Lekku. LOG-018. Dust On Glass.

LOG-018. Dust On Glass.

The message comes coded in old Concordian sigils.

Encrypted through four dead relays and no return trace. No formal salutation.

Just a location. A time. A symbol burned into the footer in blue and black.

Death Watch.

I read it twice.

Then once more with the lights off.

Trix leans over my shoulder in the nav booth, eyes scanning faster than mine.

“...You’re not seriously thinking about going, right?”

I don’t answer.

Kedo’s across the hold, stripping a rifle. He doesn’t look up, but I can feel the quiet shift in him.

“It’s bait.” Trix says. “Spiked. Probably mined. Definitely stupid.”

She’s not wrong.

I still mark the coordinates. I’ve always wanted to visit Mandalore.

—

We dock in Sundari under a falsified cargo manifest. Midday rotation. No escort.

I keep my helmet on. Strip the Ordo sigil from my pauldron. Wipe the Krayt Teeth sigil from my chestplate with solvent until it’s just matte black and shadow.

I leave Vorna behind.

She gives me a nod as I pass.

Doesn’t tell me not to go, but reinforces what she warned me about beforehand.

“They’re not Mando. Not anymore.”

The others stay quiet as I suit up.

Lira just adjusts her thigh holster and goes back to maintenance. Torren mutters something about planetary radiation being a myth. Vorna plants herself near the door and doesn’t move, eyes tracking me like a turret.

Kedo checks my armor seals before we disembark.

I let him.

He fastens the last clasp and nods. “We’re still Clan. You remember that.”

I nod back.

Then we’re gone.

—

Mandalore’s surface hasn’t changed much.

Too clean. Too still. The kind of peace that reeks of tension hiding behind bureaucracy.

Trix mutters about it under her breath the whole way to the meeting point. Kedo walks behind us, rifle slung, helmet on, stance too alert for a civilian.

I don’t stop him.

We don’t go to join.

We go to find out why the fuck we’ve been contacted.

It’s something a good few of the crew are pleased about, sitting in orbit as they are.

—

The meeting point’s a hangar built into the edge of an old canyon ridge, outside Sundari, outside regulation. Weathered durasteel. No crest on the door, but I see the etching when the light catches.

Death Watch likes pretending they’re ghosts. But they’re just old blood looking for new reasons to spill someone else’s. I’ve been educated in that regard very thoroughly by the elder members of clan Ordo.

We enter three across.

I take point.

Kedo flanks left, slow and silent.

Trix hangs back near the wall, fingers tapping her data bracer. Every inch of this place is under quiet observation.

They’re already waiting.

Five of them. Full kit. Matte blue and black, high gloss helmets with jagged tusk marks painted across the brows.

One steps forward, rangy, tall, voice smooth like a recruiter.

A recruitment pitch is made. Sort of. They want us to join up, but it’s evident they’re not looking for equals.

“Mandalore’s gone soft.” H finishes up. “But we remember. We keep the creed.”

He looks straight at me when he says it.

There’s a pause. Just long enough to register that it’s deliberate.

And then…

“Even if some of us were born in chains.”

Trix’s hand freezes mid scroll.

Kedo shifts behind me. Barely.

I tilt my head. “You’re trying to make a point?”

He grins like I just asked him to teach me something.

“I’m saying you don’t have to play mercenary forever. You’re not bound by the clans. Join us. Get your hands on something real. We’ll give you a place. Armour that actually means something. Command.”

I step forward, slow.

“No.”

He blinks. “No?”

“You don’t speak for Mandalore. You don’t speak for anything at all. There’s a damn good reason the clans all despise you people.”

I let it hang.

He steps closer.

The others spread out.

“Careful, little beast. You don’t get to lecture purebloods about legacy.”

I don’t answer.

But I do reach for the knife at my back.

Then Kedo moves.

He’s between us in half a breath.

No words.

Just motion.

He drives his elbow into the Death Watch speaker’s neck. The man staggers. Doesn’t fall.

Blasterfire ignites behind us.

I drop low and cut the nearest one behind the knee, blade right between the armour plates, twisting hard and listening to the scream before I even stand.

Trix ducks behind a crate and fries the overhead lights. Sparks rain down. Half the room plunges into red filtered chaos.

Kedo pulls his rifle and lays down controlled bursts.

Two helmets crack open like glass, the visors serving as a weak point.

One of them tries to flank us.

Trix drops him mid stride with a shock bolt to the spine.

Kedo finishes the last one with a boot to the chest and a vibrodagger through the visor.

Then there’s silence.

Just dust and heat.

We walk out the way we came.

—

Keldabe smells like metal and fire.

Not the industrial kind, the old kind. The kind that clings to forge smoke and rifle oil, baked into stone streets and the cracks between boot prints.

People like us don’t come here often. Too official. Too visible. There’s a reason most martial clans have long since left Mandalore.

But today’s not about hiding.

The elder’s name is Vishen. Clan Brek.

He’s got a limp from an old jetpack misfire and eyes like beskar left in a blizzard. No title, no throne. Just weight when he speaks and silence when he doesn’t.

We meet in a side hall off the central market. His guards don’t smile. Neither do mine.

I keep it short.

“Death Watch tried to buy me. I said no. Then they tried to kill me.”

Vishen doesn’t blink. “You kill them back?”

“Left five bodies behind. Doubt they’re still there.”

“Good.”

I slide the encrypted packet across the table, audio, visual, timestamps. Names redacted. Faces not.

“I’m not trying to stir trouble here.” I shrug. “But if they’re making moves, I figure your people should know.”

Vishen nods once.

“You didn’t need to come here to say that.”

“Yep.”

We don’t shake hands.

He sends a courier to Sundari.

And we promptly get flagged before we can leave orbit.

No weapons drawn.

Just a hold order from the local peacekeeping office.

Trix calls it a glorified timeout.

I let them run their little investigation. They ask questions. Cross check our footage. Verify my kill count. Ask me not to wander too far from the capital.

I agree, I’ve been wanting to play tourist anyway, after all.

And while we wait, we walk.

—

Sundari is cleaner than I ever could have imagined.

Too clean, even.

Smooth stone, glass high rises, kids running between vendor stalls without a single rifle in sight. Feels surreal in full armour. Feels wrong without it.

But the people?

Some still nod.

A few older Mando civilians stop us. Ask where our sigils are. One wrinkled woman with hands like carbon scored leather taps Kedo’s chestplate and grins.

“Clan Ordo makes strong ones.”

He stiffens like he doesn’t know what to do with the compliment.

I don’t blame him.

Later, Lira gets into an argument with a pastry vendor who flirts too aggressively.

Trix finds a street dancer and buys her three rounds of cider while claiming she doesn’t believe in romance.

Kedo buys a fresh leather sling and doesn’t say what it’s for.

We don’t pretend this is home.

But it’s not an entirely alien world either.

Really nice experience, all in all.