat zone, at the unrecognizable foliage and dense forestry- " technically not." It's not like she's at the covert right now , so–

"Fennec."

She spouts off a quick I gotta go, I’ll call you later and hangs up the call.

It's a few more minutes of fighting before her vambrace pings again, and Fennec dutifully ignores it as she takes out two more stormtroopers. She can deal with Boba's inevitable ire later.

It’s also, truthfully, something she very much does not want to deal with right now. They’re finally approaching the gates of the base, having thinned their numbers enough to proceed, when the comm pings one last time. This time it’s with the tone of an incoming written message. Fennec ignores it in favor of smashing the base door’s controls with the butt of her rifle.

Now comes the tricky part.

Inside, the remaining stormtroopers are few and far between, and easily cleaned out. A couple go down to Fennec’s smaller blaster pistol. A few more die at the hands of the Armorer. It’s certainly a sight to see her swinging a hammer with enough force to shatter plastoid, and Fennec has to practically drag her eyes away from the spectacle.

The rest fall to the other Mandalorians storming the base.

Base now cleared, the Armorer seeks out their priority: A comm room. Upon arriving, Fennec can already see they’re too late. The entire console is lit up in alarm. The base had sent off an emergency signal.

“The warning signal is live. What should I expect?” the Armorer asks into her comm as she stands over the console. She’s rapidly typing something in. On closer inspection, it looks like she’s accessing their communication codes. 

The voice that responds is one she recognizes. It’s one of the Mandalorians she’d seen in the comm hub a few times. He was one of the newer ones from a different tribe. “Reinforcements,” he says. “I was able to block the signal before it escaped the planet, but you’ve got about a dozen transporters on-planet who definitely picked it up.”

The Armorer curses in Mando’a again. 

“Re-transmission?” the Armorer asks.

“Not possible on the tech those ships have. As long as they don’t leave the planet, you’re good. Let them come to you.”

“Acknowledged. Thank you.” The Armorer tucks her comm away, and turns to address their raiding party. “We’ve got more work to do.”

The ensuing fight continues well into the night.

The transports trickle in, more than arriving all at once. By the time the Mandalorian in the comm hub confirms that no more transport ships remain, and that none had successfully left the planet, Fennec is well and truly exhausted. She plucks the loaned hunting knife out of the body of a stormtrooper on her way to follow the rest of the group.

They make one last sweep of the base, take whatever tech they can safely disassemble, and call their transport back. Everyone shuffles onto it with the same mix of battle-worn exhaustion and pride, as they leave the former imperial base as nothing more than a smoking ruin.

In the safe haven of the ship, as it begins the first of many hyperspace jumps, they check themselves and each other. Everyone is present and only two are injured, and even then the injuries are fairly minor. 

Everyone had made it.

She sinks into her seat in the passenger hold, the same one as before, and the Armorer does the same. It’ll be a long flight back as they create a false trail, and most of the Mandalorians seem to be using it to catch whatever cat naps they can, between the violent jolts of the transport’s frequent hyperspace entry and exit. Nobody will be getting a full night’s sleep during it.

She tries, though. Exhausted as she is, she’s still strung out from the fight in a way that doesn’t always leave her immediately. But she does manage to slip into a light sleep at some point, listing–

Another hyperspace jolt wakes her. She doesn’t know how long it's been. 

There’s a weight on her shoulder. 

She looks down and is met with golden beskar.

The Armorer is asleep on her shoulder. And she’s still asleep, judging by the soft snores Fennec can hear coming from under the helmet. 

The other Mandalorians in the transport, or at least the ones that are awake, look over occasionally, elbowing each other.

It's then that she remembers the ping she got during the fight earlier. It's not hard to guess that it's most likely from Boba. She winces at the thought. Still, it's worth checking, if only to make sure it's nothing important.

It's a text message, and of course it's from Boba.

"Enjoy your murder-date. Comm me later."

She snorts, sends off a quick confirmation ping to let Boba know she’s alright, and tucks the device away. Maybe things would go a bit better than she’d initially worried.

Sleeping in her helmet isn’t exactly comfortable, but falling asleep with her head resting against the Armorer’s, as they travel among the stars together? It feels more comfortable than anything else she could ever get.