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Chapter Text

Kevin Cadera was laughing hard enough to snort water from his meal pack out his nose when the alarms turned on.  They sounded with short, sharp beeps and a flare of red-tinted light that didn’t impair their vision but got attention anyways.

“Stations!” his sister snapped, clipping her helmet on with one economical movement.

Kevin swung into the seat in front of the engineering console, one hand clipping the security harness while the other brought up the readouts that described the ship’s functions.  Most things seemed fine, but one measure really didn’t make sense.

“We lost hyperspace fuel,” he reported, forcing his voice to stay calm.  Just in case, he put his own helmet on too.  

“Must have a leak in the reserve tank,” Arla weighed in over the comms from the gunner’s seat.  “If it were anywhere else we’d have more explosions.”

“Navigation reporting green for emergency drop,” Jango said in the same steel calm Kevin could feel in his own voice.  The sound of someone choosing not to panic, shutting down the instinct to flail like a headless nuna out of pure will power.  “Setting course to enter real-space in ehn, t’ad, solus.”

The drop was rougher than if it were a planned stop run by their astromech, but brought them out directly over a sad, beige-looking planet with large darker patches that could be particularly deep seas or possibly rather sad farmland.

“Switching to impulse engines,” Kevin announced, flipping the switch needed to divert the focus of the ship’s mechanics away from their hyperspace engines and onto the regular impulse engines that could be used to navigate the landing process.  “Ailyn, are we doing an EVA repair, or landing?”

“If we can, I’d rather fix things somewhere with a breathable atmosphere,” she said drily.  “Jango, where are we?”

Jango made an offended sound as he peered at the Navigation console.  “Come look at this,” he said.

Kevin unclipped his armor from the harness and moved to look over Jango’s shoulder.  He bumped bes'marbure with his sister, who had come up on the other side.  The readout was flipping back and forth like the name of the planet was too long for the character count, despite the name being fairly short.

“Melidaan, or Daanmelida, maybe?” Ailyn said.  

“Sounds weird,” Arla weighed in.  “But… it’s not my problem what other people name their shit.”

“I’m gonna run it against the Republic databases,” Jango said cautiously.  “This is just… weird.”

Kevin agreed.  He had a bad feeling about the planet, but he didn’t like to trust a vague feeling over any evidence he could lay hands on.  It was fine to take a hunch as a direction to investigate, but it hardly held up as a reason to change plans without any proof.

The Republic database scan came back fast enough, anyways.

“Melida’Daan,” Jango said, pronouncing the slash on the screen like he would a beten in Mando’a.  “Republic planet, travel warning.”

“For atmosphere, or…?” Arla asked.

Ailyn moved to take the pilot’s seat, and Kevin returned to the Engineering console, to monitor the thing.  In theory, nothing in the Tome'tayl should be at risk due to the fuel leak, but since he didn’t know what caused the leak, he wasn’t taking risks as his sister fired up the atmospheric navigation.

“Local violence,” Jango snorted.  “We’ll be fine.”

Kevin privately disagreed, but he didn’t say anything.  The Fetts were born Mando’ade, and Ailyn had come from a reasonably peaceful culture before the disaster that took her tal’buire.  Kevin may not have strong memories of Earth, but he knew ‘local violence’ didn’t necessarily mean the Republic was over-reacting.

The descent was slow, with minimal chatter as everyone kept their eyes on their stations.  

“The space-port is unresponsive to hailing,” Jango reported.

“Hmm,” Kevin said, trying to shake the itch on his back that flared when things were suspicious.

“We’ll land just outside the city on the opposite side,” Ailyn said.  “I don’t want to take chances on an unresponsive spaceport when there’s other options.”

Something rocked the ship and Ailyn let out an impressive stream of swear words.

“Were we fired on?” Arla demanded as another round of shakes caused lights to flare on the Engineering console.

“No, debris impact,” Kevin said, eyes roving his readouts.  He couldn’t fix anything until they were down, but he could track what was happening and divert power if anything went really wrong.  “Can we go around this?  There’s got to be a clear entry path somewhere.”

“This is the clear entry,” Jango growled.

“I’ll man the secondary gun,” Ailyn said, standing from the pilot’s seat.  “Arla and I can sweep the trash and Jango can fly from the Nav console.”

“I can shoot,” Jango said.

“Your job is Nav,” Ailyn countered.  “Mine is Captain.  I change posts, not you.”

The ship was hit again, something bigger, and Ailyn staggered at the exit of the Kom’rk’s little bridge.

“I’m fine.  Stay on task!” she ordered.

It took all of Kevin’s focus to keep from freaking out.  The red emergency lights made it hard to see, but he was sure he’d seen a smear of dark on the doorway where Ailyn had fallen.  HE couldn’t freeze, he had to keep their ship from shattering as they flew through the astronomical equivalent of a hail of bullets.  A line from an old movie he hadn’t seen since he was a child popped into his head.

“Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals,” he muttered.

“...me’ven?” Jango asked, taking his eyes off the Nav console.

“Jango, you’re piloting!” Kevin snapped.  Jango yelped and turned back to controlling their descent as they crossed out of the orbital debris field and into the actual atmosphere.

The landing wasn’t Jango’s best, but Kevin was willing to call it a landing and not a crash, so it was better than some.

“I’ll check on our sisters,” Jango said as they unclipped from their seats.  “You check the engines.”

“But I… okay, that’s fair,” Kevin agreed.  Jango had the next-most medical training after Ailyn, and Kevin had the next-most experience with her ship.  It was practical.  That didn’t mean he liked it as he left the ship to look over the engines.

On the Bes’bev Laar, the checks could mostly be done from the ground, but Buir flew a much smaller ship, since she was a Sol‘Cetare and might need to land in weird places.  Ailyn’s ship was a larger Kom’rk-class transport, and the layout meant he was left to scramble over a series of handholds on the hull to get a good view of the potential leak sites.  

He heard a short fhoosh followed by a thump of armored feet, the sound of a jet-pack assisted jump, and looked up to see who was joining him.

“Ailyn’s gonna be fine, little head bump,” Arla said.  “Jango got her out of the gunner’s seat and into the medical bay.  M-34-D is taking care of her now.”

“Thanks for telling me,” he said with a nod.  

“Sure thing, I’d want to know if it was Jan’ika with the injury.”  Arla shrugged. 

Kevin swept his gaze over the Tome'tayl once more, HUD filters flipping across every relevant spectrum of energy, not turning anything up.  “I can’t find the fuel leak, and until we know where that is, we can’t refuel.”

“You think the leak might be interior?  We can set up a camp outside if it is.”

“No, we’d have gotten an environmental warning first,” he said with a head shake.  “Might be underneath?”

“Lemme give you a lift,” Arla offered.  Kevin agreed with a shoulder shrug, and she looped hands under his arms to hoist him off the top of the ship.

***

Eli squinted at the stranger’s ship.  He hadn’t thought anyone else would come down from the sky after the last Jedi got spooked and ran off even though he’d promised to help.  At least Ben was still helping, but… Eli’s older sister used to say “help from the Core” when she meant help that wasn’t coming.  He thought maybe their Mom used to say it too, but she died when Eli was a Bitty, because she didn’t want to leave them and join the Elder’s war.

This ship didn’t look like any ship Eli had seen before.  The starfighters the Elders had were old, blocky things with thick armor, the Jedi starfighter had been slim and pointed like a spear-tip, and they’d all been about the same size, good for a pilot and maybe someone to work the weapons.  The one landed in a pocket valley south of Zehava was sleek like the Jedi ship, but also had a tough armored hull like the Elder’s ships, and it was as big as ten of the other kinds.

Eli really didn’t want to think about what a ship that big could do.

He knew he should get back to the others, let them know what he’d seen, but then he realized that the figure scrambling around on top of the big ship wasn’t an Elder.  Eli had thought it was, he had armor and none of the Young did, but then someone else in armor had jumped up on the ship too, and the first one was definitely Young-sized.

The Elder who jumped up next to the armored Young grabbed him, and hauled him off his feet, throwing them both at the ground.  

Eli winced, whispering the secret word for peace and freedom, and for the death that could grant both.  He scrambled around the rocks at the edge of the valley, working his way toward the best exit back to the city.  A buzzing whine caught his attention and he paused to check his surroundings again.

The Young wasn’t dead!  Instead, he’d gotten farther away from the ship, while the other Elders fought about something in a box they’d pulled out of the ship.  Eli smiled.

He would go back to the base and report in, but first… a rescue.  He could swing over to Rani’s patrol zone and get back up, she was a good enough shot to cover him.  Yes, this was a plan.

***

Kevin had just finished up his task of pacing out their camp’s perimeter and placing the sensor alarms when he heard a small sound that vaguely reminded him of a cat.  Not a tooka, a cat.   They were different, no matter how many times his descriptions led people back to asking if he meant a tooka.  Eyes narrowing, he flicked his internal comms on.

“Jango, I heard a cat in the bushes on the North East side, by that trail we marked earlier.  I’m gonna check it out.”

“If you bring home another knife-footed murder beast for Arla to adopt, I’m gonna leave you here,” his friend grumbled without any heat.

“We both know you wouldn’t,” Kevin countered, stepping beyond the sensors.  “You wouldn’t last a day without me.”

“I would so!” Jango said with an offended squawk.

“How’s tent set-up with the sisters going?” Kevin asked.

In answer, Jango turned off his comms with an audible click.  

Kevin shook his head and proceeded to search the underbrush.

He didn’t find a cat.

Or a tooka.

He found two adiike, skinny and grubby with determined lines set around their mouths that didn’t fit their young faces.  He pulled off his buy’ce… the majority of children did better when they could see faces, that got drilled into everyone in Clan Cadera before they took their verd’goten.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” the one with dark, curly hair said.  “You wanna go somewhere safe?”

“Is here not safe?” Kevin asked.  If this wasn’t a good place to be parked, he needed to tell the others so they could move the ship.

The child gave him a sad look.  The other kid, with the puff-ball of short light brown hair shrugged.  “Is anywhere?”

Oh yeah.  War-torn planet.  Kevin buried a wince and bobbed his head in considering agreement.  “Fair.  Where are your buir’e?” he asked instead.

“My what?” the curly-haired child blurted.

Kevin sighed.

“Buir’e, parents?”  The short-haired child gave him a strangely unhappy look.  “The ones who look after you, who keep you safe and teach you things?”

“The Generals,” they said with a nod.  “They do that.  Does that make them boo-iray?”

While he was trying to figure out how to respond to that, the curly-haired child darted up to him, snatching his buy’ce out from under his arm and then sprinted back toward the path.  Kevin scowled and took off after the little thief, along the path and up a low hill, then back down into a smaller valley where he finally caught the kid.  As he grabbed his helmet, something hit his back and he turned to stare at the short-haired child, who held a blaster expertly in small hands.

They’re so mandokarla, he thought, then mentally slapped himself.  He was too young to follow Buir’s footsteps.  Get ahold of yourself, Cadera!  No adoptions!

“It’s not a good idea to point a weapon unless you intend to fire it,” he said mildly.

“Or to fire unless you intend to hit something,” they agreed.  “And every weapon is a loaded weapon.”

At least they had training.  He didn’t like that they were pointing the weapon at him, obviously, but the last hit had barely warmed his beskar, so he didn’t see the need to get worked up.  He could hit his emergency beacon, but that would just make the others panicky over nothing.

“Will you come with us?” the curly-haired child said, tugging on Kevin’s buy’ce again.  He didn’t get it, Kevin had a better grip this time, but the slight tug felt like it was pulling directly on Kevin’s heart.

“Yeah, sure, adiike,” he agreed.  “Let’s go find those General Buir’e you mentioned.  I wanna talk to them anyway.”

***

Arla would NOT freak out.

Sure, their ship had developed an electrical fault that shorted out the environmental hazard warnings until three hours into a flight with an internal fuel leak.  Sure, the person actually in charge of their little milk-run mission for Jaster — mostly an excuse to get out in the galaxy and have some fun — had gotten a concussion, leaving Arla as the eldest and most experienced.  Sure, she had to put up a tent with the help of her annoyingly opinionated little brother and the aforementioned concussed person.

She wasn’t going to freak out.

“Where’s Kevin?” Ailyn asked, finally settling down on a camp cot with the small but powerfully fussy medical droid hovering over her protectively.

“He heard a tooka, went to look for it,” Jango said.  “He should be back soon.”

“Well, call him, he needs to eat,” Arla suggested.  Ailyn made a face at the mention of food, but she couldn’t exactly argue when Kevin was about due for another one of his ‘bolt up six inches like a stalk of Vorpayan Wheat’ growth spurts.

Jango popped his helmet on unnecessarily.  Well, unless he was doing it for privacy to bitch about his sister.  Wrist comms weren’t exactly subtle, and Jango was that age.

“He’s not answering,” Jango said slowly.

“What do you mean by that?” Arla bit out.

“I mean he isn’t answering.  The comm is connecting but there’s no response.”

“FUCK!” Arla yelled.  Ailyn winced again, and M-34-D thrust a bag at her in one pincered claw.

“If you feel you may vomit, please use this receptacle so I may analyze the nutrients lost,” the droid chirped. 

“Ew, Mead,” Ailyn complained.  The droid continued to fuss, and Arla grabbed Jango’s arm to pull him away from that argument.

“Jango, this is bad,” she hissed.

“It’s not great, no,” he agreed, but far too casually.

“We’re down a verd,” Arla said slowly and calmly.  She was very proud of that calm.  She would not freak out.  “But not just any verd, no.  We’re down the youngest member of the squad.   We lost the baby, Jango!”

“You do realize that he passed his verd’goten, right?” Jango asked her.  

“He’s the youngest, we were supposed to protect him,” Arla snarled.  “Children are the future.”

“Ailyn runs courier missions almost exclusively, I’ve been stuck doing karking politics half my adult life, and you’re actively having a panic attack,” Jango pointed out.  “Meanwhile Kevin has been doing almost nothing but training to be a verd, training to be a bounty hunter, actually being a bounty hunter, and going to therapy, since he was eight.   He’s probably the most deadly of everyone here.”

“We lost the MURDER BABY!” Arla gasped.

Okay, maybe Arla was freaking out.

Chapter Text

Kevin had to admit, if you couldn’t get a tree for your fort, the sewers weren’t a bad choice.  Nicely defensible, and the maze-like nature would make it easy to evade any invaders.  It was actually better than what he’d pulled off when he was a few years older than these kids… he was tentatively impressed.  And they didn’t even smell that bad once they went up a few steps and through a door into what might have been a maintenance tunnel.

Although he was going to reserve judgment until he met these Generals.

The curly-haired boy, who had given his name as Eli Waverunner and his gender as male, grabbed at Kevin’s arm again.  Eli pulled him into a room full of suspicious looking children, and Kevin took in solid duracrete walls with regularly spaced ledges like bunks as he moved the little grasp down to his hand.

“You need to be careful of my wrists,” he said gently, but letting his voice carry.  They all needed to know this.  “My vambraces, these cuffs here, are dangerous.”

Eli frowned at him.  “Do you need help getting them off?  General Ben is teaching me how.”

Kevin flinched at the idea, and a red-headed teen peeled off from a cluster of the only kids here old enough to pass a verd’goten.

“Eli, you are very kind and very brave, but those are not slave cuffs,” the teen told the child.  Then they looked at Kevin with a wry smile.  “My apologies, Ser Mandalorian.  He meant no offense, please do not be angry with him.”

“Why would I be mad at an adiik for not knowing the difference between vambraces and slave cuffs?” Kevin asked.  “No adiik should know what slave cuffs look like, and it’s not like we’re on Manda’yaim… he hasn’t seen armor like mine before or he would know not to touch it.”

“That is… very kind of you.  I’m Ben.”

“Kevin Cadera, Clan Cadera, House Mereel,” Kevin offered, holding out one hand.  “He and him in Basic.”

Ben blinked at him.

“Mando’a only has pronouns for ‘you’, ‘me’, ‘us’, ‘that person’, and ‘those people’, not for genders, so we like to clarify,” Kevin explained.  “Basic may be my birth language, but I gotta say it makes some things just… so dumb.”

“Ah,” Ben said with a nod.  “I agree.  My cradle language is… similar.  I use him in Basic as well.  This is Cerasi, she and Neild are the leaders of the Young.”

“The Young?” Kevin asked, a sinking feeling sticking in his gut.  He really hoped it wasn’t what it sounded like.

“You are too, Ben,” the red-headed girl said, dragging the darker-complected Neild with her.  “We got tired of the fighting.  We’re going to make it stop.”

“And your parents?” Kevin asked.  Nobody he’d seen yet was old enough to have been raising anyone, let alone have birthed any of the children running this orderly little base.

“Who do you think is doing the fighting?” Neild asked sardonically.  “The Elders are all karking assholes who hurt each other for fun and don’t give two kriffs about us.”

“Nield!” Cerasi scolded.  “I’m sorry about him, the War is hard on everyone.”

“Wars usually are,” Kevin allowed, but that sinking feeling had turned into a solid lump of terror that he knew where this was going.  There were no parents, only demagolkase.  He needed to fix this, but on his own?  How?  He needed reinforcements.

“So, Eli and Rani were a little vague about why I’m here,” Kevin asked.  “Mind filling me in?”

“I’ll admit I’m curious about that myself,” Ben said with a pointed look at the two.

“We may have kidnapped him,” Rani admitted, shifting on her feet.

“We rescued him!” Eli said.  “He was with some Elders, I saw one grab him!”

Kevin sighed.  “Arla was flight-lifting me down from the ship, because I don’t have a jetpack yet.  She’s a good friend.”

“She’s an Elder,” Eli insisted.  “Adults are mean and un-trust-able.”

That didn’t bode well for bringing in reinforcements.

“Okay, but I was also with my friend Jango.  He’s 16, that’s not an adult on most planets.”

“Meh, too close to a Middle,” Rani declared.  “You’re on the edge of okay.  Same as the Generals, if we could get you away fast enough.”

“Rani…” Ben sighed.  “You can’t just kidnap people!”

“Why not?” she asked, purely innocent.  Kevin buried a laugh behind a hand and saw Cerasi trying to do the same.

“Yeah, why not?” Neild asked.  Ben rolled his eyes.

“Because it’s rude,” he said firmly.  “Did you ask Ser Cadera if he wanted to come with you?”

“Yes!” Rani said.

“Politely?” Ben asked.

Rani flushed red with embarrassment, kicking the floor sheepishly.

“Regardless of how it happened, I’m glad I’m here now,” Kevin cut in.  “Mandalorians treasure children, but I know first hand that not everyone in the galaxy does.  We’d be happy to help.”

“We’ll take any help you can give,” Cerasi said smoothly.

“You, not the Elders that came with you,” Neild cut in, eyes darting to Ben.  “We learned the hard way that even offworld Elders can’t be trusted.”

Kevin sighed.  He needed reinforcements, but he could tell from the steel in Neild’s voice that these three had earned the titles they bore.  Going against their wishes openly would get him taken off the playing field somehow, and sneaking around would ensure that was permanent.

“If I vanish with no trace, they’ll tear this planet to pieces looking for me,” he said calmly.  Not a threat, just a statement.  “If they can’t find me, they’ll call Buir.  My parent is mar’eyi bal tegaanali, a find and rescue specialist.  There’s nowhere you can hide me from her.”

“We can’t just let you leave knowing where we are, either,” Neild said, in the same factual tone.  “Even if you don’t mean to betray us, the Elders aren’t above torture.”

“So let me call Jango,” Kevin argued.  “Like I said, he’s a teenager too, and I trust him with my life.  I trust him with your lives, and getting kids hurt is a fast way to lose my soul, so that should mean something.”

“Don’t tell him where we are,” Ben cautioned, but the other two seemed willing to let him do it if Ben gave the nod, so Kevin pulled up his gauntlet-mounted comm.

“Jango,” he said as his friend’s face flicked into view.

“Kev’ika!  Burc’ya, mhi baati gar jare’la shebs.  Vaii gar?” Jango demanded.

“Sorry, Jango, specifically can’t tell you that,” Kevin sighed.  “I found a mission.”

“Your tooka?”

“Not a tooka,” Kevin said with a sour twist to his lips.  “Ulyc, Alor.  Demagolkase bal dar'buire gayiyla.”

“In Basic,” Cerasi said sternly but softly as Jango gaped at him.

“Every adult native to this planet is a Sticky Bandit class threat," Kevin clarified in Basic.  “I’ve been specifically told not to let you know where I am, and not to contact Arla or Ailyn, because of that.”

“What are you planning?” Jango asked warily.

“To protect the future,” Kevin answered.  She was out of the range of the pickups, but he could picture Arla’s echoing ‘this is the way’ in reflexive habit from her years trying to stay sane with Death Watch.  “I can’t just do nothing, so I’m going to do something. ”

“Oya, Manda!” Jango growled in agreement.

“Oya, ‘alor,” Kevin said with a determined grin as he turned off his comm.

He had work to do.

***

The Young were already fairly adept at the ways of warfare, specifically the tools used by small forces to topple big ones.  They were regularly running supply raids to weaken the Elder’s hold and restore their own stocks, and the complex and overlapping network of underground tunnels left over from attempts at infrastructure or bomb shelters made short work for spies to track the Elder’s movements.

The thing they didn’t have so much were defenses, focusing on swift offense and the secrecy of the sewers.

“I want to establish a forward base in this building here,” Kevin said, pointing to a map drawn with burnt sticks and highlighted with smears of dry red clay.  “It’ll let us more effectively raid the Daan supply depot here, and there should be access to the underground, if I’m reading that right.”

“It does, but that access point is pretty big,” Cerasi said with a wince.

“That’s good, isn’t it?  Means we can move more goods into the underground from there.”

“Yeah, but it’s so big there’s no way to hide it,” Neild said to explain.

“It’s in the basement, right?” Kevin clarified, and got the nods he needed.  “Right, so we fortify that building.  Traps, barricades, choke points, the works.  Make them pay a price for every inch they move inside, so they never reach the basement.”

“Can we do that?” Ben asked hopefully.  “We don’t have much in the way of traps.  Most of what we can steal is blasters or grenades, not mines.”

 “It’s totally possible,” Kevin assured them.  “Improvised weaponry and defensive fortifications are my specialty.   You don’t need mines.”

“There’s also only one of you, and most of our forces are under ten,” Ben pointed out.

“I was eight when this became my specialty,” Kevin snorted.  “It’s not the size of the verd in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the verd.”

Everyone stared at him for a moment, eyes filling slowly with sadness.

“What.. woah, no!  That was not with my Buir.  No Mando’ad would encourage a child that young to take on armed opponents alone with only improvised weapons,” Kevin insisted.  “The only reason I’m not insisting everyone under thirteen stand down, the way most Mando’ade would, is because I know what it’s like to be too young and forced to fight for your home or die at the hands of monsters pretending to be men.”

Ben put one hand on his arm and a surge of warm concern had Kevin swallowing hard on nothing.

“Still, it’s possible to do this. More than possible,” he said.  “I was alone and doing it all for the first time with no guidance, you have me to back you up.  I hadn’t faced battle before, you are all warriors tried and tested.  You are small, but strong.  Young, but brave.  Most importantly, you, unlike the dikut’la Elders, understand Vode An.”

“What’s voh-day ahn?” Rani asked, butting into the conversation by tucking herself under his arm.

“Vode is… it’s siblings, but also friends, comrades.  It’s the Young… you are one aliit, one family, no matter where you came from.  An just means all, but together Vode An means you stand by your vode, and every vod stands by you.”

“One family,” Cerasi breathed out reverently.  “Yeah.  The family I chose.   Not the father that turned on me the moment I wasn’t what he wanted.”

“Dar’buire aren’t family,” Kevin said hotly.  “The dar means they lost that right.  My dar’buire neglected me and exposed me to danger repeatedly.  But the moment my real Buir found me and adopted me, I became Kevin Cadera, and that’s my family now.  The one that chose me, and the one I chose in return.  And we keep choosing it.”

“Family is a verb, not a noun,” Ben agreed.  “A thing you do, a thing you can stop doing, and a thing you can choose to do with different people.”

“And it’s a powerful choice, too,” Kevin said with a nod.  “One the Elders were fools to discount.  You make each other strong when you work as one, they only weaken themselves by refusing to do the same.  I’ll go out there and scout the building, draw up plans, and we can start fortifying it tomorrow.  Then we can hit that supply depot and really get stocked up.”

***

Obi-Wan grit his teeth as Force-strain threatened to take his vision with the glittery aura creeping into his periphery, like his eyes refused to track the crude matter of the things around him.  At least he wasn’t gifted in the Living Force… the Unifying Force was able to track the terrain and other non-living things.  It was just fuzzier on the silly little lies people told to get through the day… like time and space and causality.

“Fall back,” he ordered.  They’d gotten the supplies they needed, but the evacuation was rougher than they’d expected, as reinforcements had arrived and pinned the team covering the exit of the teams carting off the stolen goods.  “Evacuate the wounded!”

There weren’t that many wounded, most of the fallen were dead , but the Elders didn’t need to know that, and calling taking the bodies with them ‘evacuating the wounded’ kept up that illusion and hid their numbers.

“Ben!” someone shouted.

“I’ll hold the line,” he yelled back.  He grabbed the Force and surged.

Space didn’t matter.  The Force was with everything, and everything was one with the Force.

Time didn’t matter.  The Force was always, and all times were one with the Force.

Physical limits didn’t matter.  The Force was with him, and he was one with the Force.

It was a little annoying how purple everything tasted, and how the Elders seemed to catch like a glitched holorecord as he moved around them, and how when he stopped he skidded out and had to extend one leg and touch the ground to stabilize himself, but it didn’t matter.

“Get the Jedi brat!” an Elder shouted, and Ben gave them a wide grin he’d learned from Bant, the one that would never look at home on his far too human-seeming face.  He could feel the blood on his teeth, wet and cold against the enamel, and he knew he didn’t look welcoming.

They still obeyed the order, rushing at him, and Obi-Wan grabbed the Force again, taking a breath and 

E X  P   A    N     D     I     N      G

He didn’t think he actually changed size, but it was as though he did.  He perceived himself taller than the low shattered buildings around them, able to see the retreat of the Young a mile away.  He felt his arms grow long enough to grab the vehicle they’d ridden into the Young’s territory.  He ripped it free of gravity’s hold and pushed the trembling fire racing along too-large phantom limbs into it, a sparking current of energy that ignited the fuel supply as he swung the transport through the cluster of Elders.  The explosion rocked him back on his heels and his back impacted painfully on broken duracrete.

What are you doing!? Kevin shouted, and Obi-Wan frowned.  The older boy was back at the fortified building several blocks away, guiding their defenders.

“What-” he asked, and then realized that while he could feel his voice in his roughened throat, he couldn’t hear it.  One wobbly hand reached up to feel the hot slick if blood at his ears.  How had he heard Kevin?  He staggered in roughly the correct direction, not quite sure where his feet were and clumsier than he'd ever been... Bruck's nickname of Oafy-Wan seemed bitterly ironic now, given the comparative grace he'd had in the creche.

What did you do to yourself? Kevin demanded, appearing in Obi-Wan’s vision with a medical pack in one hand.  Obi-Wan slumped, relief stealing the last of his strength.

“I-” Obi-Wan croaked.  He had only done what needed to be done.  He couldn’t risk the Young, so he risked himself.  He couldn’t allow the Elders to follow them, so he had stopped them.  Fire had been all too easy to harness, an explosion feeling natural.

You did not need to take that sort of risk, Kevin insisted, and pressed a precious hypo to Obi-Wan’s neck before the ex-Jedi could stop him.  Of course he had needed to, in the balance, his life wasn’t worth as much as those of the children.

“That’s bullshit,” Kevin declared, his voice sounding tinny as Obi-Wan’s ears mended.  While the Force was good at speeding the healing process - more so now than ever, with having opened himself wide as a conduit for more than he could technically handle - the fact he was getting his hearing back meant the Mandalorian boy had used one of the really good bacta hypos.

“You shouldn’t-” he started, and Kevin tilted his helmet in a clearly conveyed glare.

“Should.  Can.  Will.  Did,” he bit out.  His anger was audible but tightly leashed inside, away from Obi-Wan’s battered senses.

“I’d do it again,” Obi-Wan said mulishly.  Unbecoming a Jedi, he knew, but it wasn’t like he was a Jedi anymore anyways, after all.

“Sure, but next time, you’ll be getting help from somebody explicitly trained in safely making unexpected shit blow up.  Namely, me."

“I can’t ask-” Obi-Wan said, only to get cut off again by a second hypo.  “Hey!”

“We stole a whole huge crate of medical supplies from the Daan,” Kevin smirked.  “Including a ton of broad spectrum micronutrient hypos and immune boosters.  I am fully prepared to shoot one into you each time you say something jare’la.”

“I don’t need-”  Another hypo, this time in his thigh.

“Tell me you haven’t been skipping meals to give your rations to the others.  Go on Ben, lie to my face,” Kevin challenged.  Obi-Wan stilled, then flinched at a loud sound.

“Kev’ika!  Vod, me’bana?  Mhi haa'tayli tracyn be'chaaj,” another voice said, also strangely tinny, even if Obi-Wan was reasonably sure his ears had healed.  He rolled to sit up, nearly vomiting with fear as another Mandalorian, this one broad-shouldered and solid where Kevin was slender and on the short side, landed by jet-pack.

“Jango, take three big steps back,” Kevin warned.  “You’re freaking out the al'verde.”

“The adiik?” this Jango person asked as he did as Kevin ordered.

“Told you demagokase were everywhere here,” Kevin said sourly.  “That ‘local violence’?  Three part civil war.  The Melida, the Daan, and the Young.  Yes, it is what it sounds like.  This is General Ben.  One of the oldest of the Young.”

“Not the oldest,” Obi-Wan grumbled.

“Yes, yes, at 15, Neild is a decrepit old man.  Just forget he’s a whole six months older than you.”

Jango made a broken sound.

“I’ve got watch if you need to breathe,” Kevin offered.  Jango pulled his helmet off and took long shuddering drags of air.  He was remarkably pretty, all round cheeks and arched brows and full lips.  Obi-Wan blinked at him, somehow forgetting the fear of Mandalorians most Jedi padawans ended up with through creche tales and history lessons.

It was hard to be scared of someone who started weeping because children were caught in a war.

“You gonna make it, vod?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah, gonna be fine,” Jango said, and without his helmet he didn’t sound tinny at all, voice pleasantly deep.  “Arla has the area on scope and Ailyn said she was gonna take the Tome'tayl up into low atmo for a proper scan.  We got the leak fixed, by the way, but we’re still low.”

“I’m pretty sure the Melida have a fuel depot, north by north-east of the city,” Kevin suggested.  “No complaints here if you take it.  We’ll give you a bit of space so you can let loose, even.”

“You sure you’re okay here?” Jango asked, looking skeptically at Obi-Wan.

“I’m fine, vod,” Kevin assured the older boy.  “They don’t have me surrounded….”

“They provided you a target rich environment,” Jango finished with a heart-stopping grin.  Then he turned it on Obi-Wan.  “Gar shuk meh kyrayc, al’verde.  K’oyaci.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, meaning almost everything that had happened since he tossed himself into the Force.

“It means ‘you’re no good dead, stay alive’,” Kevin translated, which was… the least of Obi-Wan’s questions.  “Do you need Jango to go, or can we maybe let him in on things?  I could use some backup to be honest.”

“We have plenty of fighters,” Obi-Wan bristled.

“Not to fight, to babysit.   I can’t handle another of Rica’s talkative spells.”  He turned to Jango.  “He’s five.  When he gets talky, it’s impossible to shut him up no matter how much you want to.  And he’s basically a miniature version of Kandol."

“Kandol is an explosives specialist,” Jango said incredulously.  “Half his entire personality is heavy demolitions.”

“I said what I said,” Kevin muttered.

“Let’s just go,” Obi-Wan said.  “If you were going to turn on us, you would have by now.  If you trust Jango… so will I.”

“Thanks vod!” Kevin said happily.  “You can help carry Ben.  He definitely gave himself some sort of concussion earlier.”

“HEY!”

Chapter Text

“Every adult native to this planet is a Sticky Bandit class threat.  I’ve been specifically told not to let you know where I am, or contact Arla and Ailyn at all, because of that," Kev’ika said over the open comm line.  Jango looked at their sisters with a blink.  There was no way Kevin didn't know they'd be listening too, so he had to be in the presence of his kidnappers.  Combined with the news of a whole planet of demagolkase, Jango didn’t think he was the only one worried about the situation. 

Although being stopped from contacting their ori'vode when he specified that the adults on this planet were demagolkase… yeah, Jango was worried, but not as much about Kevin anymore.

“What are you planning?” Jango asked warily.

“To protect the future,” Kevin answered.

"This is the Way," Arla said immediately, and Kevin smiled like he could hear her, even though Jango knew his kit's capabilities and that Arla was out of pickup range.

"I can’t just do nothing," the young Ori'ramikad said.  There was a dangerous glint in his eye.  "So I’m going to do something."

Something dangerous, involving a lot of very well deserved violence, Jango finished in his head.  But if there was ever a place for Kevin to really let loose, a planet filled with monsters would be it.

"Oya, Manda!" he agreed, accepting Kevin’s salute with a nod before signing off and looking at Ailyn and Arla.

"So, that happened.  We should call our buire."

***

"So, we lost Kevin," Jango's recording said hurriedly.  "But we found him again!  And in true Kevin form, HE found out the planet we had to stop on has a bunch of demagolkase killing kids.  He's got a plan, though!"

"I don’t think that's as reassuring as you think it is," Ailyn interrupted Jango on the comm, her voice dry and calm in spite of her words.

"The plan is 'k ill every demagolka and save all the ade'.   It is a good plan.  A good choice of targets," Arla weighed in.  "We will be late to get back.  Kevin Cadera will not be fighting alone.  This is the Way."

It wasn’t the news Aay’han had been expecting of her ade's mission.  From the look on Jaster’s face, it wasn’t what he expected either.

"Kevin is going to destroy them, isn’t he?" her Mand’alor said with a dazed expression.

"Mmm, yep. If we want any of the fun ourselves, we had better hurry," she advised.  “How fast can we mobilize?”

“The Ha’at Mandoade?” Jaster asked, head tilting.  She knew how long it took to get a squad off the ground - a day, maybe less - and how long it took to launch the full Company - ideally two weeks, but they could get it down to one if they were willing to skimp on supplies.  With the situation being what it was, she wasn’t and she didn’t think Jaster was either.

“No.  Everyone, not just the Ha’atade,” Aay’han said with a shake of her head, lekku twitching.  “We’re going to need them, if my son has declared war." 

"You taught him the rules of war, yes?" Jaster asked nervously.

"I taught him it's not okay to be the one who starts disobeying the rules of war... I said nothing about what happens after the other side breaks them.”

***

Jaster was on his flag ship going over the mobilization plans with his War Council when his comm pinged again with another long distance message.  He immediately pulled out the device to receive Jango’s report, and reflected that he really should have pegged Montross as rotten the first time he’d reacted to Jaster taking his son’s calls with an eyeroll, instead of the calm acceptance he now received from his Council.  Also, it was a lot more stable feeling, having a group of seconds, rather than just one.

Jango’s recorded face was blurry from low-light, but the panic was clear enough that Jaster’s heart hitched.  His son’s eyes were also paler on the hologram than they should have been, a sign the Taung instincts were bothering him again.

"Buir, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out,” Jango choked out brokenly.  Jaster felt his gut drop as he counted stress lines on his son’s far too young face.

“Hey!   Our defenses are solid, we can last another month or two, easy,” someone young and unfamiliar said as they passed behind Jango.

“No, not like that, the defenses are… impressive,” Jango admitted.  “Kevin does good work.  Terrifying work - I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many grown humans reduced to weeping in the fetal position so fast - but it is effective.  Survival isn’t the problem, the demagolkase here don’t scare me.  It’s the kids."  

Jango drew a shaky breath, clearly trying to stabilize himself.

"Buir, the five year old is scaring me.  Kevin said they were like Kandol and I didn’t believe him, but I was wrong.   They keep telling me about the mine fields and how they go through them and steal the bombs.  They're threatening to do it again, Buir!"

The explosives technician in question perked up.

“Offering,” someone with a weary but posh Core accent corrected.  “Rica was offering to do it again because this is his job and he’s quite justly proud of his skills.”

“He’s karking FIVE!” Jango shouted, turning away to glare at them.  “He should be proud of his skills in, I don’t know, doing all his chores or finishing his veggies or getting good grades on learning modules!” Jango shot back, wide eyes darting off camera.

“Um, your eyes….”

“I know!  I’m surrounded by osik’la demagolka bal verd’ikkade, you really think I’m not on the edge of losing it, Ben?”

There was a long pause, where Jaster thought maybe Jango had forgotten the recording, as he stared off past the pickup with a look of broken longing.  The posh voice, Ben, sighed heavily.

“Do you want me to help shore your mind up?  I can put the same shields in place that I use.”

“Maybe later.  I need to send this to Buir.”

He definitely had forgotten the recording was still going, since it cut out in the middle like he’d hit send before turning it off.

“So, you looking forward to meeting your son’s cyare?” someone teased, and Jaster groaned.

“Forget that, I want to know if this Rica kid is in the market for a new buir!” Kandol said a little too loudly, in the way of explosives specialists everywhere.  “I’ll definitely take him if he is… five and already figuring out how to disarm and rearm mines?  Kandosii’la!”

“They all have dar’buire,” Jaster reminded his people.  “So they may want a proper buir, but they also might be sour on the idea of parents at all.  You know how some kids get.  I don’t want to hear that anyone tried to spring an ambush adoption, you’ll get proper consent or you’ll not be saying the Gai bal Manda, tayli’bac?”  

He looked around the table at the agreeing nods, then continued.

“Now, let’s go over supplies again.  We’ve got the list from the baar’ure and the Mar’eyi bal Tegaanali coordinators, and we’re getting everything stowed as fast as we can, but we need to talk about distribution.  I want to be sure everyone knows who has what and how we’re getting them to a bunch of skittish, secretive children.”

***

Jaster got the third report as they dropped out of hyperspace above the planet of Melida’Daan.  He expected that, the long-range emergency system Jango had been using didn’t reach ships in hyperspace, but dropping into real space would trigger the transmission.

“There’s another one!” Arla was cheering in the background as Jango’s pale eyes stared dead at the pickup of the holorecorder, face sort of shocky and visible tear tracks in the grime on his face.

"I took my eyes off him for two seconds, Buir!” Jango said somewhat dazedly.  “I mean, I knew Ben was jare’la, I met him because he blew up a whole block with his brain, but….  Two seconds!”

“Ailyn, there’s another Murder Baby!” Arla cackled behind him, waving off into the unseen distance.

“Arla, you do realize that means there is a second person, who is just as bad as Kevin, right?” Ailyn’s dry voice weighed in.

“Oh kark, there’s another Murder Baby,” Arla said with a much less jovial tone.

“I don’t know what happened,” Jango said, roughly shoving one hand into his hair.  “One of the ikkade was crying, so I turned to hold them, and then suddenly Ben was gone and then I… I dunno, I blinked and Kevin was gone too and the two of them are out there somewhere and I have no idea where.”

“Or what they’re doing,” Arla said in a hushed, fearful tone. 

A loud explosion cracked across the audio and a fine static of falling dust dropped over the image, causing Jaster’s heart to leap to his throat.

“Pretty sure they’re doing that,” Ailyn said, then took a breath to push her voice into the projecting register used in disasters and battlegrounds.  “EVACUATION PROTOCOL, EVERYONE GRAB A BABBY OR A GO-BAG, LET’S MOVE IT!”

The feed cut off and Jaster checked the time stamp.  He’d barely missed it before they launched.  With the hyperspace travel time and the dilation effects, maybe just over a week ago for Jango.

“Osik,” he swore, then looked at the rest of his officers on the bridge.  “Prepare for landing.  Launch your shuttles in the pattern we discussed, I want full coverage of that planet.  If you see ade, you give them supplies and defend them.  See anyone full grown… you have my permission to fire first and ask questions after, but you can make your own choices on the ground.”

“Oya, Manda!”  The cheer was loud, short and sharp with a dozen voices before vanishing just as quickly as everyone moved swiftly to their positions.

“Hang on, Jan’ika, Buir is coming.”

***

Obi-Wan had blood and dust in his eyes.  This was fine. Explosions had been raining debris down on them even when they managed the blast. He just had to lean a little more into the Force instead of relying on his eyes.  It was fine, he just needed to get his squad back into the tunnels and then he could wash it off. 

Problem was, there were Elders between them and the nearest sewer entrance, they’d have to go around to another, farther one, or through, and Roenni had broken her ankle tripping over a rock that hadn’t been there the moment before.  He could mend simple breaks, could drop enough sheer power into them to overcome his lack of skill with the Living Force, but ankles?  It would be a miracle if Roenni would walk again, and every second out here lowered the odds he could pull yet another miracle out of his robes.

It was going to have to be through.

He took a breath, closed his eyes and reached for the Force, lifting his blaster and stepping out from the shelter, drawing aim on the swirls of red-black in the Force as he stepped.  Squeeze, step, slide right, aim, step, squeeze. 

It was troubling how easy it was, as he watched the dried-blood swirls stutter, eddy, and wink out, and cared not at all.  What would Master Jinn think of him now?

It was fine. He’d known there would be no going back.

It was fine.

It was fine, because the Force said it was fine.  He could feel it, springing ready and eager to his call without any struggle.  He didn’t even feel the effects of Force Strain, and given all he was doing right now, he really should be.  Instead he felt the warm bloom of the Force, saw a brightness in the sky ahead that had nothing to do with the local star, which had passed by the horizon a few minutes ago in a blaze of ominous red that streaked the sky like an infected wound, leaving a cool darkness behind.

Obi-Wan straightened his spine, and used the hand-sign Kevin had taught them to indicate to the others to put Roenni on his back.  He could use the Force to strengthen him enough to carry their downed vod, and they’d move faster that way.

He hefted Roenni up, stabilizing her with one hand while keeping his grip on the blaster in the other as he stubbornly ignored the panic that welled up as her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders, and held firm.  One last check that everyone was ready, and Obi-Wan stepped out and around the corner, stifling a sigh as more muddy swirls came running around the farther corner.

"Run!" he shouted, aiming and firing as they picked up the pace.

He paid no mind to the hum of engines. He didn't have time to worry about that. He didn't even notice the higher pitched whir that followed.

Roenni loosed one hand and aimed her own tiny blaster, firing behind them. Obi-Wan breathed and reached.   

The Force laughed at him.

“Incoming!” announced the tinny voice of a vocoder.  Deep voice, not Kevin’s unusual accent, probably Jango for all Obi-Wan wasn’t picking up his Force signature right now, what with beskar and frayed nerves.  “Hit the deck, adiike!”

“Jango,” Obi-Wan breathed out in gratitude, turning to see someone who was decidedly NOT Jango skid backwards from the force of a rocket launcher on their shoulder firing.  The afterimage of the blast painted spots of green and blue over gray and orange armor.  Obi-Wan nearly fell backwards onto Roenni in shock, when a teal-armored Mando’ad dropped from the sky like a terribly competent hailstone.

“Ni baar’ur.  I’m a medic,” they said.  “May I?”

“Medics outrank everyone,” Obi-Wan said on instinct and repetition, the phrase repeated so often in their sewer hideout that it came as easily to him as Arla’s refrain of “this is the way”.

“Gar serim.  You’re very right,” the Medic said.  “But it’s polite to ask.  Especially when treating an ally’s verde, lek?”

Obi-Wan considered it.  “Yes.  Roenni, you good to go with the Mando Medic?”

Roenni snorted.

“Get me off the di’kut’s back, he’s gonna fall over,” she snorted.

“We need to keep moving,” Obi-Wan said sternly.  “Help doesn’t mean we aren’t in an active battle zone, surrounded by hostiles.”

“No, but the thirty six Haat’ade assigned to this sector does,” the Medic said, glancing up at the orange and grey Mando.  “Myles, how are we looking?”

“Meshla a’ nu’kebbu,” Myles reported, and the medic made a rude gesture.

“Mir’sheb, that better mean I’m not treating an adiik in a hot zone!”

“Nah, we got them all,” Myles clarified.  “They were clustered in two buildings on either end of this… is this supposed to be a road?”

“Yeah, it used to be a highway through the capital,” Sono volunteered, eyeing the Mandos speculatively.  Probably considering the best way to knock them over and relieve them of their ration supplies.  He wouldn’t, not to an ally, but a scavenger’s instincts die hard, and it took a lot for Sono not to immediately assess everything for it’s potential to be scrounged, stolen, or sabotaged.

“Right,” Myles said, looking at the broken expanse of pavement.  “Well, anyways, two buildings, no adult life forms on the scans in either, a couple well-aimed rockets and the clean up crews are reporting all missions blue.  Took ‘em long enough.”

“Hey!” another Mando’ad called grumpily.  His armor was a dusty green and soft golden yellow.  “We’ve only been here twenty minutes!”

“The squads in sector Cuir reported full clearance in fifteen, Silas.  K’brali.”

“Sector Cuir didn’t have the shabuire dug in like fleas on a striil,” Silas groused.  “Oh hey there, adiike!  Don’t worry, you’re safe now.  I’m Silas!  The grump is Captain Myles, and I can see you’ve met the lovely Baar’ur Rook.  We’ll make sure all the bad people are gone and get you some good food and warm clothes, yeah?”

Sono gave Obi-Wan a look, one that begged permission to take the openly affable Mando for everything he had, just to prove a point.

“Su’cuy, Silas,” Obi-Wan said, very unsubtly flashing a hand sign for ‘stand down’ to Sono’s disappointment.  “Ner gai Al’verde Ben, aliit Evaar.  Vor entye.”

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure how he knew Silas and Myles’ jaws had dropped, since they both had helmets on and neither moved, but he did.  The Force, maybe, if it weren’t still laughing.

They were still a moment, bodies tense in the way he associated with Ailyn and Arla talking on their comms behind Jango and Kevin’s backs, but then they relaxed.

“We should get you back to your people, General,” Myles said.  “The alor will want to speak with the leaders of Aliit Evaar.”

***

Kevin was flushed and slightly winded when his Buir arrived at the designated meeting place, flanked by a wary, watchful guard of Young.  As much as it still hurt to see that darkly cautious expression on faces that should still be carrying baby fat instead of battle marks, he wasn’t worried.  They’d see.  Like he had.

“Buir!!” he called, waving one arm over his head to call her attention to him… and off the crowd of battle-scarred children that had to be giving the small cluster of Mando’ade allowed into the meeting in one of the fall-back bases heart palpitations.  

The base was formerly a speeder parking garage, sturdy duracrete sunk two levels into the earth and one above in a low, squat structure that would be hard to bring down.  It was easy to defend, and had a hidden connection to the underground tunnels on the second basement level, but it hadn’t had the other things he looked for in a base, hence its status as a backup.  That’s why Neild had been willing to burn it for a meeting with adults.

“Kev’ika!” she cried in reply, jerking like she was going to run to him, but stopped short when Eran pivoted on one foot and shifted their grip on their blaster.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, moving to her, since it was pretty clear the Young weren’t planning to let their guests out of the controlled zone between the guards.

“Me’vaar ti gar?” she asked, buy’ce moving slightly as she scanned him.

“Naas, I’m good,” he said.  “Better now that you’re here, though.  I was almost getting tired of killing demagolkase.”

“Well, thank you for sharing,” another voice said.  Kevin took his eyes off Buir to greet Jaster properly, with one hand on his kar’ta and then a cheery wave.

“Hi Mr. Jango’s Dad!” he chirped, the old nickname that had slipped out once and sort of stuck bringing a smile to his face even if it couldn’t currently be seen.

“I’m glad you’re well, Kev’ika,” Jaster said.  “But where are my children?”

“Arla is with the ikkade,” Kevin told him, earning a sour look from Neild.  “And Jango should be on his way, he said he was going to meet up with Myles and Silas, since they found Ben.  They’ll be here soon.”

“We are here,” Jango said, walking past the anxious shift of the guards without seeming to notice it, slumping into Jaster’s arm.  “Su’cuy Buir.”

“Is that the kriffing Mand’alor Jango is rubbing on like a tooka?” Ben hissed into Kevin’s audio pickup with a crackle of static from the hushed tone.

“It’s Jango’s Dad,” Kevin said.  “There’s debate about if Jaster is Mand’alor or not, but it’s mostly died down to actual debate, these days.”

“They’re Jango’s DAD?” Ben squawked, somewhat louder than he probably planned.

“Elek!” Jaster said brightly, looking up from Jango, leaving one arm slung around armored shoulders.  “I am Jango and Arla’s Buir!  Aren’t they great?  I’m so proud of them.  Feels like just yesterday you were my little Verd’ika, pulling pranks and defeating treasonous war criminals.”

“It was yesterday,” Jango grumbled.  “What do you think we’ve been doing all this time?”

“And I am so incredibly proud of you, ad’ika,” Jaster said more seriously.  “You fell into a bad situation, and you had the wisdom to find the best, most honorable way out of it.  You’re going to see the Mir’baar’ur the second we get home, though.  You did well, but Mando’ade don’t walk on injuries if they don’t have to.”

“Obviously,” Jango snorted.  “We’ll need to get some of them out here, too, though.”

Kevin looked away from the burgeoning discussion about importing healers, to check in on Ben, who had gone a little pale.

“You good there, vod?” he asked.

“Jango is a prince,” Ben said faintly.

“Meh, not really.  We don’t do inherited titles.  To the people who see Jaster as Mand’alor, Jango is just the son-slash-apprentice of the Mand’alor, but it doesn’t guarantee anything.  Yeah, he’s training for the job and nobody these days is thinking of challenging him, but it’s not ‘cause he’s Jaster’s kid or anything.”

“And to the people who don’t?” Ben asked, one brow twitching upward.

“To everyone who doesn’t see Jaster as Mand’alor… Jango is Mand’alor.  There’s this old magic sword, it’s complicated.”

“Mand’alor!” Ben squeaked.

“Yes?” Jaster and Jango asked in unison, turning toward the sound.  Ben flushed, and Jaster chuckled.

“Aww, he’s adorable.  You have good taste, Jan’ika.”

“Buir!” Jango protested in mortified horror.  Kevin promptly burst out laughing hard enough to shake his knees and land him hard on his shebs, groaning as he braced his ribs with one hand.

“Kevin!” Buir shouted, appearing beside him in a heartbeat, a heartbeat that throbbed painfully in Kevin’s side.  The world was graying out on him in a way that had nothing to do with his HUD, and saliva built up in his mouth as he fought through pain to swallow.

“Move,” Ben ordered firmly, laying one hand on Kevin’s side, fingers worming under the beskar plates.  “This needs off, he’s broken a rib.”

Buir stripped the armor off his torso with deft motions and Ben pulled back the kute and laid a cool hand on skin that suddenly felt too hot.

“You were putting weight on this,” he commented.

“You’re no better, Mr. “I don’t need that, it’s just my knee.”!  They were just bruised!”

“This one was fractured, and that fall took it the rest of the way,” Ben countered.  “Deep breath, this will suck hawkbat dung.”

“Always does,” Kevin agreed as Ben pushed the warm light of his magic into Kevin’s side, knitting bone and flesh.  Kevin grit his teeth and let his mind step sideways to his body, coming back when the burn was a dull ache.

“What was that?” Buir asked.

“Oh, right. I suppose introdu- ah,” Ben said, staggering to his feet.  Jango caught him under one arm to keep him stable.  “Introductions, in order, yes.”

“You gonna be okay?” Jango asked the red-head blinking at Kevin’s buir.

“I’ll be fine, dear,” he said, patting Jango’s arm before meeting Jaster's eyes.  “I am Obi-Wan Kenobi, former Jedi Padawan.”

“Ben!” Neild yelped, suddenly shoving into the circle, one hand on the blaster at his waist.  “I thought you said not to share that!”

“It’s okay.  The Mand’alor feels like one of those super soft plush toys for younglings.  The really squashy ones.”

“He’s high on magic,” Kevin told them.  “He did it before, too.  We should probably call the other space wizards to ask if that’s normal or not.”

“We most certainly will,” Jaster agreed.  “We owe a debt, and Mando’ade pay our debts.  In the meantime, we brought supplies!  Who wants food that isn’t ration bars?”

Chapter Text

Kevin had been expecting his Buir would want to adopt Ben.  Honestly, he’d been expecting that there’d be a full out brawl for who got to adopt Ben.  Kid had mandokar coming out his ears.

Ben - no, Obi-Wan - pretty clearly had not anticipated getting adoption offers.  His face was a slideshow of shock, desire, guilt, and suspicion, but at least Jaster was smart enough to predict that, where Kevin hadn’t, and the brawl Kevin had imagined never happened.  Actually, everyone was pretty subdued, for all he could pretty much smell the excitement over the Young coming off the Mando’ade now dropping by more and more often with supplies as the Alor’e worked things out.

The Young were all still pretty twitchy, but less as time went on.  They’d figured out that while the Mando’ade pretty much knew all the entrances the Young used to the tunnels, they neither attempted to enter the tunnels nor did anything to expose the tunnels to the few former-Elders who had surrendered rather than fight the entire armed forces of Mandalore.  The food they left all being good and not poisoned helped too.  The bravest of them had started sidling up next to specific Mando’ade to watch them work on whatever clean-up task Cerasi, Neild, and Ben had assigned that day, occasionally asking questions.  Rica - little adrenaline junkie he was - had even let Kandol carry him on his shoulders as the two went scouting out old munitions depots.

Jaster had agreed to take whatever weapons were turned up during the cleanup as his pay for the retroactively negotiated contract to remove the Elders from power.  Political destabilizations for pay weren’t exactly in the Codex, but Ben had made some valid points about truth from a different point of view, and how at least doing it for pay was legal in the Republic… it was just freelancing that counted as an invasion.  Kevin really had to wonder who decided that rule was a good idea, but it wasn’t his business.  Manda’yaim wasn’t a Republic world, and they had sensible laws, so all he had to know was how not to break the laws while on a job, which mostly boiled down to ‘follow Guild policy, don’t rack up collateral damages, and when in doubt blame your employer’.

Eventually, though, the cleanup was into the phase where the three al’verde didn’t need to be making daily decisions about it, the Young had lost the last of their fear of the Mando’ade, and Buir brought Ben into the Besbev Laar for dinner with them.  It was a little weird to watch it from the outside, remembering how Buir had found him, brought him in and fed him a very similar dinner, explaining armor and redemption and a strange new version of family that acted as a verb rather than a loose collection of disinterested nouns.

Ben got the point a little quicker than Kevin had, at least.  He was older.

“I… am not opposed to becoming a Mandalorian, but I would want time to consider it,” he said slowly, diplomatically.  “I spent my whole life thinking I would be a Jedi, knowing that my path was that of a Jedi Knight, even when I was told I couldn’t be.  Told I was too angry, too impulsive, too easily attached.  I have always trusted the Force, and I… I thought it was leading me to become a Jedi Knight.  To leave that behind… it’s hard.”

“I mean, do you have to?” Kevin asked, head tilted to fit a folded flatbread in his mouth better.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Kev’ika,” Buir chided.  “But he has a point.  Ailyn didn’t stop being Kiffar when I adopted her.  She still regularly comms her tal’aliit, she just didn’t want to live with them by the time we found them, she’d gotten used to me and change is hard.  I wouldn’t stop you from contacting your Jettise friends and family, or pursuing any training you wanted.  It’s a Buir’s duty and honor to provide whatever is needed for their ade to be happy, healthy, and able to choose their own path.”

“Really?” Ben asked, eyes watering a little, and Kevin politely pretended it was the red sauce.

“Let me prove it,” Buir offered.  “ If you could comm anyone at home, right now, who would you want to comm?"

“My friends…” Ben said softly.  “Bant… I don’t know if she has a comm yet; we get personal comms when we become Padawans.  Garen is always losing his comm, so I don’t know if he has the same code.  Siri is just going to yell at me for getting into trouble without her…  Oh!  Quinlan!  He’s a great friend, and he’s a Padawan, and I know his comm code.”

“Alright, what’s the code?” Buir asked, and punched it in as Ben told her.  When the image flicked up of a Kiffar with a light stripe across his nose, Ben let out a short, strangled sound of joy.

“Hello?” Quinlan said, and Aayhan sighed.

“I suppose I should have guessed he wouldn’t want to call an adult,” she muttered.  “Adiik, would you mind finding an adult you trust to join us on this conversation?  I have a former Padawan here who wanted to speak to you, and I want to ask one of the grown Jettise some questions.”

“A former… OBES!” the Kiffar shouted, the audio echoing before the automatic adjustment kicked in to make it less deafening.  As a result, Kevin didn’t quite catch what he was yelling off to someone on his end, but it resulted in a stern-looking Jetti with a wicked scar over one eye appearing beside the Padawan.

“This is Jedi Master Tholme,” he introduced.  “I understand you have Padawan Kenobi.”

“I have a Ben Young here, yes,” Buir said dryly.  “My understanding is that he ceased being a Padawan when his dar’buir abandoned him in a war-zone without a weapon.  It isn’t right to completely cut an adiik off from their people when you adopt them… unless those people pose a significant threat to them.  Which is why I’m lending him my comm to make this call, but I wanted to be sure both ends of the conversation are monitored by an adult.  For the children’s safety.”

Tholme had a sour look on his face, but Kevin got the feeling it wasn’t directed at his Buir.  Ben’s dar’buir, though… yeah, Kevin had a feeling that guy ought to be running.

Ben didn’t seem to catch any of that, though, since he was taking the comm and talking at the other Padawan.  Talking more than Kevin had ever heard him, really.  Ben had always been a fairly quiet, serious sort of kid, only a little older than the others and taking it as reason to be the adult.  Kevin wasn’t irresponsible but he at least let himself be a kid when he could.  It seemed like Ben had turned it all off while the danger was around, and only figured out how to turn the fun back on once he saw a friend.

Kevin leaned into his Buir with a soft ring of beskar on beskar, heart aching and heavy in his chest from the way the conversation threw the other boy’s trauma into sharp relief.

And from the way he downplayed how bad it was.

“Your report is inaccurate,” Kevin said sourly.  Ben flinched and his shoulders crept up to his ears.  “Hey, it’s no problem for me.   I gave my Alor a solid report, so did Arla and Ailyn, and Jango… definitely did his best.  So our people have good intel and can make good choices with it.  Just thought you’d want to do the same for the Jettise.  If not… it’s fine, you just need to lose the habit before your verd’goten.”

“I… I didn’t lie to them!” Ben protested.

“Falsification of a report is one problem,” Kevin said with a shrug.  “Under reporting and misleading reports are different issues.  All three get good verde dead, and I know you know that… General .”

Ben deflated at that, and on the comm the Padawan gaped at him, and the older Jetti’s frown deepened.

“A General!   Obes, you said you were just lending a hand.  General is more than lending a hand.”

“It’s not like I had much choice,” Obi-Wan whispered.  “I don’t want you thinking I’m, I don’t know, Dark or something.”

“We would never,” Tholme said seriously.  “We have met you.”

Kevin snorted, because hey… it was kinda funny.  Buir gave him a Look.

“Also, what should we do the next time he throws a building with his brain and gets all loopy?” Kevin asked.

“That’s- I didn’t… it’s not like that!” Ben spluttered.  “I was trying to keep the debris off you!”

“And you did!” Kevin said brightly.  “By smacking it a quarter mile down the road.  But after that, you spent ten minutes complaining how purple the air tasted and asking me what the smell was with the funny texture.”

Tholme looked pained, but Quinlan nodded sagely, "That happens to me sometimes after I get stuck in someone else's memories for too long. The colors don't seem to have much reason to them, sometimes it's a sound, sometimes it's a smell, and they're never quite the same sound or smell. Except the rapid food heating unit. That always beeps mauve. I have no idea why. At least it's not puce. What was the smell with the funny texture?"

“It was Mara’s blood sugar, it had dropped and we didn’t realize until Ben smelled it on her breath,” Kevin said.  “I gave her some emergency gel and that fixed it, but if he hadn’t we might not have known until she went down.  So it was good, but still.  Ten minutes.”

“That is… not ideal,” Tholme said gravely.  “I will want Healer Che to look over you when you get back, Obi-Wan.”

“Who said he was going back?” Buir asked challengingly.  “Your people left a child on this hell-planet with nothing, not even decent coping skills or the concept of a healthy boundary, apparently.  Why would I ever trust you with him again?”

“Because you’re coming here too,” Tholme said with a grin that made happy, feral trills go up Kevin’s back.  “Because this is where you’ll find the people who put Obi-Wan with Jinn.  Fortunately, I was raised to believe sharing is a polite thing to do, so they’ll still be around when you arrive.  Probably.  Mostly.”

“You should probably also tell them about the other civil war and the mind control thing and all the other stuff you left out,” Kevin weighed in.  Ben sighed, and Tholme made a sound like he’d been lightly stabbed.  “He cleaned them up to tell as bedtime stories, but you can tell, they were messed up.  And if this is the kind of report he gives… you need to ask a lot of clarifying questions.”

“You are such a-”

Kevin slapped a hand over Ben’s mouth.  “Careful with the bad words you definitely only learned from Jango and not me or Ailyn because we don’t use those words around adike.”

Quinlan ducked out of sight of the comm pickup a moment and popped back up with a pad and stylus. "Ready to take notes and translate Obi-Wan-ese!" he chirped. "Underreporting and 'cleaning up' has been Obi's primary language since we were five."

What came out of the teenage Jetti’s mouth when Kevin let go was more horrifying than any anger Buir might have had at Kevin maybe-accidentally teaching the Young to cuss in Mando’a.  A story that had a vague resemblance to the bedtime tales, eked out with self-depreciating asides and bitter laughs at the worst of the pain.  Starting with bullying that made Kevin’s foggy memories of his dar’vode seem cheery, including a fight with a live weapon that should have been a spar, and getting worse from there.  Exile, combat before he’d even turned thirteen, betrayal by someone who should have been like aliit, slavery.

“What.  Planet,” Buir growled, lekku twitching angrily.

“Bandomeer, but it’s done now.  They kicked Offworld Corp… well, off-world.  The mines aren’t run that way anymore.”

“Offworld, you say,” Tholme said speculatively.

“I’ve got that one,” Buir cut in.  “My people don’t need a reason, yours do.”

“Appreciated.  I’ll take care of Chun, then, and the Creche staff who should have figured out what was happening.”

“Good, don’t let it happen again.”

The story didn’t get better with the addition of Jinn.  The first mission got sidetracked because of karking mind control and even though Kevin had known it was bad even in the cleaner version, he hadn’t expected some of Ben’s Jetti euphemisms to hit the others like they did.  Apparently he was talking around a word Basic didn’t have, but Jetti’a did, a word that meant something horrifying.

"If you get Offworld Corp, I get Syndicat," Tholme said.  “This one is… personal.  I’ll call in some favors with people I know.  Ones that don’t need approval.”

Quinlan snorted, "You could get approval, easy, just list it under a…certain subset of missions the Senate doesn't get a say in. It qualifies."

“Yes, but Fay and Nico would be upset if I didn’t invite them."

"Fair. Don't leave Master Knoll out. She's got dibs on excuses for justified explosions."

***

Tholme ended the call with young Obi-Wan and took a harsh, shuddering breath.

“Do you need to meditate?” Quinlan asked him, leaning up into his space in a very comforting way they didn’t do in front of other Jedi.  Hardly dignified to have his Padawan rubbing on his side like a tooka, but honestly Tholme had never cared about dignity.

“Eventually, yes,” Tholme admitted.  “And a session with Healer Mais.  You too, Padawan.”

“Obviously,” Quinlan said with an eye roll.  “I don’t walk on wounds, I’m not Obi-Wan.”

“Yes, well, forgive my overprotectiveness for now, please,” Tholme chuckled, stroking a hand over his child’s hair.  “As I was saying, I will certainly need to meditate on what we’ve learned, and see my soul-healer, but for now I think the best meditation would be a moving one.”

Quinlan grinned up at him, teeth bare.

“Can I go spend time with the rest of Dragon Clan for a bit?” he asked, and Tholme laughed.

“Force be with you, and with your friends, Padawan.  Try not to burn anything down.”

Chapter Text

Mace had a headache.  This wasn’t unusual, he’d had a whole series of little cluster headaches the past few weeks, faint enough that the shatterpoints connected to them must be fairly far away.  Today was a bit different, since instead of a dull ache with small sparks of brighter pin-pricks he was beset with a pressure that ringed his temples.

He almost wanted to go to the Healing Halls, but he’d been invited to sit in on a Council meeting.  His skills with shatterpoints meant he did occasionally get asked to weigh in on complex cases, even though he wasn’t on the Council yet.  There were some older Masters who had suggested that when they stepped down he was on the list to take their seat, but for now, he was just there to advise.

The reason for his headache became obvious when the two parties of the case in question stepped into the chamber.

“Master Tholme, a grievance you bring against Master Jinn, hmm?” Yoda asked.  The Shadow twitched a brow.

“I’m bringing a grievance against Knight Jinn, yes,” he said.  “Seeing as he denies ever having trained a Padawan to Knighthood, the title of Master does not apply.”

“Now that’s just rude,” Jinn muttered.

“Your criminal negligence and bias has not only hampered Shadow investigations and potentially endangered your fellow Jedi, but resulted in extreme harm to a child in your care,” Tholme hissed.  “You are very lucky that I actually attend my soul-healing sessions, unlike you.”

“Wait, he’s not going to soul-healing?” Mace asked, shocked.  “You mean before he was training Kenobi, right?”

“No, no I don’t,” Tholme said darkly.  “Speaking of which, do you know where Kenobi is?”

Mace blinked.  He hadn’t been there when Jinn gave his report, but based on the bright little youngling’s previous habits, he had assumed Obi-Wan was merely holed up with studying.

“On Melida-Daan he elected to remain,” Yoda said softly.

“Yes, in the war-zone that blinded Master Tahl,” Tholme said.  “Alone.  Without his saber, because this fool abandoned him there and told him he wasn’t a Jedi anymore.  Because Obi-Wan found the Will of the Force in the cause of literal children fighting their parents for peace, rather than in Jinn’s… preoccupation with Tahl..”

“What??” Mace shouted, and several others echoed him.

“We must go rescue him!” Master Yaddle demanded.

“That is no longer possible, I’m afraid,” Tholme said gravely, and the whole chamber fell into a shocked, grieving silence.

“Dead, young Kenobi is?” Yoda croaked.  

Master Tyvokka howled mournfully, not words but simple loss.

“No, that’s… I would have felt it,” Qui-Gon protested.  Mace glared at him.

“Would you now?” he growled.  “Would you have felt it if a Padawan you never wanted, never accepted, never deserved had died?  Or would you have kept on, blithe and blind and leaving pain and Darkness in your wake?  How many more Padawans will you break?  How many will I be left trying to repair?”

“Mace?” Qui-Gon asked, a baffled look on his usually placid face.

“Did you ever ask what happened to Feemor?  The boy you Knighted, the boy you discarded?  Ever wonder what that pain would do to him?  What Darkness it would open him to?”

“No… Feemor wouldn’t Fall!  I taught him better than that.”

“He didn’t, but it’s entirely to his own credit,” Mace agreed.  “To his credit he sought soul-healers out to learn to regulate his emotions, sought me out to learn Vapaad as a way to control the Darkness you left him open to.”

Tholme coughed loudly.

“Actually, Masters... and Jinn,” Tholme added grudgingly, his disdain like a weapon in the Force.  “Obi-Wan Kenobi is beyond rescue because he has already been rescued.  He rescued himself, actually, with some help from four Mandalorian younglings who were stranded by misadventure on the same planet.”

Half the council sagged in relief, the other half releasing irritation into the Force at the unnecessary drama.  Mace privately thought it was very necessary, as much as he wished he had been given a heads up.  The Council, especially Yoda, had been incredibly reckless with Kenobi, and anyone could have seen Jinn shouldn’t be raising another Padawan.  With luck, the shock would wake them up.

“Mandalorians, good to younglings are,” Yoda said warily.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Jocasta chided.

“Adopt them, they do,” Yoda warned dramatically.  “Attachment, they teach them.”

“Shut up, you should, mmm?” Yaddle countered, mockery in her tone.  She adapted to modern language conventions better than the other ancient master, being a century younger, so the mimicry was clearly intentional.  “Enough of a mess you have made.  Minding your business now, the least you can do.”

“Can we please get back to the grievance, please?” Mace begged, his head starting to pound painfully.

“Of course,” Tholme agreed.  “In addition to the matter of Kenobi, which I do have more information about but which can wait, there’s the matter of Knight Jinn’s reckless neglect of proper reporting.  As I have recently been reminded by a boy even younger than Obi-Wan, under-reporting and misleading reports get good warriors just as dead as outright false ones.  And Jinn left off many details the Shadows needed, including the highly misleading report from his Telos IV mission.”

“I did not lie,” Jinn began.

“Then when were you going to tell us Xanatos is still out there, running around using the Dark Side, enslaving initiates, and plotting attacks of mass destruction?” Tholme demanded, one finger jabbing Qui-Gon in the sternum.

“I thought Xanatos was dead,” Mace blurted, a pain like a spike lancing his eye as a shatterpoint shattered into a million shards of secrecy and shame.  “Ow.”

“The boy I raised-”

“Is running a mining company, and is responsible for torturing and enslaving Obi-Wan.  In fact, I suspect you took him as a Padawan less out of actual admiration and more to keep him quiet about that fact, as you certainly never told us about a run-in with a Darksider.  We would have demanded you actually see your soul-healer.”

“Truth, does he speak, my Grand-Padawan?” Yoda asked, ears drooping in remorse.

“Well, I suppose,” Jinn mumbled, looking away.

“You also never reported the planet wide mind control on Phindar,” Tholme added, and Jinn flinched.

“We handled it!” he protested, but his eyes stayed locked on the ground like a petulant Padawan caught tower-jumping without a spotter.

“And did Obi-Wan ever receive a soul-healer’s care for that experience?” Jocasta demanded archly.

“No he did not,” Tholme said.  “As while the details of soul-healer sessions are confidential, they definitely would have informed the Shadows about a mass case of prolonged soul-violation, because we need to know Phindar is going to be a Dark Side hot spot for the next century or so.  The first I heard of it was the Mandalorian child who befriended Obi-Wan demanding he talk to an adult about something he’d apparently normalized enough to tell as a bedtime story.”

Mace hissed.  Both from sympathy and from another cracking shatterpoint, this one leaving waves of colored light at the edges of his vision as Tholme’s comm went off.  The projector showed a set of figures in armor, mostly human in form, but one appeared to be a Twi’lek.

“That was fast.”

“Mando’ade make good ships,” the largest figure, a broad-shouldered human said in a deep rumble.  “Ner gai Baar’ur Emi Cadera.  You’ve met ner vod, Aay’han.”

The Twi’lek nodded.  “We’re not quite at Coruscanta yet, we decided a comfortable ride was more important for the ade than a fast one.  Is that Jinn?”

Tholme nodded.

“You have ten hours, if you want to make this fun, Demagolka,” she advised.

“Please make it fun,” begged a raspy but feminine voice from behind the visible Mandalorians.

“Arla,” the smaller human said warningly.  Another human appeared at his shoulder, dark hair flopping over dark eyes that glared in a way Mace could almost feel.

“What?” the still-unseen Arla asked.  “If he makes it fun I get to tell Ailyn she can go ahead and use whatever her botanist cyare gave her.”

Aay’han’s lekku shuddered in a gesture that read much like tossing one’s hands up.

“Excuse me, I have to go remind my child what a war crime is,” she said with a hand on her heart and a shallow nod.

“You have ten hours until we arrive,” the yet-unintroduced human warned again.  “And then you’ll be answering to Ben, his new Clan, and to me.”

“And who the kriff are you?” Jinn asked.

“Jaster Mereel, Haat Mand’alor.”

“Kriff,” someone whispered as the comm ended, and Mace tried to pretend it was just the headache making him think it was Yoda.

***

Ailyn hadn’t taken the larger cruiser with her vode and their friends.  She knew Kevin would be fine, that ad’ika was practically made of beskar, and Jango and Arla would keep Ben from banging himself up too bad.  No, she had her own ship, thanks, and the Tome'tayl had even been fixed up.  Plus it was faster, thanks to a strategic repurposing of space, since she didn’t actually need a full troop transport’s worth of cabin.

That’s how she got to the Jetti’yaim about a half-day ahead of her Buir’s estimated arrival.  With enough time to swing by her girlfriend Islii’s plant shop for a quick chat first.  And of course she had to mention her newest vod’ika, and how he ended up in their aliit.

Islii licked lips that shimmered with the naturally metallic sheen of her species, a gift of a homeworld covered in heavy metals.

“So, you said this asshole’s name is Jinn?  You got anything more than that?”

“He’s a Jetti, Issy.  You can’t assassinate a Jetti,” Ailyn reminded her.  

Islii flipped a braid over her shoulder and played with the bead at the end, lead inset with glowing green enamel.

“I wouldn’t,” she pouted.  “Assassinations are politically motivated, and I’m actually pretty okay with the Jedi as an organization.  Not my faith, but if it works for them and their service branches keep helping people I don’t care.”

“Issy… no murder.  Buir has first claim.”

“Okay, fair enough, but I do have some interesting things in the back, if you’re planning a visit.”

Which is how she ended up in front of the Jetti’yaim with a large, hermetically sealed crate, waiting for Arla to comm and give the signal to proceed if Jinn chose not to honorably face his errors and attempt to redeem himself.  The guard on duty was eyeing her skeptically, although they did a decent job not showing it.  Ailyn was Mando’ade, though, she knew armor tells.

“So… are you visiting the Temple on business?” they asked in a helpful tone of voice, only somewhat obscured by a vocoder.

“Not really, more a family matter,” she said cheerfully.  “See, my new vod’ika… baby brother, that is, he’s adopted.  We got him off a battlefield.  Fourteen and a General already, can you believe it?  Well, he started at thirteen, apparently.  Had his birthday in the field.”

“That’s….” the other Guard trailed off diplomatically.

“Horrifying?  Entirely,” Ailyn agreed.  “His useless dar’buir abandoned him there for having decent morals.  Even took the only weapon poor Ben’ika had.”

“I’m glad you found him, then,” Helpful said, and Ailyn didn’t think they were just being polite.  There was a genuine relief in the set of the shoulders.

“Yep, us too,” Ailyn agreed.  “But the absolute shabuir that left him there is still out there.”

“I assume you’re not here to ask for help finding him?” Diplomatic asked.

Ailyn’s HUD flashed with a small blue light.  Arla was giving the signal.

“Actually I am!” she said brightly.  “His name is Qui-Gon Jinn.  Know where he is?”

The guards went very still, as though they’d become statues.

“It was M- the former caretaker of your brother was Qui-Gon Jinn?” Diplomatic asked slowly.

“Yeah, I have a shipment of Felucian Corpse-bloom for him.  That a problem?” Ailyn asked, head cocked in challenge.  Normally she’d assume an aruetti wouldn’t be able to read the expression through the buy’ce, but the Guards also wore proper armor.

“Not at all,” Helpful said brightly.  “Would you like me to get you a hover cart?  I can’t leave my post, but I can give you a map.”

Ailyn was shocked.  “Wait, what?  I honestly thought you’d tell me to get lost.  This was more an intimidation tactic than anything.”

“We’re not technically supposed to have identities,” Diplomatic said.  “We swear to the Temple Guard and that is who we are.  We have one face, we act as one person.  In theory we give up any connection to our pasts, the people we once were erased from existence.”  

“In reality, it means what one Guard remembers, so do we all,” Helpful explained, bright tone taking a bloody edge.

“Jinn renounced his first Padawan.  That person is no longer among the Jedi,” Diplomatic added.  “From a certain point of view, they are dead.  But from a different point of view…”

Helpful said something in a flowing language Ailyn didn’t know and her HUD wouldn’t translate.

“The brother of my brother is my brother,” Diplomatic translated.

“And our brother is welcome in our home.”

“Oya, Vode!” Ailyn agreed.  “When you see a Twi’lek Mando’ade in bright green and teal, send them to whomever agreed to let that demagolka have another kid after kriffing up so bad he became Dar’buir in the first place.”

“Gladly,” Helpful said with a shallow bow.

***

In the end, Kevin decided, everything turned out okay.  The Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi was officially registered as having died on Melida’daan due to improper care by his Master, and this was used as the official reason for sending Jinn to the “spiritual retreat” that served as Mir’yaim for the Jettise.  The Mandalorian Foundling Ben Young was enrolled as a Senior Initiate, on paper as a ‘cultural exchange’ with Mandalore, with the understanding that if he chose not to accept a Jet’buir, he’d be coming back to Mandalore.  There were all sorts of clauses in the agreement that Kevin didn’t get, but he could tell people were getting excited about the changes that would happen if it worked out.

They didn’t need to worry about it, Ben wanted to be a Jedi more than anything.  And he was awesome, so he’d clearly be the best.  There were already several potential Jet’buir hovering around him, looking so much like the Mando’ade on Melida’daan that Kevin spent a lot of time with his buy’ce on so he could laugh.

The mission had started a milk-run and become a nightmare, but it was ending as a resounding success.

As it should be.