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The police shuttle wasn't exactly luxurious transport.
Hell, the rustbucket of a speeder-bus that had gotten Alrich to Sundari from Keldabe that morning was more comfortable than this. At least on the bus he'd had padding on his seat. He squirmed, unable to get any support from the straight-backed bench he sat on, and the whole backside of his body from his neck on down ached like one big bruise.
Which, in all honesty it probably was by now.
He shifted again, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position to sit in. Laying on one side seemed like a good idea, at first. However, with his arms pinned behind him, he wouldn't be able to sit up again unless someone hauled him up. Then he'd have one arm trapped under him and going numb.
Bad plan, then.
He didn't much feel like adding "that fucking pins-and-needles skin-crawling" to his list of physical grievances, anyhow.
His shoulder itched, and on force of habit he tried to scratch the itch with the side of his face, something he'd picked up from so often having his hands covered in paint or charcoal - and nearly screamed as a fresh burst of white-hot pain radiated outwards from his nose.
Right. It was still probably broken.
Alrich hissed through his teeth, rocking in place as the ebbs of pain gradually subsided. He'd probably started it bleeding again with that little move. Streaks and blotches of rusty red were already spread across his shirt, and he was pretty sure it was smeared all over his face too.
Sighing, he slumped a little where he sat, hanging his head and pointedly ignoring the protest his lower back gave. Just as well there wasn't a mirror in this thing or he'd be getting depressed about his ruined profile as well.
A few more spatters of fresh crimson hit the floor of the shuttle between his scuffed boots.
Manda'ner but he was going to run out of blood to bleed at this rate.
"You di'kut," he huffed.
To think, he could've avoided all this. If he'd just listened to dal'buir and set aside his dreams of revolution for one bloody day. If he'd just accepted the invitation to create and display an original artwork at the re-dedication of Ordo Plaza to Concordance Plaza. Just set up a pretty canvas, take a few snaps for posterity, and left it at that.
However, Alrich Ge'tal was not the kind of man who'd ever 'leave it at that', no matter whatever 'it' might be.
Really, his plan was so perfectly simple. Finish his installation, stand well back somewhere inconspicuous, light it up with the remote detonator, and make his reasonably discreet getaway while the crowds ooh-aah'd at the fireworks.
Of course, quite a lot of people were going to notice a ten-foot-tall painting exploding into flame. Of course, the more sensitive types were likely going to panic and run screaming for the gates. Of course there would be much disturbance and rabble-rousing, and no doubt afterwards the authorities would issue stern warnings to the the various visual arts communities across Mandalore and her colonial worlds about "appropriate subject matter for art on public display".
Of course, he hadn't counted on his own shab'la stupidity.
It wasn't that he'd never seen artistic pyrotech before, or never tried this technique before, on a smaller scale.
But this…this had been different.
He'd hit the button, heard the bang, seen the smoke rise and the plaza flood with red-and-gold light. Instead of bolting down the steps and into the nearest alleyway to wait out the shitstorm, he'd just stood there, far too close to the picture with the det trigger right there in his hand for all to see. Stood there dazzled by his own pyrotechnics like a deep-sea fish hypnotized by a Naboo angler's lure. Stood close enough to feel the heat coming off the flames, to smell the burning solvent in the paint, to see the awful, wonderful glory of the image he'd concealed under his 'legitimate' artwork…
Stood there and been nabbed by the Palace District police, who'd promptly slapped cuffs on him and started to haul his shebs towards a line of police shuttles that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
Getting arrested and charged on counts of 'defacement and destruction of public and government property' was pretty bad.
That charge of 'aggravated assault on an officer of the law', however?
Might've been in his better interests to have avoided that one. And he could've if he'd just stuck to his original plan of accepting his fate and being cooperative so as to minimize any chances of prolonged jail time. As it so happened; screaming obscenities, kicking wildly, and biting like a rabid animal was more his style.
Still, it brought on a smile, remembering the absolute shock on the faces of the cops as he'd fought back. It had felt damn good to kick in that cop's face after the bastard had the gett'se to break Alrich's own nose, too; even if the end result was getting his shebs kicked into next week.
At least his shuttle was empty, and nobody was there to see him puke on the floor - the oh so pleasant side effects of a kick to the stomach and a punch in the throat - and groan pathetically. There were still small blessings, even in this dire hour.
Still, he was starting to get a bit bored. It felt like he'd been in the shuttle for hours. Where in haran was he going, and alone at that which was taking so long?
A rattle and a sudden juddering motion of the whole shuttle nearly threw him face-down onto the floor, shaking him out of his thoughts.
They were apparently entering planetary atmosphere, and a fairly heavy one too. The craft pitched and rolled in the choppy airstream, rattling him around in the space like a pair of dice in a gambler's cup as the sound of thunder rumbled outside. In a few moments, it subsided, replaced by the steady, tinny patter of raindrops.
He'd only just felt the gentle jolt of landing when the armoured doors popped open, and the cops who'd so dragged him back out and started pushing him towards a rather nondescript steel door set in the side of a grey concrete - no, a grey *stone* wall.
He turned his head, and caught a brief glimpse of high mountains and green, forested hills under a grey sky before the door shut behind him, leaving the cops and the shuttle outside.
Concordia?
The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and the trickle down the side of his mouth informed Alrich that his nose was once again fountaining blood.
As the doors shut behind him, he felt the room - no, it was an elevator - descend, and Alrich's heart sank with it. He'd only heard whispers about what happened on Concordia, and read a bit from the more alarmist student news feeds at university - that the worst criminals on Mandalore were never executed, but were sent to the moon, where they all "went down below".
At least, that was what the conspiracy theorists called being incarcerated in huge high-security prisons in the disused bes'kar mines, miles below Concordia's surface. Once someone went into those black holes, they might as well have never existed.
Alrich shivered. Was that where he was going down to, trapped in this steel box? To be locked up for the rest of his life in the same cells as murderers and terrorists? A pathetic whimper rattled up his throat, and tears began to blur his vision. Gone was all his revolutionary fever, all that fire and fury replaced by good old-fashioned absolute terror.
Manda'ner, but he'd only set a painting on fire!
There wasn't much time more to worry about how was about to meet his grim fate a teary, bloody, slightly nauseous mess. The lift jolted to a stop, and the wall on the opposite side to the doors slid open noiselessly.
A pair of Concordian Guards stood on the other side, huge in their blue uniforms, eyes unreadable behind their metal visors. Without a word, they reached in to haul Alrich out of the compartment. He gave them no resistance, already resigned to as he was half-dragged by his arms down a metallic-looking hallway to another heavy-looking steel door.
"Sorry lad," one of them muttered as it opened, and he was unceremoniously shoved into the room beyond.
Alrich stumbled, barely managing to stay upright as he desperately tried to keep on his feet.
He was nearly knocked over by shock anyways when he looked up.
He wasn't at the bottom of a mine, about to be packed into a damp stony cell and shut behind ray shield. Nor was he in anything like the grim, grey-walled interrogation room he'd imagined.
He was in a huge hall, seemingly bigger than any building Alrich had ever been in. Paintings covered the walls, lit by huge golden lanterns that hung from the high, arched ceiling. The far wall was almost entirely taken up by a huge window, overlooking seemingly endless forest and mountains of Concordia beyond, with the red-gold colours of the sunset beginning to break through the grey rain clouds.
Alrich was both overwhelmed and thoroughly confused. At a loss for anything else to do at the moment, he decided to focus on the paintings on the off chance they'd give him some clue.
The murals weren't done in the abstracted, symbolic style so favoured in Sundari and other cities since the New regime. It was a lot more like the ancient art he'd seen in his lectures at school, the kind that only survived on isolated worlds like Krownest and Werda now. Gilded Style, it was called.
He smiled a little, feeling oddly comforted by this fact. Alrich loved Gilded art too, to the surprise of many. He did his best to emulate it in his own artwork, even if he could never afford the gold paint and rich gemstone pigments used by the old masters.
The gold-laced images all seemed to show historical events - battles, executions, marriages, great cities and fortresses being built, explorers landing on new worlds. He recognized a few figures from history as he walked further down the walls - Cassus Fett, Morai Kryze, Canderous Ordo, Shay Vizsla, among others, all of them shown at the moments of their greatest triumphs.
Leaning in close, he studied an image of a woman in black and gold armour he guessed was one of Shay's many daughters, giving orders to builders and artisans as the half-finished bulk of Sundari rose behind her.
"Enjoying yourself?"
"Haar'chak!"
Alrich screamed, staggering backwards. Instinctively he tried to break his fall with a hand, before he remembered that they were still cuffed behind his back. With a painful thud, he landed flat aback on the stone floor, wincing as his arms took the brunt of the fall.
The day had already been a long, strange, and an occasionally terrifying one, so he could be forgiven for having not noticed he had company. As he scrambled back on to his feet, the man who'd seemingly appeared from nowhere simply watched from where he stood, a few feet behind Alrich.
He was dressed all in white, in perfect New Mandalorian style, elegant but terribly bland in Alrich's opinion. Combined with his pale skin and formal, straight-backed stance, it all had the uncanny effect of making him look like a bleached white stone statue, the only colour visible on him being his severely styled pale blond hair and cold blue eyes.
Confused as he was, Alrich still recognized him immediately. He'd have to have truly lived under a rock not to. After the Duchess herself, Prudii "Pre" Vizsla was probably the most famous Mandalorian in the whole galaxy.
"G-governor?"
"Indeed. You're Alrich Ge'tal, no doubt,"
He turned, striding with purpose back to the far wall of the room. Evidently he was expected to follow without question. For lack of any other option, he obeyed.
In front of the huge window was a massive desk, with an equally massive chair behind it, both made from some kind of heavy dark stone. A number of screens projected from the desk's polished surface, currently displaying what seemed like an endless collection of planetary maps and star charts.
Vizsla sat down in the chair, gracefully as if he was a king seated on a throne. He motioned for Alrich to sit down on the stone bench across from him. As he did, he couldn't' stop looking around himself at the murals that surrounded them. Maybe it was rude to not pay attention to the governor, but the man had more or less kidapped him. And Alrich never did give much thought to manners or 'proper' behavior, least of all to high-and-mighty government sorts.
The governor either didn't notice, or didn't care, He just followed his gaze, seeming somewhat amused.
"In case you're wondering, you're in the Old Fortress, in the mountains by the Governor's Mansion. I had these walls transported here from Sundari before the Ancient Gallery in the palace was renovated. Call it a strange quirk of taste, but I have a bit of a fondness for historical sites and artwork."
He paused, fixing pale eyes on Alrich. His expression turned from jovial to serious.
"Now. Any idea as to why you came here?"
Alrich blinked.
"I…don't know?"
"You don't know."
"No, I don't know why I'm here!"
Alrich suddenly snapped, hissing his reply. As he did a few spatters of blood hit the governor's desk. Good, he thought. Screw this haughty chakaar and his fancy desk and vague bantha-crap questioning and his treating ancient artefacts like they were fancy interior decor instead of priceless artworks.
If Vizsla was bothered, he sure didn't show it to Alrich, which just made him angrier. Ignoring how he seethed, the governor waved a gloved hand over the arm of his chair. The screens over the desk suddenly multiplied, immediately filling Alrich's vision with images. They were all from the riot in the square, of the screaming crowd, the riot cops, of the burning painting. He grit his teeth almost hard enough to hurt as the image of him being dragged away by the police came up.
"I hazard that this is refreshing your memory a bit," the governor said, sounding terribly amused at the eternally looping footage of Alrich screaming something and struggling as he was kicked, punched, then stuffed into the shuttle.
"If there's a reason you can give for getting up this morning and deciding you'd blow up a painting, I'd love to hear it."
Alrich tensed, feeling his face draw up into a snarl. He'd just about had it with the authorities jerking him around for one day. If this outburst landed him in the blackest pit in the deepest mine, well so be it. He stood up, trying to look as threatening as he could with his hands pinned back and his face and clothes a bloody mess.
"Without respect, Governor, you're not a judge or an officer of the law. You have no right to detain me here, and I don't have to tell you anything, because no confession I make here is lawful evidence in a court. Even your rule and laws over this world are not legit-"
"Ke'mot, chakaarykc!"
Vizsla roared, standing up and slamming his hands down on the desk. At his full height and stood on the dais of the chair, the governor towered over him. He would've jumped back had he not known he'd just fall backwards again. He meekly sat back down, shaking a little, his eyes wide with shock.
Seemingly satisfied that Alrich had been sufficiently intimidated, the governor sat back down, huffed a few deep breaths, and continued as if nothing had happened.
"Ah, apologies for that. What I meant to say is, this isn't an interrogation, Alrich," he continued, voice back to its usual syrupy, neutral tone.
"I am not trying to *make* you confess to anything. The government may not condone this sort of thing, but I assure you, I intend you no harm. The powers that be behind the laws seem to think the only way to maintain order is by control and compliance. But I," he paused, as if searching for the right words.
"I feel that a more understanding approach is needed. I want to learn why people still feel the need to resort to such violence to have their voices heard."
Alrich stared, still shaking a little from his outburst. Vizsla continued on talking, idly flicking through the images that floated above them.
"Oh. Exactly…why?"
Vizsla shrugged.
"Call it indulging my own curiosity. So, I ask you again, Alrich." he gestured to the suspended images.
"Why exactly did you do all this?"
Alrich sighed, looking down at his battered, bloodstained boots. He was either part of one messed up inescapable social experiment, or he was headed for the mother of all prison sentences. Either way, there didn't seem much reason to lie now, least of all to the most powerful man on the planet.
"Well, where I grew up, on Tracyn," he started, "there are still a lot of warrior tribes. Their lives are just...dismal. They officially have no real status or rights under the laws of the New Mandalore government, and planetary authorities on other worlds refuse to let them work or even let them live where they want anymore. So, a lot have gone away, out of Mando space entirely, off to Taris, Axxila, Nar Shaddaa, places like that. Some of them don't even want to leave, and don't think it's right that they should have to go anyways, because Tracyn is their homeland. I sort of agree with them, but I really I think it's more that they don't have the creds for transport out of there, and are too proud to admit it."
"Interesting," the governor muttered, actually sounding genuinely interested.
"But you don't live on Tracyn anymore. You live in Keldabe now, no?"
Alrich tried not to think too hard about how Vizsla could know this.
"My parents were lucky. They're old-stock Ge'tals, and they had some wealth saved up from a family mining op. They even sold a piece of their bes'kar fields to the government a few years back so I could go to school."
"Clan Ge'tal, of course," Vizsla smirked.
"Classic Old Mando'ade to the bitter end. Mercenaries, ship captains, scrap hunters, the occasional professional assassin. Odd that they'd pay for an arts education instead of buying you a tramp fighter craft and sending you down the path of a merc."
"They didn't want me to only have the choice between being a mine overseer or a bounty hunter," Alrich continued.
"They thought i could find balance my world the way they couldn't."
The governor raised an eyebrow.
"Balance?"
"Learn the New ways in school but not totally give up my heritage. That I could be a great painter, and make a living off a brush instead of a blaster."
Vizsla nodded.
"Seems like that didn't work out," he added, rather patronizingly.
Alrich didn't answer. He was too confused, saddened, and embarrassed now to even be mad at the governor's tone. Vizsla got up from his chair, taking a few steps to face the window.
"Your story's more or less the same as so many who get on the wrong side of the law, here. Hard times, tough choices, rash decisions, over and over, and over again," he spoke as he stood, looking out onto the vast stormy landscape.
"However, I think I might be able to help you. Perhaps change some minds while I do."
He paused, turning to face Alrich again.
"You live by selling your artwork, no?"
"Uh, that and the evening shifts at the weaving shop, yes."
"What if I told you that I was interested in commissioning you for a fairly major work?"
Alrich's head shot up. All his usual thoughts of shoving his boot up the sheb'se of New regime vanished for an instant as the clatter of imagined credit chits sounded in his ears. He stood up, again nearly losing his balance, and all his words came out in a jumble.
"A painting? I-I'd be honoured, Sir! In fact, I generally work in portraiture. It's my biggest strength, it's no lie! Fine quality work you can get for a very reasonable rate. If you want references I have recommendations from several professors-"
"Unfortunately, I can't quite give you that opportunity," Vizsla cut him off.
He sighed, sounding genuinely disappointed.
"Almec, that crooked old stiff, he'd get me stripped of office if I hung up anything remotely historical or tasteful for that matter in my Sundari office," his expression darkened as he rolled his eyes.
"I only put up with that hideous thing he calls a portrait in there because his simpering little brat painted it. I don't care if it's Modernist style or if she's graduating top of her class, that girl's got no sense of composition or likeness."
Alrich blinked. Even within the New government, almost nobody actually liked the prime minister or his family, but it was a complete shock to hear Pre Vizsla of all people speak so derisively about him. Or about anyone.
Then again, he had just been shouted at and called a chakaar by the man, too.
"Oh," was all he could manage.
"If not a portrait, then what exactly did you have in mind…sir?"
A smirk crept across the governor's face as he turned to walk back towards the desk. His whole attitude seemed somehow changed now, from polite and accommodating to intimidating. His measured movements now seemed predatory, calculating. It made Alrich nervous.
As he sat down again, Vizsla called up one of the images floating over his desk, enlarging it in front of Alrich's face. For the first time, he got a really got a good look at what he'd created.
"I was thinking something more in the style of that mural in the square."
His 'accepted' piece had been a memorial portrait of Epona and Adonis Kryze, the late parents of the Duchess's named heir, Korr. However, the cleverly hidden explosives had burned the image of the lord and lady away to reveal a memorial to Tarre X Vizsla, the last Mand'alor, the one who'd famously driven the Darksaber through his own heart when Sundari fell to the Republic so many centuries ago.
Alrich stared, as over and over in the looped footage, the ancient ruler screamed in silent anguish as the pyrotechnics ate away at his painted body. Burned, and warped, and blackened to ash in the same way that the Republic, the Jedi, and the New Mando regime had eaten away at the heart and soul of the true Mando'ade.
That had been his thought process in creating it, anyways.
"But why would you…"
Alrich trailed off. The realization hit him like a hyper speed ramming.
"You didn't bail me out because you liked my art," he spoke the thought aloud as it came.
"You want to recruit me."
The governor chuckled, as if Alrich had just told an incredibly lame joke but his polite society training demanded that he laugh.
"You're with the Kyrt'sad!" Alrich blurted.
"But- how…why? They're thugs, you're a governor! They blow up buildings and attack transports and rob banks-they kill people! E- even here on on Concordia! Why would you let them…" he trailed off.
He suddenly became very aware of the overwhelming number of House Vizsla figures staring down at him from the walls around him. A thought, one totally unthinkable until about a minute ago, took shape in his mind.
"Unless…unless you needed them to distract the government on Mandalore from the *real* danger," Alrich ventured.
"Like an insurgent movement to bring back the Mand'alor Aliit, and put a Vizsla on the throne."
Vizsla's mouth quirked in a cruel smile. It was enough to confirm Alrich's worst suspicion. He shook his head.
"Set enough small fires, and you build enough smoke to hide an army. Seems to me like you've raised quite a lot of smoke with your pet thugs, *Mand'alor*. "
The governor laughed, clapping slow and sarcastic.
"Well done. You're a remarkably perceptive man, Alrich, do you know that? Hard to believe they let anyone as smart as you one step past the city gates in Sundari."
Alrich snorted.
"Maybe I am. But I still don't see how me painting can help. I can't really do much else. I'm not really a warrior," he muttered.
"I passed my basic combat exams when I was sixteen, and I took the oath, but I haven't been on a hunt or visited a target range in years. You saw what those cops did to me, I can barely fight. Why would y-"
Vizsla shook his head.
"Don't be so dismissive of your own power, Alrich. Manda'yaim doesn't just need warriors to fight, or chieftains to rule. She needs artists to bring her stories to life, to record her history, to make her cities beautiful. Mando'ade like me may fight with our bodies, but ones like you fight with your hearts and minds."
He pulled up a still image of the burning portrait of Tarre, looking over it with admiration.
"Or more accurately in your case, fighting with your art. Which is what I want you to do for me, from now on."
Alrich sat up a little straighter. His face must've been a right picture, because Vizsla kept on talking.
"This is a lot to take in, I know. I could spend hours explaining to you everything that's been done, and everything that still needs doing, and just why I need your skills for the cause. However the fact is that I don't have hours. This is really a one-time-only offer, and I do need a yes or a no, now."
"Wha- what happens if I say no?"
Vizsla leaned back on his chair, sighing somewhat exasperatedly.
"If you don't wish to render your services to the Kyrt'sad, you're free to go. Simple as that. Your criminal record will be purged and all your fines will be paid. You can go back to your Keldabe rooming-house and forget all of this, and it'll be like nothing ever happened."
That seemed too good to be true. There had to be a catch.
"And supposing I do go?" he started.
"What exactly could stop me from leaving here, going to the cops and saying that Governor Vizsla is not only with the Death Watch, he's leading it, and that they're not just a bunch of thugs but a huge movement with hundreds of allied clans plotting to overthrow the government?"
Vizsla smiled again, no warmth to his expression this time. Alrich was reminded of a guard-strill baring its teeth.
"You don't know which of those guards outside the police headquarters isn't already in my pay. Or which one knows how to make it look like you had a terrible accident and slipped," he replied, still flashing that snarl of a grin at him.
"And It's a long, long way down from the steps of the ministry of justice to the square below. Be a shame for such a promising artist to go out that way."
Vizsla was right. This...was a lot to take in in one go. Trying to slow his racing mind and quell the shiver of fear snaking up his spine again, Alrich took a deep, long breath, and thought carefully.
He thought about the rows of abounded houses on Tracyn. He thought about his old armour, the set he'd painted carefully with his mother, gathering dust in its case under his bed. He thought about the awed expressions in the crowd as he'd set his picture alight.
Glancing down, he saw his beaten, bloody face in the polished black mirror of the desk, and the dim faces of all the painted Mand'alors above reflected back at him. Alrich stood up, straightened his aching back, and took another deep breath, smiling widely despite his sore, split lips.
"First, you can get these shab'la cuffs off me," he began.
"Then I want five gallons or more each of every gem-toned paint you can get, enough gold and silver pigment to match, an industrial-grade sprayer, seventy-five units of detonite, a list and location of every big duracrete wall in Sundari," he paused, suddenly feeling breathless again.
Vizsla nodded, taking it all in as if he was listening to a ministry page listing his daily appointments.
"Is that...*all* you want?"
"No," Alrich replied.
He grinned, a bit crazily, feeling a rush of purpose and determination he hadn't felt for years. This was going to be the most important commission of his life, and by Tarre's blackened bones, Alrich was going to do this one right.
"I want you to get me a damn demolitions and explosives expert. I have a sequel series in mind for "Mand'alor the Eternal"."