Chapter Text
Shay looked around the camp idly, trying to pinpoint where her bad feelings originated from while her lekku twitched in agitation.
Her hands were playing around with a beskar knife she had looted from Kyr’tsad when the previous Mand’alor still lived. It did not fill her with confidence that she had felt similar before that mission, too.
Unfortunately, the current Mand’alor was a stubborn di’kut.
Apparently, knowledge of a Kyr’tsad base was too important to pass on, so Shay was making sure not to miss anything. Especially since Jango had gone to meet their employer to receive their payment, and the feeling had intensified since. She would have gone with him, but that hadn’t felt right, so instead she was busy waiting.
Shay heard him before she saw him. Jango was running to them in a panic, and Shay had a sinking feeling that she could only do her best and mitigate the damage.
And as she saw the figures on the other side of the ridge, she felt her heart sink into her throat. It seemed like the council had messed up, and she needed to fix this before the damn council caused a war with the Mandalorians.
“Open fire!”
Shay cursed as she heard Jango. “Down!”
Most listened, dodging the bolts that were deflected back at them, but those that didn’t or weren’t fast enough suffered. Shay could feel a few of the presences she had known for years being snuffed out, and once the verde had recovered, they attacked. She instead concentrated every bit of her power of the Force into a single devastating push.
She ignored the pained screams around her until she was sure it would make enough of a spectacle, and released two powerful force pushes. One hit the Mandalorians on her side and pushed them back momentarily while the other pushed the Jedi who froze from the unexpected presence of a Force adept.
“Hold fire.” Shay barked at the Mandalorians, hoping Jango wouldn’t attack again as she slowly moved towards one of the Jedi she had recognized. It was hard not to, considering who he was.
“Jedi Master Dooku. You are attacking the currently recognized Mand’alor and thus ruler of Mandalorian space. Explain yourself before I report you to the council myself.” Shay ordered frostily.
She was not happy. Not only had a dozen of her comrades died or been injured, but she also had to throw her cover to preserve any hope of preventing a war.
The Jedi Master seemed to observe for a second while both sides looked tense, but didn’t attack. “A shadow. I was not expecting one of you to be here. But very well. The Governor of the planet requested Jedi assistance to arrest a group of Mandalorian terrorists who killed peaceful protestors on the planet. He provided proof. From your presence here, I’m assuming it wasn’t them?”
Shay nodded, her mind already reaching for the threads that connected this.
“Very well. Please return and report today’s happenings to the council. And please tell them that my cover is blown and that I might not survive it. My shadow ID is 91z35g n8z1g53n7, delta-q. Someone on the high council will inform the relevant person.”
A brief second of grief flashed through the Jedi Master’s visage, but it was gone quickly, and Dooku called for a retreat while Shay returned to the Mand’alor, knowing that it might be the last time she ever saw another Jedi.
As she had expected, Shay was met by silence. “Have you guys already forgotten how to conduct yourselves? Medics tend to the wounded, the others help and take care of the dead!”
The camp erupted into action. There had been seven casualties and quite a few wounded. It was far from the deadliest fight they ever had, but it still hurt to lose this many because of such a nonsensical fight.
Shay meanwhile turned to Jango and straightened into a salute. “Mand’alor. The Jedi mentioned that the Governor provided video proof of Mandalorians killing peaceful protestors.”
Jango seemed to pull out of whatever stupor he had been in and began barking orders to prepare for another fight.
While they left the heavily injured verde behind, the rest of them sped towards where they suspected Death Watch to be camping. The hut’uun’s weren’t prepared for them. Or at least not in the numbers they had. Whatever resistance they had put up while loading their ships had been put up in case the survivors of the fight rushed here, not to defend against the entire True Mandalorian forces sans a little over ten warriors.
Once the guards were dealt with, their forces speared through Kyr’tsad’s line, slaughtering the terrorists while their ships orbited the battlefield and shot down any ship that tried to take off.
Shay snarled as she let her knife slit into another Death Watch scum’s throat, not at all feeling sorry for the death as she noticed the scared head of the head hut’uun.
“Jango!”
The Mand’alor finished off his enemy before looking in the direction she was pointing at, and she felt the anger radiate off him as he looked at his father’s killer.
Tor fired wildly at him, but Jango advanced slowly as Shay and a few others kept any of the Kyr’tsad from reaching their Mand’alor.
Tor snarled before pulling one of the death watch soldiers to his side.
“Take off your buy’ce and kill him!”
The verd nodded, taking off their buy’ce revealing a young woman with blonde hair who snarled the moment she saw Jango.
Shay didn’t keep her full attention on the fight, fully expecting a beat down of the woman, but as she glanced back to the fight, she saw as the Mand’alor didn’t even move even as the woman pulled out a blade and stabbed him in the abdomen.
Shay barely reacted in time, pushing the blade away from hitting any major organs before she had to pull her attention back to her fight.
“Silas, take over!” She screamed, activating her jetpack and barrelling over the woman, pushing her away from the downed Mand’alor.
“Mand’alor!” Seeing him not even reacting, Shay cursed as she dodged another stab from the woman. “Jango!”
Finally, the di’kut moved and Shay winced as she noticed the vulnerability in his gaze.
“Get yourself together and get Vizla!”
Jango’s eyes hardened, and Shay felt him get on his feet and inject a quick bacta stim into the wound. He’d needed a baar’ur if he survived this but for now it would keep him alive and fighting.
“Shay!” Shay jerked her head to show she was listening as she dodged away from the surprisingly skilled woman. “Don’t kill her! I think she’s my sister!”
Shay cursed at the command, but she nodded, turning her full attention to the woman in front of her.
From here on Jango needed to do this on his own, or if one of the others finished their battle with them, but judging by the fights surrounding her she doubted they would be finished quickly.
Thankfully for Jango, while the woman was skilled, Shay was simply better. Normally that wouldn’t be enough to capture the woman alive, but her cover as a Jedi had already blown so she could use a few more obvious Force techniques for this fight.
The woman advanced again, and Shay let her land a hit. The woman immediately surged forward, intending to push her advantage, but Shay abandoned her defence and instead held her hands over the woman’s head and pushed everything she had left into a single command. Sleep.
The woman immediately collapsed, cutting the momentum of her beskad in half, but still allowing it to slash into Shay’s arm painfully deep.
Completely exhausted, she couldn’t even muster a bit of force healings and instead threw the woman over her shoulder and dragged her to where the baar’ur were treating the injured now that Kyr’tsad was pushed back.
“Wren. Mand’alor want’s this one alive. Possible familial connection, so make sure to check that. And keep her restrained. She’s better than most of the verde around.”
Irla nodded quickly and dragged the woman away from the remaining patients while another baar’ur took over. Seeing her arm, he quickly ordered her down to sew her wound shut.
The moment the man was done, Shay put a bacta patch over the wound and returned to the battle.
It had turned heavily in their favour. Kyr’tsad had no escape, surrounded as they were, and their ships were still under fire the moment they took off. Two ships were downed the moment the engines activated, and the remaining stayed down following that.
Jango was still fighting Tor, who was wielding what looked like the dark sabre but he wasn’t exactly winning.
Jango was doing well, especially since Tor wasn’t experienced with the weapon, but his injuries were so severe that he likely wouldn’t win this without aid.
Shay hurried to the place where she had defeated the Kyr’tsad woman previously and picked up her beskad, swinging it around experimentally for a few seconds.
Once she felt confident, she made her way to where the Mand’alor was fighting and blocked Vizla’s next strike.
“Mand’alor. The woman is unconscious and with the baar’ur.”
Jango nodded before signing to her to fall back after he had taken a breather and injected another dose of bacta.
Shay inclined her head and instead of blocking the next swing, she jumped backwards, over Jango, and dropped the beskad into his waiting hands.
Vizla, who had heavily overextended with the swing, was unable to block Jango’s strike, and Shay grinned as Tor’s severed arm thudded onto the ground.
While the two fought, Shay glanced at the battles around, making sure no Kyr’tsad soldier would interrupt the fight, and slowly more and more of her fellow commandos joined her until they had created a large circle around the duelling men.
But everyone, even Tor, could tell he was losing. With his arm severed, Tor was as injured as Jango, leaving them on fairly equal footing.
Unfortunately for the founder of Kyr’tsad, Tor was a hut’uun and Jango was much more skilled.
Soon enough Tor forgot about his missing arm and overextended, and Jango took the chance, slicing cleanly through the man’s neck.
Jango barely caught himself from tripping and triumphantly raised his hand, still holding the beskad. “Oya!”
Barely were those words out of his mind, he tipped backwards where he was caught in Myles waiting arms.
“Vizla is dead and Kyr’tsad is finished! Kill the survivors and get yourselves to the baar’ur.”
““Oya!""
Shay sighed as she dragged her exhausted body to one of the more critically injured verd around her. The man’s leg was likely gone for good, having been hit directly by an explosive, but he’d live.
Shay carefully helped him stand on his intact leg before she helped him limp towards the medics.
Their ships had also begun to settle down, the first of which being the medical ship, and inside operations were already underway.
Shay dragged the injured verd on her shoulder to the side where the baar’ur were seeing the heavily injured verd and was quickly directed to a bed, where she deposited the verd before making her way to a quiet corner.
She wanted to help more, but to do so she needed to meditate a bit and recover.
Shay breathed deeply, letting the Force flow through her, washing away her exhaustion and recovering a portion of her strength.
It took her half an hour to be rested enough to make her way to the room the baar’ur were operating and leaning over to the one operating on the one whose presence made it clear that they were the least likely to make it.
“I can keep him alive if you allow me.”
The baar’ur looked at her strangely, but upon seeing something in her posture, nodded, and Shay let herself fall into meditation. Slowly she felt the verd’s flickering vitality and using the force she plucked a few of the strands in his body and guided them to the wounds that the baar’ur was working on.
Once she felt them settle, she nodded to the baar’ur. “He shouldn’t be able to die for now, but make sure to get me if his readings drop again.”
The baar’ur froze for a second before nodding stiffly as she turned to another injured verd. Another presence had been snuffed out while she was busy with this verd, and she promised herself she would try to save as many of them as possible.
The force technique she was using was technically not something she was allowed to learn, but being a shadow meant skirting the rules often enough. Technically, only healers who were specifically tested could learn it, as the technique was undoubtedly dark.
It had been created by some Sith Lord a few millennia ago, who wanted to stop his enemies from dying during torture, and while he had succeeded in his goals, the Shadow who had learned it later on found another use for it.
The force technique used a part of the victim’s body’s vitality to heal itself. While it allowed the user to keep the target alive for as long as they wished, the cost was steep. Each minute would cost the target approximately a year of their life. It wouldn’t cost them their youth or anything, but it simply made the body incapable of surviving those older years at the end of one’s life.
Shay was stopping the fifth verd from dying when she felt the first one finally leaving the ‘They will die If I don’t keep the technique going’ zone and slowly as the patience began to reduce, Shay felt her exhaustion catch up to her, but she forced herself to stay awake.
But the moment the last verd had left the zone of immediate death she collapsed, finally allowing both body and mind to rest.