Chapter Text
Jaster Mereel, leader of the Haat’ade, and chosen Mand’alor of those Mandalorians that had true honour, was not having a good day.
This was supposed to be a standard search and rescue mission. They were supposed to come here, fight off a few natives, who were supposed to lack certain technological advancements, and then rescue the Korda Defence crew. It was a cake walk. Supposedly. His Second had vetted the mission, made sure that they were given the correct information.
His Second.
The aruetii who had decided to betray him and leave him to die.
Leave him for Tor Vizsla to find and kill.
Another former friend turned aruetii, who was up on that ridge, about to come down and ‘deal with him’.
…So much treachery in his life…
Montross had taken advantage of his trust in him while his back was turned, taking the coward’s route. Then he’d delivered blow after blow, at one point causing Jaster to fall off a rather high cliff. That had broken his leg. He’d beat on him, until he’d suddenly stopped, and declared that he was leaving him for Vizsla to finish off.
Static burst in Jaster’s ear. His buy’ce had taken a hit that had scrambled the comms. He couldn’t call for backup, couldn’t at least speak to Jan’ika one last time before Tor came to finish him off ‘once and for all’. He sighed softly, eyes closing briefly. He was too badly injured to get away. Montross had made quick work of him. When they sparred, Jaster would almost always come out the victor. So the only way for Montross to win here had been to stab him in the back.
Quite literally.
Mandalorians really did know how to get around their beskar’gam to beat one another up after all.
With the deep stab wound that had slipped into a small gap in his armour, and his broken left leg, Jaster’s body was riddled with injuries. He was pretty sure he’d cracked a few ribs, and one or more may actually be pressing on his lungs. He was bruised all over, small nicks here and there from Montross’s attempts to further injure him with his vibro blade. He’d also been shot a few times, and he was pretty sure that he was concussed, as he was actually seeing two Tor Vizsla’s up on that ridge.
What he wouldn’t do for Mij to be here right now.
If he somehow managed to survive this, he was never letting him know he’d thought that.
At least he’d gotten a few hits in on Montross. The aruetii was sporting a limp, his left hand wasn’t working too good, and if his buy’ce was off, Jaster was pretty sure that he’d see a split lip, or perhaps a broken nose. Even though Jaster was worse off, he was glad that at least he’d made sure that Montross hadn’t gotten away scratch free.
His attention was suddenly diverted from one aruetii to another.
Something was happening up on the ridge. Tor had stopped advancing, and was actually turning away. And Montross had stopped, head tilted like he was listening to a comm, then he turned and started coming back to where Jaster still lay, sprawled on the grass. His former friend came to a stop only a couple of meters before him, staring down at him.
“Well,” came his distorted voice through his buy’ce, “it seems that your men and your little brat are giving Tor’s men more trouble than he expected. So now it’s up to me to finish you off.”
Montross’s tone indicated he found that distasteful, but Jaster knew the real reason why. “So much for Tor wanting to be the one to finally end me for good,” Jaster gasped out.
Montross shrugged. “My reasons for not killing you myself haven’t changed,” he said, pulling out his blaster and aiming it at him. “It would have been so much easier for me to take over the crew if Vizsla was the one to end you. But when your Mand’alor calls, what can you do?”
A deep stab of hurt and betrayal hit Jaster’s heart, but he ignored it in favour of staring up at his soon to be killer, determined to stare death in the eyes. Montross was aiming right at him, his finger ready to squeeze the trigger. Looking up at him, Jaster could see something happening right above him, and it distracted him from his impending death.
With the angle he had, Jaster was in a prime position to see the sky seemingly open up, and something small come falling out of it. The opening was several meters off the ground, and whatever it was that came through fell and hit Montross hard enough to stumble him, almost knocking him down. His blaster fell from his hand and clattered to the ground near Jaster. He stared down at it.
Montross recovered from the unexpected ‘attack’ and whirled on whatever it was that had hit him. Jaster’s fingers inched towards the blaster, even as Montross stepped over to where whatever it was that had fallen. He reached down to pick it up by the scruff, and Jaster saw that it was… An adiik. Ignoring all the pain in his body, Jaster moved quicker to grab the blaster, fumbling it in his hands and aiming it at the aruetii.
“You little brat!” Montross snarled at the terrified looking child. “Where in the haran did you come from?”
Jaster’s hands were shaking, but he did his best to force them to be steady. Montross pulled out a vibro blade, the same one he’d used to stab him before. (it still had his kriffing blood on it!) The adiik was wriggling, trying to get loose, and just before Montross could bring the blade down, Jaster pulled the trigger. Montross stilled, then his grip on both the adiik and the blade loosened. He dropped them both, fell to his knees, then tumbled sideways to the ground.
Was he dead? Jaster had no idea. All he knew was that suddenly, he was dropping the blaster, body wracked with coughs. The adiik seemed to have frozen, staring down at the body before them. Then they seemed to collect themselves, and they looked over to Jaster. They took a hesitant step forward, glanced down at Montross, before looking back to him and shuffling closer to Jaster.
“Adiik,” Jaster said, noticed the still blank look on the adiik’s face, and tried Basic instead. “Child. Are you okay?”
The child tilted their head to the side, a look of incomprehension on their face. No Basic? Well, Jaster knew a few more languages. But first, he decided to take his buy’ce off. It would probably help with his likely concussion, that static buzzing was giving him a worse headache. It did not escape his notice that the adiik seemed to relax once he’d done so.
“Achuta?”
Nope, not Huttese.
“Kaaless?”
No Ryl.
“Ohi?”
Not Miralukese either.
Jaster ran through a few others that he knew the basic greetings for in other languages, before he came up empty. His probable concussion was keeping him from remembering more, as he was pretty sure he knew both the Togruta and Zabraki words for hello, but they were escaping him at this point. He’d even tried Mando’a again, to no avail.
The adiik had come over to sit next to him by then. He was staring at him curiously, then he said, “Pecha.”
Jaster’s brow rose. The adiik gave him a crooked smile, then said, “Pecha. Tumi mika’ah Ben.”
“Okaaay?”
The adiik rolled his eyes, which Jaster found rather adorable. “Pecha,” they said, waving their hand, and after blinking slowly for a moment, Jaster realised that probably meant ‘hello’.
Then, the adiik patted their chest. “Ben.”
Oh… Ohhhh! Jaster pointed at… Ben. “Ben?” he asked questioningly, and the adiik nodded. Then Jaster pointed at himself. “Jaster. Su cuy’gar.”
He punctuated that last bit with a wave, just as Ben had.
Ben opened his mouth, but before he could even say anything, there was a loud explosion. Ben ducked, hands over his head, like he expected something to fall on him, as he’d fallen on Montross. But Jaster recognised that the explosions were too far away for that, though they did shake the ground more than a little. It came from over the ridge, where Tor had disappeared to.
He needed to get them out of there, if only for the fact that Tor could come back at any time. Especially since he wouldn’t be hearing any confirmation of his death from Montross. But how to do so? Jaster was far too injured to move, or at least move quickly. And what about Ben? He looked over to the adiik, who was only just now lowering his hands to look around. Upon not finding any immediate threat, he returned his attention to Jaster.
He started speaking, gesticulating at the same time, but Jaster still couldn’t understand him. Frustrated, Ben yelled, “Naa! Kaza!”
He reached down to grab Jaster’s arm and gave him a tug. “You want us to leave?” Jaster asked, then shook his head. “Of course you don’t know what I said.”
Ben probably didn’t even realise how injured Jaster was. He looked over to where Montross still lay. Carefully, he dragged himself over to him, and saw in his peripherals that Ben seemed to realise that he was badly hurt. Once he reached the aruetii’s side, Jaster rummaged through his gear, and after a moment, found a med kit. Good. His own was depleted. Hands still shaking, he pulled out both a stim and a painkiller.
Ben came over and gave him a judging look, then helped him apply them to himself. Well, he helped him keep his hands steady. As he waited for them to kick in, Jaster reached out to search for a pulse on Montross, but found nothing. He was equal parts glad, and saddened.
As they waited for the meds to kick in, the sounds of the battle over the ridge drew their attention. For now it seemed, there was no one to come check on them. Jaster didn’t know how well or otherwise his people were doing. Kyr’tsad had come far more prepared than they had, thanks to Montross’s betrayal. Jaster could only pray to the ka’ra that they would endure.
The moment he felt the meds work, Jaster attempted to stand. It was a complete and utter failure. Ben reached out to try to steady him as he clattered back to the ground. Kark it all! So, he couldn’t move, not even with stims and painkillers. Jaster sighed, and turned his attention to his buy’ce. Ben was chattering away at him, obviously trying to say something, but growing increasingly frustrated, since neither of them could understand the other.
Ben pointed at the buy’ce, but Jaster shook his head. “Broken,” he told him. "Shuk’la.”
He could see the adiik didn’t understand, not surprising. Looking around, Jaster saw a twig, picked it up, snapped it, then pointed at it, then his buy’ce. Ben frowned, but realisation dawned, and he sighed dramatically. He muttered something under his breath, then looked around. His gaze stopped on Montross. Ben looked back to him, then pointed to the aruetii.
“What do you…? Oh. You want me to use Montross’s? I suppose that could work, so long as Tor isn’t listening in on it.”
Jaster started to shuffle back over to where Montross lay, but a sudden, sharp burst of pain had him stopping. Ben hovered worriedly over him, then once he’d made sure he was okay, went over to Montross himself. He poked at the buy’ce, then pulled it off. Jaster wondered how he knew what to do to release that seal. Then he brought the buy’ce over to him.
Putting aside how disturbed he was that an adiik had just casually pulled a buy’ce off a corpse, Jaster started hacking into the comm system. He found the override quickly, and dismissed the immediate thought of chewing his Second out on his appalling security. After all, it was currently working in his favour. Then, he connected the comms to the haat’ade system, and called up the first name (besides Tor) that popped up.
He probably should put the buy’ce on, but he was rather repulsed by the idea. Instead, he put the comm on speaker. Silas answered immediately, obviously assuming it was Montross calling as he spoke.
“Montross! Where the haran are you and Jaster!” he was yelling as blaster shots rang all around him. “We could use some help here!”
“This is Jaster, not Montross,” said Mand’alor told him. “I’m heavily injured, Montross is dead. I need immediate evac for myself and an adiik.”
“What the haran is an adiik doing here!?” Silas was still yelling, though he somehow made it sound a little more respectful now that he knew he was yelling at Jaster instead of Montross. “And what do you mean, Montross is dead!?”
“Just what I said,” Jaster told him. “I’ll send the coordinates, send someone to get me. I want you to start an immediate retreat. We are getting off this har’pal.”
“Alright, sit tight Boss,” Silas said. “I’ll send someone your way to pick you all up.”
The comm ended, and Jaster sat back. He took in a deep breath and, as Ben crept over to him and inserted himself under his arm in a vain attempt to pull him away from Montross, Jaster could only hope that his people arrived before kyr’tsad did.