Ask The Heart is an Arrow

[Song Wren]

“Already on it.” Song climbed the ladder until she reached the top, then she flipped her body, switching her legs up to face the sealed hatch. Her hands clung to the ladder, relying on the sheer strength of her upper arms to keep her balanced. Not one to idle, she slammed her heels into the hatch—once, twice—before it gave way. Forget picking the lock. Why bother when brute force could get her through anyway?

Expecting Val to have already jammed the main doors, Song repositioned herself and clambered into the room. Instantly she was hit by a blast of searing air. It carried smoky black fumes and the pungent smell of gas, and her nostrils flared. This was the incinerator. This was where all the refuse from the prison was disposed of—personal belongings, sentimental objects, clothing stripped from inmates. A part of her hoped she’d find her armor and weapons here, but she knew they wouldn’t.

If it wasn’t in the barracks, then it would have been processed into the vault. “Great,” Song muttered and wiped a bead of sweat on her brow. She took a quick look into the incinerator, gazing down at where the fires should be, and felt a surge of relief to find it wasn’t running. Had it been, and their climb to the roof would have been impossible.

She took a step back and dug into one of the bins, searching as if it was a sale in a thrift shop. “Looks like they ran the incinerator this morning,” she told Val. “So, it might be a little warm in there.” She began wrapping discarded clothes around her hands, neck, and slippered feet. She was confident they could make the climb. It was just a matter of shimmying up the ventilation shaft. Trying not to get burned, though—that was the real obstacle here.

“I’ll go first,” said Song. Then, she slipped into the incinerator.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

The door was jammed. That was the good news. There was shouting outside. So, that was probably bad. But Song, crazy bat that she was, was headed up the incinerator shaft; and Val was dead certain no one was following them up there. None one sane, that is. Val wasted no time snatching up discarded cloth for herself and wrapping it around the exposed parts of her skin. Then, she grasped the lip of the shaft and hauled herself inside.

It took a moment to register the heat on her flesh. The warmth bled through the cloth like a lightsaber through metal. But the heat on her skin wasn’t the worst of it. The humidity was. The air around her was heavy, each breath she sucked in scalding, and before long she could add sweat to the list of complications impeding her. It made her hands wet and slick against the metal, and big droplets of salty sweat frequently slid into her eye, stinging them where already the heat was making them dry. Val had thought she had faced the worst heat on desert worlds like Jakku and Tatooine. She didn’t expect it to actually come from an off incinerator on an ice planet run by a bunch of long-neck bankers.

“Remind me,” she wheezed, “to charge you extra if we survive this. Oh, and to never help you ever again.”

She was only half joking.

By the time the two Mandalorians were halfway up the shaft, the wrappings on Val’s hands were no longer doing their job. The skin there felt as if she had stuck her hand into a nest of viper ants and was taking too long to numb. If she kept this up, her skin might even begin to melt and stick to the cloth, or worse, she would lose all feeling in her hands. But she pushed on, because what else was there to do?

She pushed on… right up until she heard the door somewhere below come loose and shouting spill into the barracks they had left behind. There was no point in being silent now. “Go!” she shouted. Because if there was one thing she was sure of, it was this: they would turn on the incinerator the moment they learned who was in it. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“Noted,” she said, not bothering to answer with a quip of her own. She simply didn’t have the time or care to deal with Val’s complaints right now.

Had it not been the fabric wrappings, her skin would have blistered the moment she’d touched the metal plating of the incinerator. Song was lucky all she could feel through the bandaging was a sharp warmth, as the heat of the shaft enveloped her like a shroud. She hated it, having always preferred the cold, but it was the tight space that made her the most uncomfortable. One slip, one mistake, and she would tumble down to the fires, likely taking Val along with her. The pressure was on.

You can do this, she insisted to herself. This is easy.

She hefted herself up another foot, shimmying her way to the top. How many levels did they have to climb? Six, seven? Song tried not to think about it, instead throwing all her focus on the walls around her, searching for cracks to dig into or smooth tiles to slide up by her open palm. The next several minutes felt like an eternity. Nobody, not even the sounds of confused guards below them, broke through her concentration. She stayed calm, collected.

As she blinked the sweat from her eyes, Song craned her neck up and found a patch of sky in the dark, like light at the end of a tunnel, and pushed harder. They were almost there. Now that she could see the end of the shaft more clearly, inspiration surged through her and she forced her muscles to flex, her fingers seeking purchase on the walls, and she rose higher.

Snow wafted through the opening. Some landed on her lashes, her brow, before they melted into tiny droplets on her cheeks and slid down her chin. The cold was forgiving. Sweet. It reminded her of Krownest, how the wind sliced through the pines and the trees swayed, how the snow almost sparkled under daybreak, or how the cardinals sang during the worst of winter. She missed it desperately. But soon, Song knew, she would return to that panorama of mountains, she’d come home again, and not as a bounty hunter or a thief, but a Mandalorian.

She climbed, then at last, she was free.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

Val was much less graceful emerging from the shaft. Nothing like the fear of impending disintegration to motivate one’s ass to move. She exploded from its open mouth after Song, plunging her hands into the cold snow for sweet relief. She almost expected steam to sizzle up from the ruin of her palms, instead she was met by an interesting mixture of sharp pain and stabbing cold. In the end, her nerves decided they didn’t like either and simply shut off. Numbness came over her then and she couldn’t have been more grateful for it.

“Right,” she said. “Well, we’re on the roof. I suppose our things are in the vault? Surely they wouldn’t melt down beskar at an incinerator in a bank-prison.”

Then again, this was the Muuns they were dealing with. They were intelligent bankers, but their smarts didn’t extend far beyond their ledgers. For all she knew, they melted their equipment down to beskar ingots and sold it straight to the Hutts. Or the Nemoidians. Or whatever rich money whore the Muuns worked with these days. Val hoped not. She rather liked her armor and didn’t fancy killing another Mandalorian for theirs.

She trudged some distance ahead of Song in search of the vault. She had half a mind to stop and ask Song how exactly she planned to get into the vault once they found it; but any thought of procativity was cut short by a blaring sound that screamed out over the snows and reverberated off the nearby mountains.

The alarm.

The prison had raised the alarm. Escaped convicts. Dangerous convicts. And the men down in the barracks knew where they had gone. Which meant TIEs and all manner of gunships were likely heading their way. No time to plan, they needed to move—yesterday.

“Alright, brave leader,” Val said. “Take us to the honey pot before they melt us down and add us to it.” @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“The Muuns are greedy hoarders. Chances are, they already have our weapons and armor in some glass display in the vault, thinking them a trophy. But we’ll get our hands on them soon enough.” Along with the Sword of Wren, she thought. Song prayed the central vault was divided in categories, like a museum, and that everything Mandalorian wise was stored in a single place. Otherwise, she and Val would be running around in circles for the next hour, searching.

She pointed ahead to a separate building, circular in shape and topped with a domed roof. “According to the plans, that should be where the main vault is.” It only made sense that they kept it split from the prison sector, locked behind defensive shielding and an army of guards. Of course, they’d thrown the bulk of their security on the ground, not accounting for two prisoners—no, Mandalorians—to be able to reach the closed roof. “Now,” said Song, “all we need to do is jump.”

There was a large gap between the two buildings, too wide for an easy crossing, but Song had always enjoyed a challenge and she didn’t intend to turn back now. Drawing in a sharp breath, she pulled back on leg, fell into a runner’s stance, and without warning, sprinted forward. Her odds were less than stellar, but it had been that way since they’d arrived on this godsforsaken planet. Death followed them like a shadow. Yet every time, she and Val managed to escape its grasp.

She’d come this far, why not push her luck a little further?

Song sailed through the air, a bird without wings. She felt weightless, as if defying gravity, but after a moment of flying, she felt its pull on her waist and plunged.

She snagged the ledge just barely in time. The bones in her fingers ached and desperately, she used what strength she had left and clambered over the edge. She lay on her back then, panting, staring at the clouded sky. “Gods,” she sighed to herself. “You’re almost there, Song. Get up.” She propped herself up on one elbow, ignoring the alarm and the soreness in her back. Almost there.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

“Jump?” Val nearly went cross-eyed.

First, her hands had nearly been baked off her arms. Then the Muuns called in a damn bomb squad to kill her, and now she was supposed to jump. Val looked down. You were never supposed to look down, and she regretted it the instant she did. There was a wide berth between the two buildings and both roofs were covered in ice and snow, or snow and ice. It looked pillowy enough, but Val understood how deceptive that way. The snow was just the top layer. It was the ice beneath that was the real threat.

Well, if I die, then I don’t have to go to the fucking vault, Val thought, the slightest bit of insanity slipping into the grin that crawled across her face. To any sane person, that would have be insane logic. But it suited Val just fine.

So she jumped. Backed up and pole-vaulted right across the gap. She was surprised how much air she covered without her jetpack. Elation soared through her… Then she landed, and the ice caught her. She slid, windmilling her hands in a desperate attempt to balance out, to end her slide of doom. Right before the backs of her boots hit the edge of the roof and she went tumbling over, just barely managing to snag the edge of the building with an outstretched and badly burnt hand.

It felt like sandpaper scraping across a wound. The pain of it was nearly enough to make her let go; but she was a Mandalorian and, clumsy though she was, she had some experience with pain tolerance. Biting her lip until it bled, Val hoisted herself back up and over the lip of the building and into the soft snow below. She was tempted sorely to lay there and catch her breath, tend her wounds. But the Muuns were coming and Song would leave her behind. She just knew it.

With some effort, Val made it back to her feet and stormed ahead, careful not to slip on the ice again. Before long, the dome Song indicated loomed over them. She scanned the building for some sort of entrance. But there was none. No glass dome to shatter, no windows to break in, and no service door to break the lock on. She was about to throw her hands up and let the TIEs take her when she noticed an exhaust vent. No doubt they would be covered in soot when they came out the other end, but it was better than the godsdamned incinerator.

“Come on, suchka,” Val snapped, reverting to Mando’a in her pain. “I’m ready to shoot something.”

By the time she heard the whine of the TIEs, her boot had caved in the exhaust vent’s metal plating and she dropped inside. By the time the Muuns caught her, they would not want to be on the receiving end of her blaster. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“You and me both,” Song muttered in reply, although her right hand was itching for a knife, a sword, or even a stun baton to use against the Muuns. A night in prison had worn her patience to dust. She intended to exact terrible revenge against the men responsible—even if she had murdered a dozen of them in the first place—either way, more would come. More would die. But as long as she got her hands on her clan’s ancestral sword, she didn’t care if the ice canyons ran with the blood of a thousand Muuns.

They would learn to fear Clan Wren, as they were meant to.

Song dove into the exhaust vent after Val, and narrowly avoided being spotted by a passing TIE fighter. Like the incinerator shaft, the tight space of the vent was unbearable, but she crawled onward, a snake winding its way into the heart of the Ice Vault. So close behind the Kryze, she prayed to the gods the woman wouldn’t let out a fart (as she frequently did) and clog the vent with what digested sweets she’d eaten that morning.

Then again, Val smelled terrible already. Song could barely stand it. “You reek, Kryze,” she said as they crept deeper into the ventilation shaft. “Couldn’t you have asked your inmate slaves to smuggle in some deodorant? You smell like a Krownest cave bear.” A dead one, specifically.

No matter her reply, it wasn’t long before they came upon a hatch in the vent, one with a perfect view of the building’s interior. A wide rotunda, the central vault was constructed like a panopticon, with dozens of vaults circling a single tower armed with a spotlight and several guards. Song cursed under her breath. She knew this would come, but their little prison break had set the whole complex on edge and there were far more guards lurking about the vault than usual. As much as she wanted to jump in guns glazing, they needed guns to begin with.

“Let’s think first,” she whispered to Val, worried the Kryze might dive from the vent and strangle the first guard she saw. “We need to find our beskar.” She scanned their surroundings. “Any ideas?”

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

Val sniffed herself and had to restrain a recoil. She did smell. Probably worse than she’d ever smelled. But she wasn’t about to let Song have the last word on that. She looked her once over before fixating her gaze on Wren’s hair. “When you fix that skeever’s nest, you can comment about how I smell,” she retorted.

And then they hit the rotunda. It was larger than they thought. Well, larger than she thought and crawling with guards. Not to mention the alarm was still blaring. Val half-expected to see more guards flood the room in any minute. And that’s when an idea hit her. The guards would know they were looking for their gear, so it only made sense that the most heavily guarded vault in the rotunda would be where their beskar was held.

She scanned the room.


“Over there,” she said quietly, pointing to a durasteel door on the far side of the second level. Guards by the dozen stood in a circle around the room leaving virtually no blindspots except for above. “That’s where our stuff will be. I’ll try to draw them away. But I swear to the old gods and the Force, if you let me get shot, my ghost will haunt you from here to eternity.”

And then she was gone.

She worked her way through the shaft, winding up and down, until she came to a stall above the central guard tower. Unlike the rest of the vault, there were only two men inside. Easy enough. She kicked open the vent and dropped down like a spider from its web. By the time the two men whirled, she was on top of them, spinning around them, locking one head between her thighs before jerking the head at an awkward angle to snap it. The other tried to lunge for the alarm.

She let him.

By the time it blared a warning, she was on him too, and he was dead soon after. But her mission was complete. The internal alarm was blaring. Eyes were on the guard tower. And since the men inside thought they had surfaced there instead of where their gear was, they fled their positions to reinforce the men Val had already killed. Which meant she needed to get into the vent and find Song. Fast. She just prayed Song had her guns when she got there. She was going to have fun shooting this barrel of fish.

 

[Song Wren]

“If you get shot, then I probably will too, and the last thing my ghost would do is associate with a Kryze’s, thank you very much,” she said primly, but Song couldn’t deny how much Val’s company had grown on her, like not-so-bad fungus. She might even call her a friend, maybe, as long as the day didn’t end with either of them dead or rotting in the snow outside. But if they succeeded, it would likely be the end, there. She’d have her sword and Val her credits. After that, they would part ways.

She shook her head. Now was not the time to think of the future. Song had to focus on the vault, and on the clever distraction the Kryze would give her.

As Val made for the central tower, Song squirmed through the shaft to where she believed their beskar was being kept. Guards still lingered by the plated doors, armed to the teeth, checking to make sure nobody approached. Little did they know that the Mandalorians they were looking for were right above their spindly heads, and even less that Song was moving right past them.

She might have dropped out at the sound of the alarms, but instead she kept crawling until she could see inside the vault, rather than out. She didn’t have a key to open the blast door, but she figured there was a way to pry it open from the inside. If not, then she supposed she would have to use the weapons stored inside to do it instead.

Once Song found a convenient opening into the vault, she dropped in, grateful to find it empty. A red light blinked in the room’s corner and she knew she must have tripped a motion sensor, but thanks to Val’s distraction, the guards were probably too preoccupied to notice. By the time they would, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Song found her armor in seconds, right beside the Kryze’s, and donned it on as quickly as possible.

Blood sang in her ears. Alarms rang incessantly, just as she stumbled upon her and Val’s blasters. Her heart dropped, however, when she discovered they’d been emptied. No ammunition, no clips. The Muuns had turned their weapons into little more than antiques—of course they would have removed the blaster packs—and yet, it still struck her like a punch to the gut. Dread pooled in her stomach. How would she and Val escape now, without ammo on hand?

She froze. The sounds faded away as Song caught something else in the chamber. A glint of metal. A silvery line. She turned slowly to find a long and sweeping blade with a curved edge, a golden hilt and scabbard, all encased in a glass display. Her spirits rose like a phoenix from the ashes.

The Sword of Wren was here.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

Val was livid not for the first time that day. Guards were flooding the tower, she was stuck in a too tight ventilation shaft, and there was no bloody sign of the suchka of Wren yet. Of course, she’d had no time to confirm Song had made it into the vault containing their missing weapons and armor. For all she knew, not all of the guards had been pulled away and Song was desperately fighting for her life.

Didn’t matter.

One of them was going to get their hands on a pair of blasters. And that one was going to be her. She backtracked, all the while listening for the impending guard ambush. Instead, the muffled voices she heard sang a different tune. The men outside had realized their ploy and were rushing back to the weapon’s vault. If Song was in there, she was about to have a lot of company.

A moment later, Val dropped down into the hallway where Song had disappeared into. The corridor was blessedly clear of Muun guards, but she could hear their muffled curses from somewhere in the distance. When she peered around the corner, she found her worst fears confirmed. The men were surrounding the entrance to the vault, and Val had no armor or weapons to draw them away with. Song had better have her weapons drawn, because if she hesitated even a single moment, Val would be dead, and she would be a lone ranger escaping the prison.

She sucked in a breath and stepped out. “Hello, gentlemen,” she said, immediately drawing their attention away from the vault.

“Stop right there!” One of the Muun shouted.

“How original,” Val said. “Here I am, unarmored, unarmed, and there are ten of you pointing blasters at me. Do you find me so intimidating?”

“Irritating, more like,” one said.

“And ugly,” said another. She was going to blast that one full of holes. “We’re taking you back to your cell.”

“Are you? News to me.”

They took a step closer, blasters raised. Good. She raised her hands, fully anticipating to be swarmed. She just hoped Song used the opening she provided. She would absolutely ring her helmeted skull in the next life if she didn’t. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Song didn’t leave Val waiting for long. As the guards descended on the Mandalorian, weapons at the ready and a pair of cuffs jangling, they’d find their victory interrupted by the sound of screeching metal and of a door slowly opening. Heads whirled. All eyes fell to the nearby vault, widening as a figure stepped into the light.

Perhaps in the most dramatic way possible, Song emerged in a complete set of armor, the yellow gilding and signet of Clan Wren imprinted on the beskar, worn like a badge of honor. She carried no blasters. No gatling gun, no rocket launchers, no throwing knives. Instead, she brandished two blades, the Sword of Wren among them. In her right hand it felt heavy, like it contained the spirits of all her ancestors, of the men and women who’d wielded it through the ages. But it was not a crushing weight.

In fact, Song felt lighter with it, more free. Like a bird who’d finally earned its wings.

She raised it to the gathered men. They gaped and gawked at her, a silence festering in the air, until the closest Muun lifted their blaster toward her face. She didn’t give him a chance to fire. She struck first, closing the gap between them in the blink of an eye, and leveled his shoulders. Chaos erupted in the hall. Song took the opportunity to toss the other beskad to Val.

Even if she could probably take on the guards with her fists alone, she figured the Kryze would want something a little more flashy than some blooded knuckles.

She just hoped the woman could wield a sword. They wouldn’t be able to use blasters, not unless they picked it off the guards, but they were in close enough quarters to where even the least experienced swordsman could take on the soldiers. They had fear and surprise on their side, along with a bit of Mandalorian luck. They had each other too, and that was all that mattered.

“Glad to see you haven’t died yet, Kryze!” Song cried over the din of violence, cutting through the next guard as if he was just another tree in a forest that desperately needed clearing.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

Val caught the proffered beskad awkwardly and had to adjust her grip to avoid dropping it. She had expected guns. Blasters. Anything that involved plasma and burning and death. Swords weren’t her style; but she supposed they were going to have to be if they wanted to hack their way out of this.

A Muun lunged for her, and she brought her Mandalorian weapon up in a diagonal slash. She’d heard the phrase “cut through like butter” many times from many drunk smugglers in a Taris bar, but she imagined this is what it must truly feel like with the way the Mandalorian iron in her blade passed through the Muun’s body as though it were carving through air. She barely felt the resistance of his spine before the blade was out the other side and he was lying in two pieces at her feet.

“I suppose someone has to be,” she grumbled. Sure, death wasn’t preferred, but just thinking about fighting their way out of the vaults to the ship impound was dizzying. They didn’t have jetpacks anymore, and even if they did, TIEs made flying problematic. “That fancy blade of yours had better hold the key to all the coffers on Mandalore, or you’ll find it hard to pay my fee after we survive this!"

She made it sound real. Like she was annoyed. Like she hated this. But she didn’t, and Song knew it. Val loved a fight. The flashier, the better. But she also loved playing hard-to-get, so she couldn’t exactly tell Song she was loving it. She showed it instead, hacking and slashing, until the Muun’s stopped attacking her and started fleeing instead.

“Now, where is my godsdamned armor?” she shouted. “I don’t feel like being killed by a stray blaster bolt.” @Song

 

[Song Wren]

“You’ll have your credits, Kryze, on my word as a Wren,” said Song with a gleeful smile, before she lashed her sword across the chest of another guard, leaving a bright red gash in its wake. The longer she wielded her clan’s ancestral blade, the lighter it became and the faster it grew on her, feeling less like a separate thing and more like an extension of her arm. It melded perfectly to her body, as if it was meant solely for her use, as if it had been waiting years for her to recover it from this vault.

She knew the weapon belonged only to the Alor of Clan Wren, her father. Once she returned to Krownest, she would likely have to pass it along to him in order to cement his rule and quell the rebels in the mountains, but a part of her wondered if she even should. He hadn’t come to Scipio to risk his life for the blade. Song had. It might’ve been selfish of her to say, but maybe she deserved to wield this sword over him, or anyone else.

But doing so would undermine her father and she currently had no intentions in taking his place.

For now, at least.

She mowed through the next few guards, back to back with Val, until the rest were sent fleeing down the hallway, struggling to escape from their reach. Song doubted they’d return, not without a sea of reinforcements to back them up. She and the Kryze would have to leave as soon as possible before they did. She’d been dealt plenty of winning hands that day despite their imprisonment and she was not keen on pressing her luck any further.

“Your beskar’gam is inside the vault,” she told Val, then smirked. “Throw it on and I’ll make sure nobody else comes creeping in as you dress.” She wiped her sword clean of blood. “Just hurry. We might be able to cut our way to the closest hanger, but that’s if the Muuns haven’t already locked the whole complex.” Which they probably had. “We can’t exactly smash our way out a wall either, not with just my sword.”

Still, she had a feeling they’d find a way out. To get back home, Song would do anything.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

Putting her armor back on was like regrowing a layer of missing skin. She sometimes took off the helmet, when it suited her, but the armor usually never left her but to sleep at night. This past day in prison had been the longest she had been outside it since she was a girl, and she never wanted to be separated from it this long ever again. When every last piece was in place, every belt fastened, her helmet—her true face—snug over her head, she emerged blade in hand, empty blasters in their holsters.

She took one look at the dead Muuns, then glanced at the blade in her hands. The choice was a no brainer. She tossed the blade aside like a used rag and bent down to retrieve the aliens’ weapons. One-by-one, she removed their battery packs, adding them to her belt until she was out of room. She tossed Song what remained. “Sorry,” she said with a hidden smirk. “Some Mandalorians like to play Jedi and swing around fancy carving knives, but I’m a blaster kind of girl.”

She took one of the stolen packs and shoved it into the empty butt of her blaster. Then she repeated the process with the second.

The alarms blared again. This was a different sound. More urgent. Their company would not be mere grunts this time.

Val reached for the scope on her helmet and switched it down over her visor, using it to scan the room. “We may not be able to smash our way out,” she said, fixing her gaze on the target displayed neatly on her head. “But we can blast our way out.”

She pointed with one blaster pistol at a bulky generator attached to the underbelly of the tower she had just been in. It made sense that this room’s power was cut off from the rest of the facility. If it ever came under attack, this room could run independent of the others. Smart of the Muuns, fortuitous for them. Aiming wasn’t a problem. Muscle memory guided her arm. Then she squeezed the trigger and a second later, the entire tower exploded in fire and shrapnel. The shockwave was so destructive that it shattered transparisteel and sent both Mandalorians soaring back into the wall behind them. But Val barely felt it. Beskar was an excellent insulator from pain. And when she looked up upon her handiwork, she saw a gaping hole in the ceiling above.

“Better get going,” she said, and, without waiting, began to fly. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Song rested both hands on her hips and surveyed the carnage, taking note of Val as she carelessly tossed aside the spare sword and plucked the blaster packs off every dead guard. She considered lecturing her about respecting the art of swordplay, just like her father would when she was a child, but she figured the Kryze would drop dead of boredom halfway through any speech—in through one ear and out the other.

Either way, Song couldn’t be surprised by her reaction. Val always had been a gun loving maniac, and considering they would need longer range weapons to get out of the Ice Vault, she understood why. Not everyone had been raised as she had, forced to learn every sword technique known to man in the blistering cold of her homeworld. Some people just liked the simplicity of pressing a trigger and watching heads pop like balloons.

Or blowing up guard towers.

Song shielded her face as the vault tower burst into flames, barely centering herself in time against the ensuing shockwave. The back of her head smacked against the wall and for a moment, she saw stars. But once her vision cleared and she felt certain she hadn’t suffered a concussion, Song noticed the gaping hole in the ceiling, left by Val’s reckless machinations. She should’ve been upset that the Kryze nearly got them both killed. Instead, she felt hope. Pride, too. Along with some minor embarrassment.

While Val still had her jetpack, Song had ruined hers in the battle prior to their imprisonment and the one she’d stolen from the Muuns had been confiscated. She knew her father would be furious at the news, but seeing as there were plenty more stored in the vault, maybe he wouldn’t notice. She sure wouldn’t. All jetpacks were the same, right? It was just a matter of turning it on and flying.

Still, it would take some getting used to.

Song trailed after the Kryze once she found an adequate enough substitute, soaring toward their opening and catching up to her in a matter of moments. Wind lashed at her armor and cold air seared her lungs, and yet she felt more alive than ever, finally free of captivity and with the Sword of Wren in tow. A tiny part of her wished she could have had time to scour the other vaults, wondering what other treasures might lay within, but she was content with what she got.

Perhaps one day, in the future, she could return and liberate the whole of the Ice Vault. One day.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

“See?!” Val shouted over the roar of the icy wind. “This is much faster.”

She wasn’t wrong. The impound hanger loomed ahead. They had saved minutes, maybe hours, of cutting through Muuns, ducking into halls, and bringing more guards down on them while they weaved through the building towards the hangar. Who knew. By then, the hangar could have been shielded, reinforced, ships could be pouring in to stop any kind of escape. But now the Muuns had no such time.

By the time Val had shot out a window to fly through, the hangar was in chaos. There weren’t enough guards to protect it. TIEs were still being scrambled to intercept them, and there was general panic over the hole in the Ice Vault’s ceiling. Dozens were dead, some didn’t even seem to know whether Val and Song had survived the blast. But they had, and the confusion served them well.

“There’s our ship,” Val said from the scaffolding above the hangar. The Muuns hadn’t seen them yet. Nor had they noticed the shot-out window. There were shouts, shrieks, comms going on and off. The few crew that remained in the hangar were scampering like ants from one end to the other, leaving their impounded ship mercifully alone.

This would be easy. Until it wasn’t.

The whine was the first sign of wrongness. It wasn’t a TIE’s usual whine. Similar, but deeper somehow. More menacing. Val shot a look out the window she had just broke and spotted where it was coming from. A black knife shredding the kilometers towards the hangar. It wasn’t a TIE. It wasn’t any ship she recognized; and without knowing how or why, she instinctively ducked down as low as she could. She had a bad feeling about this.

“Uh, something tells me we should get our ship and go before whoever that is peeks their head out,” she whispered to Song. Because whoever was on that ship wasn’t going to be felled with a flashy swing or a misplaced blaster shot.

She just knew it. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Song sliced through the air, making her way toward the impound hangar. They were on an unbelievable streak of luck, bolstered by the Muuns own confusion, split between a prison riot and a broken vault. Perhaps every alarm imaginable rang over the complex, enough to reverberate in her skull, but she found it more like music, a soothing melody to remind herself that she’d won. She felt like she had finally reached the peak of a mountain after a hard climb, triumphant.

But even she knew it was too early to celebrate.

Song spotted the approaching ship, too, and her heart made a five story drop. In her many adventures across the galaxy, she’d met assassins and Sector Rangers, Jedi and Sith, and by the looks of that vessel, she had a distinct suspicion on who—or what—it contained. Even high on victory and with her beskar’gam and the Sword of Wren in her possession, she was not keen on facing whatever opponent lurked inside that ship’s cockpit.

It was time to leave.

She landed shortly after Val, skidding to a halt outside the ugly freight ship that had brought them to Scipio in the first place. As much as she despised it, Song was never more happy to see it than in that moment. “Get the ship started,” she said and brandished her sword threateningly. “I’ll make sure nobody bothers us.” It might’ve made more sense if she got the engine running, considering she knew the hunk of junk best, but last time she’d nearly crashed it on their arrival. Perhaps Val’s luck would fare better.

Besides, Song had more pressing matters to attend to.

What mechanics that lingered around the hangar had steered clear of them easily enough, too afraid to stop their escape, but they weren’t the problem. Neither was the threat of more Muun guards. Instead, the black ship they’d spotted had arrived.

The Sith had come.

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

A Sith.

Val had not met one. She avoided them. When news reached her about Darth Raze’s visit to Mandalore, she ignored that too. The Sith were bad business. Or, rather, bad for business. But what in all the hells was one doing on Scipio? Val watched Song brandish her weapon and scamper off to whatever heroics she had cooked up to save them both. Her instincts told her she should stop that wreckless Wren before she got them both killed, but her body wouldn’t move. Her gaze was instead fixed on the black ship as it touched down, and its contents sauntered out of its belly and into the hangar.

The Muuns were at once different. Placid, they knelt to the newcomer. “My Lord, we—”

“Spare me the excuses, I am not here to execute you,” the Sith said. His voice was cold and mechanical, reminding Val of those old history holos she used to watch about Cad Bane and the other outlaws of the Clone Wars era. “It has come to my attention that you are plagued by a pair of Mandalorians. I would very much like to meet them.”

Even as he said it, the Sith’s gaze wandered up to the scaffolding where Val was hidden. There was no way he could see her. She was well concealed. And yet from all she had heard about the Force, she knew he wasn’t limited by his sight. Somehow, he felt where she was—felt where Song was too, perhaps.

“I wasn’t aware the Empire was interested in Mandalorians,” one Muun said.

The Sith didn’t even do him the courtesy of a regard. “That is because you are made aware of only what you need to be aware of. Now, give me the latest update on the Mandalorians’ positions. I will handle your problem, and, in exchange, you will allow me to take both of them as my prisoner to answer for their crimes.”

Val moved then. She knew she risked being spotted, but she didn’t care anymore. All that mattered was reaching the ship and escaping. If the Sith captured them, death would be a kindness, and Val didn’t care for that option. She didn’t care for it one bit. Eventually, she ran out of scaffolding; but not before positioning herself right above the topmost hull of their ship. Through her visor, she could see the maintenance hatch. Getting inside would be easy… when no one was looking; but right now, there were too many eyes.

Without a distraction, the Sith and his goons would see her. And then it would be all over for Song and her both. @Song

 

[Song Wren]

Song stayed tucked behind a series of crates as the Sith approached. She didn’t want to alert him of her presence just yet, but as his gaze raked the hangar, she wondered if he already knew exactly where she was hiding. His expressionless mask made her skin crawl. She too was reminded of Darth Raze, but it couldn’t possibly be him or anyone closely related to his posse, not if he was out to capture them. But whoever this Sith was aligned with, it made no difference to Song. At the end of the day, he was just another target. Another enemy.

Her eyes darted to where Val was, understanding she’d need a distraction in order to slip into the ship. She wished things could have been easier, simpler, but no—of course she had to be the one throwing her life out on the line, just like when they’d raided the cliffside prison.

She drew in a sharp breath, then strode into the open.

Heads cocked in her direction. All eyes were on her now, providing Val the perfect opportunity to enter the cockpit, but it also left Song to deal with the Sith. Alone. She’d considered catching the man by surprise, but with his attunement to the Force, she didn’t want to risk it. Instead, she stood about fifteen meters away from him, one hand resting on her blaster and the other clenching the ancestral blade of her clan. “I should have known a Sith would be here,” she said coldly.

“But if you’ve come to stop us—” She flourished the Sword of Wren, growing more and more used to the feel of it in her hand, “—you’re already too late. This blade belongs to my people, not to these blasted vaults. And if you want it back, you’re going to have to rip it from the gnarled hand of my corpse.”

She had crossed paths with Jedi before, but not a Sith. Not a man like this one, who exuded darkness and carried a sense of misery about him like musty cologne. Her nostrils flared. She knew dozens of sword techniques thanks to her training on Krownest, and so thousands of ways to combat and defeat Force wielders. She wouldn’t be intimidated by a lightsaber, red or blue, and certainly not by a stranger who dressed in black rags instead of polished beskar. Song could take him.

“Well?” she said and took a step forward. The Muuns situated around the hangar took a wary step back, clearly not looking to get involved. “Are we going to fight or not?”

@Mockingjay

 

[Valeska Kryze]

If the Sith was moved by Song's threats, Val could not say. Cloaked in darkness, the creature raised its head to observe the woman who had addressed him. His armor made it nearly impossible to see what species he belonged to, but even without the Force, Val could sense the coldness staring out from the empty holes in his mask. He made no moved to draw his weapon, as Song had. He didn't even bother unfolding his arms from behind his back.

The Sith cocked his head, as if considering the whispers of someone Val couldn't see, then said, "There you are, little bird. I sensed you in this hangar—you and the other little rat you're traveling with, wherever she is. I wondered if you would come out to play."

Val felt ice crawl through her veins. He knew they were there. He knew the whole time. But he didn't know where they were. Where she was. And that meant she still had some small advantage so long as Song could keep his focus on her. For the moment, that seemed to be where his attention stayed. He eyed the weapon she had brandished proudly. The Sword of Wren, the prize they had come for.

"You Mandalorians are a curious lot," the Sith continued. "Do you think that sword lends you legitimacy? That a weapon could make you a queen? You are bold, I grant you, and you might have been a leader someday. Alas, you will not leave this hangar alive. I cannot allow two lost birds to jeopardize the relationship my Empire is cultivating back home with your people, nor threaten the stability of this banking world."

Val didn't see what he did. He didn't move, or even raise his hand. He kept his empty gaze fixed on Song, yet somehow, the scaffolding beneath her feet gave a great, laborious whine before snapping and collapsing. The noise was so terrible Val thought the whole roof was coming down. But this was it. The opening Song had bought for her, and she wasn't going to waste it. She bolted and ran for the ship. The Muuns in front of its open ramp were so fixated on the spectacle above, they didn't even see her scream past them and into the belly of the ship.

She made for the cockpit. Hopefully, the Muuns had not drained the ship's fuel before impounding it. If she could get it running, not the Sith could stop them. She just hoped Song lived long enough to make the escape, and the whole damn heist, worth it. @Song