Chapter 1: Destiny

Chapter 1 - 72 ABY - It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves. - Shakespeare
(Jayden-Age 34)

Jayden never told her clan this, but she hated Tatooine.  She hated the sand that got in every part of her Mandalorian armor and made it itchy and messed with the electronics in her vambraces.  She hated the heat, especially when the sand mixed with sweat that made wearing the thirty plus pounds of Mandalorian armor almost unbearable.  She could feel the sweat underneath her helmet as it dripped down her cheek. She grew up on Coruscant where most of the planet was climate controlled and much cooler than that of Tatooine, which at some times could be almost three times as hot.  Today was one of those days.  The midday twin suns were beating down on all seven of them as they were out hunting for boar.  Jayden could almost imagine her beskar armor melting in this wretched heat.  She reached, for the dozenth time, at the vambrace on her left wrist and clicked it back and forth into place.  It was a nervous habit, but she just wanted to make sure the sand hadn’t messed up the electrical components should she need to fire her whistling birds.  She had to admit, those were probably her favorite weapon that the Mandalorians ever made.  All she had to do was flex her wrist and out came ten little whistling explosives that would target her enemies.  They were fun to use, but expensive to replace, so she used them very sparingly.  She then flexed her right wrist forward just a little, which activated her flamethrower and heard the hiss of the gas released, then flexed back to shut it off before the flames ignited.  She sighed again.  This was a waste of time.

“What was that?” her clan leader, Veeros Kar’tagnan, said over the comms.  She didn’t realize that she said that last bit out loud.

“Nothing,” she replied. She heard the harrumph of Veeros’ husband M’nok and the other clan members snicker.

Some farmers that lived nearby had called upon Jayden’s clan for help with some bladeback boars that had been harassing their farms and animals.  This sounder of bladebacks had already killed a lot of the local wildlife, and because resources were scarce in the desert, had taken it upon themselves to terrorize local moisture and livestock farmers.  The clan Jayden was in used to be thirty strong, but many in the clan decided that they wanted to join the Deathwatch clans.  Veeros, M’nok, their adopted daughter Moira, Jayden, and a few others wanted a more peaceful clan.  Veeros and M’nok were true Mandalorians and knew the history of their people.  They didn’t want a resurgence of the old ways.  They knew that those who did not learn from history were doomed to repeat it, however there was a growing contingent of Mandalorians that grew tired of living in the shadows and longed for a stronger warlike society.  They did not agree with the ways of the new Republic and especially hated the Jedi.  So the group of seven decided to split off and form their own clan and moved to Tatooine.  Jayden and Moira would do the occasional bounty hunting jobs off world, but when they were home they would help out the rest of the clan doing odd jobs here and there.  They would help out the local farmers, settle disputes between the local residents and the Tusken Raiders, and offered protection from the criminal element that permeated all of Tatooine.  Even though the Republic had destroyed the Empire and promised to help the Outer Rim planets, assistance took forever, and there was always some type of criminal element on Tatooine.  After Jabba the Hutt died, many of his underlings tried to stake a claim to his territories.  It was a constant battle, but their clan tried to fight off as many as they could and maintain some semblance of peace.

All seven of them were helping out with this nuisance of boars.  It was hard to find them because they dug their burrows underground, and scanners couldn’t penetrate the sand.  So instead they had to walk on foot and search for them.  They also couldn’t use their jetpacks as that would surely be too loud and spook the boars, so instead they slowly walked across the sands of the Dune Sea.  They were spaced about three hundred yards apart and had been searching for hours.  Wherever these boar were, they weren’t nearby.  They had spent hours trying to find a den or burrow where the boars hid in during the day.  M’nok’s hope was that they could come upon the den while the boar rested during the midday heat, and that would make them easier to take out the entire group all at once.

“Mom… Dad… We’ve been out here searching for hours and have seen nothing.  All we’ve seen is bantha poodoo.” Moira said.  Moira was Jayden’s wife.  Jayden looked over to her wife and gave her the thumbs up as she smiled under her mask.  Moira hated the heat almost as much as Jayden.

“Alright, alright.  I guess we can call it a day.  Group up at the speeder bikes.” Veeros replied.

The group started walking back towards the bikes but something caught Jayden’s eye.  It wasn’t the boar, but she saw some sand shift.

“I’ll be right there, I think I saw something…” Jayden trailed off as she started walking in the opposite direction from the group.

“What is it?  Did you spot the boar?” M’nok asked hopefully.

“Nah, nothing like that. Just something odd.  The sand is shifting. Like an earthquake or something.  But there’s no wind and nothing is shak-“ instantly the thought occurred to her, but it couldn’t be, because they were too close to the farms.  It wouldn’t come this close to the farms unless… unless something like a sounder of boars was drawing it near.  Her thoughts were cut off by the sound of screams.  She looked over in time to see a Greater Krayt Dragon emerge from the sand and land on M’nok.  As it pinned him to the ground it roared and then ripped his head clean off with its razor sharp teeth and swallowed it. Veeros screamed and started firing her pulse rifle at the dragon, but it barely touched the armored scales on its back.

“Shoot at the nose!  Shoot at the nose!” Jayden yelled in her helmet’s mic as she started running towards the battle.  The Greater Krayt Dragon’s only weakness is a spot right above the sinus cavity.  A perfectly aimed shot there would kill the dragon instantly as it led to the brain stem.  But it was almost impossible to do, even for a Mandalorian.

Moira started running towards them as well, but another Greater Krayt Dragon launched itself out of the sands of the Dune Sea and landed between her and the rest of the clan.  It was odd to see one Krayt so close to civilization, but two?  She fired everything in her vambraces at the second dragon but hardly anything penetrated it.  She opened fire with her rifle, but that only seemed to aggravate it even more.  It took too long to reload the rifle, so she discarded it to the side as she noticed walking towards her, bellowing its mighty growl.  She pulled her blaster from her hip and started firing.  She tried to shoot for the sinus cavity, as Jayden suggested, but it was advancing on her too fast for her to get a decent shot off.  She backpedaled as fast as she could, but it was quickly gaining ground.

Krayt dragons were a force to be reckoned with, but Greater Krayts were incredibly dangerous.  Not only could they swim through the sands of the Dune Sea with ease, but they blended in with the sand which made them near impossible to see until they were emerging from underneath you.  The only telltale sign was shifting sands.  They were twice the size of a Krayt dragon, and Krayt dragons were already five times the size of a Bantha.  These two Greater Krayts were full grown at a hundred meters each, at least, making them ten times the size of a Bantha.  Despite being so large and bulky, they moved with relative ease because of their ten legs.  As if that weren’t enough to make them one of Tatooine’s greatest apex predators, the Greater Krayt Dragon’s venom was extremely potent.  They had venom that dripped from their incredibly sharp teeth, and from the long spines of their tails.  They had a set of large horns that jutted out on each side of their head with another set of smaller horns in between them that led to the spines on the neck.  There was also a set of large horns that stuck out below the eyes and just above the jawline.  The spines that led from the neck to the tip of the tail were a row of short spines, and at the tip of the tail were four large spines that it used to pierce and envenomate their prey.

One of the others had managed to fire a grappling line around the first Krayt’s neck and struggled to pull it off of M’nok’s body as the rest of them fired their entire arsenal at it.  It bellowed loudly, and angrily lashed out its tail several times, striking three of them square in the chest with its venomous spines.  They writhed in pain as the venom entered their body.  Between the large gashes and the venom, they were dead within minutes.  Before one of them died, they managed to get a lucky shot right in the eye, and the dragon fell to the ground writhing in pain and clawing at its head.  Veeros closed in and lifted her gun to finish the job, but it reached out its front leg and the meter-long talons sliced her right in the chest.  She fell to the ground and Jayden and Moira, the only ones left, could hear her gurgling in their earpieces as she took her last breaths.  Jayden was still too far from the group, but she heard Moira scream and looked over just in time to see the second dragon whip its tail and hit Moira square in the chest.  She was almost there, running as fast as she could, but felt like she was a lightyear away.

Jayden reached down to her utility belt and unclipped her two lightsabers and ignited them.  The purple and blue flash of light startled the second krayt dragon as it advanced to finish off Moira.  Jayden screamed at it and it focused on her instead.  She was about a hundred yards out now and within striking distance so she flung her blue saber at it. The beast roared and started advancing on her. It moved its head just in time to avoid a direct hit from the saber, but the saber did manage to slice off one of its top horns.  It cried out in pain, halted and shook its head for a second, then it roared and continued running towards Jayden.  They were within fifteen meters of each other now and rapidly advancing.  Jayden used the Force to pull the saber back towards her. When the saber was close, she jumped in the air, did a somersault as the saber pierced the back of the dragon’s head and came out of its roaring mouth in time for her to grab the hilt.  She landed on its neck, flipped the sabers in her hands, and plunged both sabers into its head, right through the brain.  She jumped off its body, landing in a crouch on the sand with one saber in front of her and the other covering her backside, and watched as it fell to the ground, and took it’s last breath.  She flicked the button of her sabers to turn them off, and sheathed them back onto her belt and ran to Moira.

“Baby… baby, talk to me!” She gently pulled off Moira’s helmet and could see the blood trailing from her mouth.  She reached out with the Force and could feel the damage in Moira’s body.  Several broken ribs, a punctured lung, and some internal bleeding.  Mandalorian Beskar was good, but it wasn’t that good to fend off a swipe from a Greater Krayt Dragon’s tail whip.  Thankfully the Krayt missed her with its venomous spines, but still managed to puncture her chest through the armor with its smaller spines.  Blood was pouring from the wounds.  Jayden knew she needed a medical facility, and fast.  This type of wound was too much damage for a bacta spray alone, but she pulled one out from the pouch on her belt anyway, just to try and stop the external bleeding.  Her armor had protected her a little, but not nearly enough.  Jayden then pressed a button on her left vambrace and scanned the rest of her clan for life signs.  Every single one of them were dead. She then focused on the first Krayt dragon that was barely alive and moaning in pain, and then saw the speeder bikes about a hundred yards past it.  “I’ll be right back!”

She ran to get the speeder bike, but as she passed the Krayt Dragon she pulled out and ignited her saber and gouged it in the other eye that wasn’t blinded, and plunged it straight into its brain.  It was a quick and easy death that it did not deserve, but one that she gave it anyway, because that was her Creed.  Once she reached the bike she hopped on, flipped the ignition switch, and sped over to Moira as fast as she could.  Jayden gently lifted Moira into her arms and carefully climbed back onto the bike.  The internal bleeding was getting worse so she plugged in the coordinates to the nearest medical facility and engaged the autopilot.  While the bike lurched forward, she reached out with the Force to try and clamp the arteries that were severed, just like her mother had taught her when she was a kid.


***

Jayden carried Moira into the medical facility and yelled for help.  It had taken her about fifteen minutes on the speeder bike to reach the facility, but each minute was precious.  At one point during the trip Moira’s heart stopped and she had to use the Force to get it pumping again, while also trying to keep the artery that had been severed clamped shut.  She was so thankful that her mother, Jade Kyrie, had taught her the basics of field aid.  Jade was one of the head doctors in the Jedi Order.  She created the Medical Corps and helped teach basic field aid to Younglings at the school.  Any Youngling that showed a proficiency for medicine were sent to a new part of the Jedi school specifically designed to help out doctors.  Jayden’s other mother, Kyra, was also in the medical corps, in the Psych division.  She helped out Younglings and Padawans who were struggling with the dark side of the Force.  When Jayden was just a Youngling she learned as much as she could from her mothers, but had decided that she wanted to be a Guardian and not follow in their footsteps in the medical division.  But today she was thankful for everything that her mothers taught her.

“What happened?” said one of the doctors as he and several nurses helped Jayden gently place Moira onto a stretcher.

“Kra- Krayt Dragon,” was all Jayden could manage to say as she struggled to catch her breath.  She had used so much of the Force to keep Moira alive, but it left her incredibly weak.

“Alright. We’ll take it from here,” the doctor replied as he and the nurses started pulling the stretcher into a nearby room.  Jayden started to follow them when one of the nurses put a hand on her chest to hold her back.

“Wait!” Jayden roared. The nurses and doctor were startled and looked back at Jayden.  “If you do not let me in there with you, she will die!”

The doctor looked perplexed and a bit annoyed.  “How do you know this?”

“Because right now I’m the only one keeping her from bleeding out.  Until you can get her into surgery and clamp off the arteries, I need to be by her side.”

The doctor then noticed her lightsabers on her utility belt.  “A Mandalorian Jedi?  That’s a new one.  Alright, come on.”

It took several minutes to wheel Moira back into the surgical bay.  Jayden couldn’t go into the room because she was not sterile, but she stood just outside of the room in a viewing area where she could still be close enough to use the Force.  Once they clamped off the blood vessels they motioned to Jayden that she could release them.  Slowly she released her Force grip, making sure that the clamps held, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  It wasn’t over, but her part was.  As she released the Force grip on Moira, she fell to her knees and let the tears she was holding back stream down her face.  There was a nurse in the room with her and she rushed to Jayden’s side.

“Alright, let’s get you taken care of.”

Jayden confusedly looked at the nurse, then looked down at her chest.  It was covered in Moira’s blood.  “It… it’s not my blood.”

“At least let me do a quick scan. Can I take off your helmet?” the nurse helped Jayden to her feet.  Jayden looked at the nurse, who was a Twi’lek with blue skin, and reminded her of her mom, Kyra.  She let herself smile for just a second.  She missed her moms so much.

“No.  I’m fine.  I’m… just weak.  Is she going to be ok?”

“Well, she has lost a lot of blood, but that’s nothing that we can’t repair. Her internal injuries will heal once the vessels and internal organs are repaired.  Her broken ribs will reset with a bacta infusion. That might take several hours to days depending on the severity.  But she wasn’t envenomated so that’s good.  You saved her life!”  Jayden nodded, but the nurse’s words didn’t make her feel any better.

“I need to go. Theres some-“ Jayden started to say but was interrupted by the nurse.

“What you need is rest. Why don’t you rest out in the waiting room?”

“My clan… my family…” Jayden trailed off.

“There are more injured?” The nurse asked.  Jayden shook her head and the nurse understood.  “Go.  Take care of your dead.  By the time you get back your…?”

“Wife.”

“Your wife should be out of surgery and in a bacta tank to heal up the rest of her wounds.”


***

Jayden ran out of the hospital and climbed aboard her speeder bike.  She needed to get back to her clan before any Jawas or Tusken Raiders found them and took off with their weapons and armor.  She was going to have to perform the Kote Kyr’am as well, and she didn’t know if she should wait for Moira to heal and be a part of the death ceremony or if she should do it immediately after she brought them home.  Jayden wasn’t a true Mandalorian like Moira and her adopted parents.  She only knew of the death ceremony but didn’t know if it needed to be performed right away or if it could wait.  She decided it would be best to wait so that Moira would have closure.

As the speeder bike jumped the sand dunes, Jayden remembered the funerals for her parents that were set upon the pyres, as was Jedi custom.  It was nineteen years ago when she was only sixteen and a Padawan learner to Quento Shan.  She didn’t remember much from the funeral itself, as that time was such a blur to her.  She was in complete disbelief that her former Master turned to the dark side of the Force and killed her parents.  Afterwards, Luke Skywalker took care of her training until she was ready for the trials.  She was close with Luke and one other, but for awhile she hadn’t let anyone else get close to her.  She knew that she could trust Luke, but it wasn’t until she met Moira that she began to trust others again.  When Veeros and M’nok took her in after she had a falling out with the Jedi Council, she had felt like she finally had a family again.

Luke had created a new Jedi Order a few years after the Republic defeated the Empire.  It turned out that many Jedi hadn’t been killed as they were originally led to believe.  Once the Empire was defeated, they started coming out of hiding.  Many had found loved ones and had families, and their children were Force sensitive.  So Luke created the Jedi Order and headed the Jedi Council.  Decades later some turmoil began amongst the Jedi.  Several were turning to the dark side of the Force.  Luke was getting up in age and had felt that the time was coming for him to step down as leader of the Council.  He disapproved of what the Council elders were doing.  Some of them had been corrupted by the dark side.  It wasn’t until the Council had ostracized Jayden, that Luke finally stepped away from the Order altogether.  The good that he had tried to do was gone.  The past was repeating itself, and Jayden didn’t want to be a part of it anymore.

Jayden reached the sand dunes where her family had given their lives for people they barely knew.  They fought with honor, and died a warrior’s death.  This was the Way of the Mandalorian.  She pulled her speeder bike alongside the rest.  Everything was just as she’d left it.  She gently picked up each body and placed them on their speeder bikes.  She plugged in the coordinates for home, and sent them on their way.  She would be there in a bit to unload the bodies, but she had to do one thing first, and it was going to be messy.  She sliced open the first Krayt Dragon’s chest.  Krayt Dragons were reptiles but they had gizzards like birds.  This is where she found M’nok’s head, with the helmet still attached.  Jayden placed it in a bag on her speeder bike and went back to the dragon.

In their gizzards were stones that they used to crush their food to prepare for digestion.  Some of these stones were special and called Dragon Pearls.  They were a valuable commodity to jewelers across the galaxy, but some could also be used as focusing crystals for Jedi’s lightsabers.  Jayden used her lightsaber to open each set of gizzards on both dragons and was able to find five Dragon Pearls.  Normally you were lucky if you found one, but seeing as these were full grown, and were probably at least eighty years old, there were more than the usual amount.  They would make a big score on the black market.  She packed them into another bag and climbed back onto her speeder bike.  She took one last look at the blood-stained sand.  Four hours ago they were happy and joking around, now her and Moira’s lives are irrevocably changed.  She pushed the handles of the bikes forward and sped off.  She had a lot to do at home before she could head back to the medical facility.

***

Jayden spent the next two hours unloading the speeder bikes, building the funeral pyres, and getting her clan members bodies in their robes and prepped for the burial ritual for when Moira got home.  She had removed all of their Mandalorian armor and placed it in storage bags.  Jayden and Moira hated Tatooine.  They were only here because of the clan, but they had talked often about wanting to travel across the galaxy doing bounty hunting jobs.  Jayden had a feeling that once Moira got back here, that she wouldn’t want to stay, so she gathered up most of their belongings in case she wanted to leave right away.  The Jedi had taught Jayden about attachments.  She could still hear her former Master Quento’s voice in her head. “The only thing you should be attached to is your lightsabers,” he would scold as he would hand her the practice lightsaber she dropped when sparring with him.  Because of that, she didn’t have many things besides her armor, various weapons, and clothes.  She led a simple life, which made it easy to always pick up and go at a moment’s notice.  Seeing that she was a wanted Jedi on the run from Dark Jedi, that was a good thing.  That is one of the reasons she was so nervous about staying on Tatooine for so long.  They had been on Tatooine for about two years now, and even though she never showed her Force powers to the locals, until today, she knew that the Dark Jedi would sense her if they came looking.  She would be able to feel them as well, but it still put Moira and the rest of them in danger.

Jayden was finally done and the sticky sweat, mixed with Tatooine’s coarse sand, was in every crevice of her body, so she decided to take a quick sonic shower before heading back to the medical facility.  She took her helmet off and looked in the mirror.  Her hair was a matted mess.  It was medium length that was swept to the left side and hung down to her chin.  The other side of her head was shaved.  She ran her hand across the shaved side and noticed it needed to be shaved again.  Moira always did that for her.  She closed her eyes for a moment as the thought that she almost lost her today swept over her.  She ran her hands through her hair. It was dyed purple at the roots and ended in pink at the tips.  Sometimes she would change the colors up, but this was her favorite combo.  She didn’t care for her plain black hair.  She always felt the need to be different, especially after she left the Jedi.

Her face was caked with sweat, tears, and sand.  You could almost make out her blue skin under all of the muck.  Her mother, Jade, was Mirialan.  She had vibrant purple eyes, long shiny black hair, and light purple skin with many geometrical tattoos that adorned her face and arms that signified her achievements. Jayden slowly reached up with her right hand and touched her bottom lip where her own tattoos started and traced the triangular patterns to the bottom of her chin.  Each one of those signified a Dark Jedi that she had taken down or captured.  There were six on her chin.  Once she ran out of space on her chin she started tattooing the rest on her arms, starting at the wrists.  She pulled her left vambrace off and saw the two that were starting the same geometrical pattern that was on her chin.  She had another two on her right wrist as well.  She looked back up in the mirror and saw her purple eyes.  They weren’t nearly as vibrant as her mother’s eyes.  They had seen better days.

While she had the hair, eyes, and customary tattoos of her mother Jade, she had the skin color and teeth of her mother Kyra.  Kyra was a Twi’lek.  She was the most beautiful shade of blue that Jayden had ever seen, and she was so glad she had the same color skin.  She also loved her teeth.  While they don’t help out much now as a Mandalorian stuck behind a helmet, before, when she would be in battle, she would flash her teeth and hiss at her enemies and they would turn tail and run.  Who wouldn’t be scared when they see a Jedi wielding dual sabers, really sharp teeth, who was hissing and smiling maniacally?  She smiled as she remembered her first mission after she became a Jedi Knight.  But just as soon as the memory had come, it had vanished, replaced by the sullen remembrance of why she was no longer a Jedi.  She stepped into the sonic shower and closed her eyes.

***

“How’s she doing?” Jayden asked as she looked at Moira.  She was asleep, floating in the bacta tank, and had a dozen tubes connected to her, including the breathing device.  Jayden had never seen her like this.  It scared her.  As much as she trusted in the Force, she couldn’t help but have a little doubt.

“The surgery was successful.  We were able to repair the internal injuries, but her injuries were extensive.  She will be in the bacta tank for at least another six to eight hours,” the doctor replied.

“But… she’ll be ok?” Jayden asked as she turned and looked at the doctor.

“She’ll need to take it easy for a few days, but she’ll be good as new.  But you need some rest.  You should go home and try and get some sleep.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“I can have the nurse bring in a cot for you,” but Jayden shook her head.  “You can set her things over on the table.”  Jayden forgot she was carrying an extra set of armor and her helmet.  That reminded her of a question she needed to ask.

“Doc… it is against the Mandalorian custom to show our faces to outsiders.  I broke the Creed just by bringing her here, but I…” Jayden couldn’t stand the thought of losing Moira.  When everything happened, she didn’t even care about the Creed, but she knew Moira would.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about… We never saw any Mandalorians here,” the doctor replied, and winked at Jayden.  She smiled underneath her helmet and nodded at the doctor.  “I’ll check back in on her in a little bit.”

For seven years Moira had been a part of Jayden’s life.  She never regretted leaving the Jedi Order.  She knew it was the right decision.  The things that had happened after she left made her the person she was today.  Even though she still considered herself a Jedi, and focused on not letting her emotions get to her, there were times where they did seek to overwhelm her.  Today was one of those days.  She never let the dark side in though.  Anytime she felt like her emotions were getting away from her, she remembered what Master Luke told her the day her parents died.  “It’s ok to have emotions,” he said.  “The struggle is not to let them consume you.”  The last time her emotions had gotten away from her was the reason she was no longer a member of the Jedi Order.  She could feel the emotions welling up inside of her and remembered what Master Luke would tell her to do when she started feeling overwhelmed, so she sat down on the floor in front of the bacta tank, crossed her legs, and focused on the Force.  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “Master, if you are out there, I need you,” she whispered.  Luke had passed into the Force three years ago.  Occasionally she could communicate with him, but only when she was focused.  Today her thoughts raced, and she doubt she could contact him.  She placed the palms of her hands on her knees and started remembering the past, trying to find that connection again to the girl that she once was.

***