The klaxon of an alarm woke the Mandalorian from his rest and roused him from the recurring memory of the purge, slate-grey eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lights in his quarters. Wulfram tossed in his bed for a moment more before he reached out and grabbed the offending helmet from the stand and pressed the interior switch to disable the alarm and activated the intercom.

"Winchester. You awake, or is Ritz flying this heap?" He asked, knowing full well that if it was first alarm, Chris was likely asleep in the Wheelhouse and Ritz was steering them through deep space.

They were on their way home from a far-flung assignment on Coruscant. A VIP security detail, with Chris securing sight lines across the promenade while Wulfram provided close support for their principle. An uneventful job, by far, without interruption or even a bar fight afterwards.

Every assignment was the same, verify target, stock up, ship out, perform, drink, go home. And these assignments were Wulfram's life, day in, day out. Even if it was a simple pickup, a break-in, or being someone's escort, the work was his life.

"Why do I bother, you're sleeping." He grunted as he sat up and pulled a pair of briefs out a drawer beside his bed.

"I'm awake. You stupid droid started complaining 'bout local traffic, so I'm actually awake." The man in the wheelhouse complained through the helmet, evoking a smirk from the Mandalorian.

"You know Chris, you complain too much." Wulfram chuckled into the neck of the helmet before he threw it onto his bunk and stretched out.

"I'll be up in a couple minutes." He finished as he crossed the room and picked up a toothbrush and went through the basic morning routine.

In a state of undress, Wulfram made his way up to the wheelhouse and stared at Chris and Ritz. The lane into Dajorra was backfilled with various freighters and returning warships. The Mandalorian looked at his crewmate and shrugged as he investigated the tail numbers of other nearby vessels and tried to figure out their purpose in the lane.

"Can't think of the last time I saw this many ships backlogged coming into the system. Guess I'll just go clean my armor, I'll start a pot of caf on my way back to bunk. Want any food?" He asked as he scratched his stomach and put a hand up on the bulkhead.

"No, but put some clothes on. I'm really starting to think those Helmet-obsessed zealots have the right idea. Never see them naked, never see their ugly faces. But you, I have to see both. Every. Single. Day." Chris shot back, throwing a stylus at the Mandalorian as he ducked through the bulkhead and cackled down the passageway.

"Feelin's mutual, Imperial scum!" Wulfram laughed back as he ducked into the Galley and punched the caf pot into place and started a fresh pot for the pair of them.

He then ducked back into the passageway and towards his bunk, staring at the helmet on his bunk, the klaxon alarm sounding off again.

"How did I get stuck with this schutta again?" He joked as he slapped the helmet to turn off his alarm.

Mandalore was in rebellion against the Empire, a point of pride if one were to look through their storied history. Wars waged for expansion through the stars, against the Jedi and the Republic throughout the centuries, which led Mandalore to becoming the desert the boy grew up with. When there was no one else to fight, after conquests turned into stalemates, their homeworld sieged, a tenuous peace with the Jedi and the Galactic Republic forced, and their warlike nature remained unslaked, conflict turned inward. Internal factions divided; some sided with the newly formed Empire while others refused to be bound under their yoke. The conflict on Mandalore mirrored the greater conflict across the Galaxy.

This wasn't a fight for a child; but it was a conflict countless children bore witness to.

The sound of Laser Cannon fire woke a young Wulfram from a dead sleep. Permacrete buildings fractured; the rumble and crash as the highrise pitched chilled the child down his spine. Eyes watered as he stared, in disbelief, out the transpasteel windows at the wreckage of the city. TIE Bombers, a ship he had only seen on screens, screamed through the air. Their bombs rattled the tower beneath his feet and he scrambled.

"Wolsha!" His mother shouted from the den, sending the boy on course for her.

His siblings surrounded her, Ganymede, Orri, Silas. The windows creaked, fractured, and gave way, the intense heat of the burning city below flowed into the apartment. Screams rose through the streets, crying, futility. They poured into the stairwell to escape the blasts, the shrapnel, the rancor of those who fell in the streets as the Imperial Forces marked them for death. The following hours were filled with dread. Hidden in the stairwell of their highrise as the bombings passed. The screech of Ion Engines became low hums as the bombers began making fewer and fewer sweeping runs, instead they switched to targeted sweeps on fortified buildings. The screams turned to silence, the occasional wail in the distance after another bombing run. Then something more sinister came.

The Hunt.

KX-Series Droids swept the city. The lasercannons slowed, their booming fire revealing the higher pitch of personal weapons fire. KX Droids opening fire on those who survived. The Armistead family saw them, they burst in through the lower level of the stairwell and opened fire on another family who had huddled together on a lower floor. Blaster fire reported back from the family and another who had prepared to fight Imperial soldiers after the bombing run. Nobody expected droid executioners.

"Wolsha, Meda, into the hallway." Their mother whispered, as she placed her hands on the elder twins' shoulders and pushed them in the direction of the nearest floor's doorway.

Terrified for their lives, and staring down the KX droids engaged with their neighbors below, the children pushed onward, unaware of the danger ahead. The resistance their building put up to the droids brought a familiar screech overhead. The building rent, collapsing from the upper floors as the bomber delivered the payload against the midseam of the structure. Implosive force as the building collapsed drove the air to the center of the structure, trying to find any place to escape as the building crushed in on itself. Windows burst out, shattered from their frames by the catastrophic forces. Wulfram turned to see his mother and siblings disappear in the cloud of debris in the stairwell, before the force threw Ganymede and himself out of the broken window and into the roiling flames of a speeder in the streets below, scorching Wulfram's back and arm.

Ganymede, however, was not as lucky. She fell into the middle of the street, into the stone debris, her hair strewn about her as she lay quiet, unmoving. Peeling himself, screaming, from the durasteel frame of the speeder, the young boy endured and crawled to his sister, where he whimpered through the night as he heard the repeater fire move closer and hoped it would take him too. When the morning came and the city was in ruins, he cried, as he heard detonations in the distance, knowing others were suffering a fate like his.

The neighbors that had fought the KX droids to a standstill limped out of the ruins of the highrise and spotted him and his sister alone in the streets. The following days were a blur to the orphan, but rage and the bitter taste of blood remained on his lips. His ears pounded with stress and the high ring of tinnitus never left him since that night.

It had been a few years since Alexandyr had returned home, for as much as he could call anyplace home. Clan Arcona had taken him in and given him some semblance of purpose, yet everything still felt empty. When he finally settled in, old routines crept back in, and he found some comfort. As he acclimated to Estle, he found city life to be busy but not stressful.

Staying in the same bed for more than a night was something he missed, and waking with the comfort of aircon even more so, but some things never changed. Whether travelling, stationed abroad, or in the comfort of his own home, one such comfort he took with him everywhere was a hot cup of caf. Quick brew in the mornings while abroad, but at home, he enjoyed a longer steep. He showered afterwards to help him focus and settle on plans for the day ahead. After he'd showered and had his first caf of the morning, he made breakfast and a second cup of caf. This one was sweetened to match the taste of his meal. Whenever Alex travelled, he often had meals comprised of nutritional bars or ready-packaged foodstuffs, but now he cooked his own food. He wasn't an award-winning chef by any standards, but nerf and eggs, with some simple flatcakes, were winners in anyone's record. At least Alexandyr thought as much.

Once he'd eaten, Alex sighed and got up to gaze out over the city, the perfect view as he started his morning callisthenics. Daily work kept his muscles limber and the ache away after long journeys, though he had to admit as his age crept up on him, his travels exhausted him further and further. Form practice with his sabre always followed. An outstretched hand called on The Force to deliver his lightsaber from across the apartment before he began. He checked the few pieces of furniture out of his way to open up his main room. His living quarters were relatively sparse, which gave him space to practice.

After his morning routine, Alexandyr felt the familiar wanderlust, part and parcel of why he sojourned so often. The call to see new things or to meet new people meant his bones never felt comfortable in one place long, but even home was alien after a few years away. An easy remedy was to visit the market to take in the new faces, vendors, and sights.

Market stalls were always a favourite of his, and here in Estle, they were as bustling as any other core world. The sights and sounds were enough to swallow a man, but the scent of spices and cooked meats were pure bliss to a man like Alexandyr. He danced between the stalls, investigated the various wares, greeted the new faces, and caught up with the latest gossip in the system. Even at home, he couldn't escape the same cycle he repeated abroad. Find some food, gather local faces, gather intel, and squirrel it away. Anchor yourself in place and remember where everyone and everything belongs.

After a few laps through the market, he doubled back and made a few purchases, some spiced meats, local spices, alcohol, fruits, vegetables, and a broken blaster being sold for a steal. The man loved to find things to tinker with, if nothing else. Once he collected his bounty he made his way back to the apartment and settled in for the night.

"Alright, le'see what's goin' on with this blaster. Prob'ly just a warped emitter or lens, but with these older models, they're gonna be harder to source." He chuckled as he lay the weapon out on his table before he went to put his groceries away.

While he was still in the kitchenette, he pulled a few pans down from storage to prepare a dinner with his haul, setting them aside before he returned to his newest toy. A smirk played across his lips as he began to pull the weapon apart and lost himself in the process. He only stopped to prepare dinner when his stomach complained loudly enough to garner his attention.

"Well, I guess I'll figure you out in the morning. It's a bit later than I'd like tonight." He complained as he looked out to the twilight city.

"Maybe a few more days off will do me some good? Not like I ever change how I do things, anyway. But at least I can relax while doing them at home."

Kowak. It had all begun here, Alexandyr's inscrutable search for a meaning in life. His obsession and anger, borne from trauma, over the absurdities of life and the existence of slavery. Now in his waning years, he sought to correct the stain he had let fester far too long. The market in Sclavos was already in full bustle, slavers hawked those they captured like cattle. It was enough to make anyone sick. No, it was enough to make anyone with morals sick, but morality had long since abandoned this place. Alex knew that far too well, years ago he had been sold in this very block. The cages changed over the years, but the clientele never did.

The man drew his cloak closer around him and pulled his saber close. What he planned to do here was not in his routine operations, but he knew he wasn't long for the world anymore. Each day his breaths grew harder. His cough grew worse. Normally Alex would stalk his targets, or prepare lengthy operations to minimize risks of casualty, this was personal. The drone of the barker, the chatter of the buyers, all of it seemed distant to the man as he made his way into the pens.

Fifteen years as a slave. Sold into slavery alongside his mother at the age of five, he found no identity in those years. His first owners sold him two years later, separating him from his mother, to a couple who raised slave children to fill their empty nest. Three years later he was sold again, and then every two years on, until a rebellion in 21 ABY. The memories flooded back through him as his eyes acclimated to the darkness of the pens.

His contact in the city, a Zabrak, Haruk, nodded as reached out to palm a key to Alex, who in turn shook his head and produced his Saber. Today would be different, today would be like the rebellion that freed him.

The flicker of a lightsaber is an unmistakable sound to many across the known galaxy. To those who recall it, a sense of hope or terror are often accompanied with it. Alexandyr first ignited his with hope. The hope he would return home and repay what the lone Knight did for him. And in his dying moments he intended to live up to his dreams.

His cloak fell from his shoulders and revealed the form of the ageing Disciple, long in the fang and grey in his age. But as the first guards realized what had ignited, it was too late. The amber saber sliced into the locking bar on the cages holding the children. As he cored the cages of the others he barraged the guards with telekinetic bursts to keep them at bay.

"Life is fleeting, and we owe it to ourselves to pay the debts we incur." He called to those he freed, throwing his saber to a sensitive among them as he waded to his death.

The Jedi pressed pursed lips to a clenched fist while he gazed into the distance, the faint scratch of his untrimmed beard, a momentary sensation, recalled him to the present. The memory of Nar Shaddaa clawed within his mind, the innocents in the street caught in the blast of the Plagueian's grenade. The concourse had emptied which left Wolfe alone to sulk, something he preferred at this point. Wolfe stood with the weight of his heel upon his well-worn cloak which caught, held fast, and he stumbled to catch his balance afterward.

"Introspection never was your strong suit, was it, child?" The calloused voice rasped, a shiver to match traversed the Jedi's spine.

"You've wallowed in doubt quite long enough, child, much longer and the Jedi will begin to wonder. Aren't attachments forbidden, after all? Ever still, sentimental as you are, you couldn't pick a path to follow attack and throw yourself before your enemy to protect those you never knew he would dare to target, like a fool. Or accept risks and mitigate." The specter made a visible gesture of defeat and moved across the concourse, its face contorted in the devilish sneer he had always given the Acolyte when he had been his Master.

The air between them was filled with the silence that came before storms, Wolfe had grown used to this over the last several years, but now it only punctuated the severity of the moment. The projection of his Master crossed the concourse and the pallor of the Sith was clear now to his student. Still, in this moment Wolfe grasped for words but could find none, and his Master's ghost continued to overshadow him. The poltergeist spoke his innermost doubts aloud and shook him to his core.

"I wonder, how efficient was that grenade? What was the casualty rate? Two or three, perhaps a dozen civilians? How many did he wound because of your inaction, my pet?"

Wolfe looked into the ephemeral eyes of his long-dead master, rage boiled over and his hands shook with an unmitigated source. But he was given something he had an answer to at this point, a question with a solid, definitive answer.

"Eleven dead, thirty wounded from the detonator. Degrees of injury vary. Collapsed lungs, burns, falling injuries from the detonation. Multiple injuries stem from the panic we caused in our fight. Largely those are attributed to trampling and crushing injuries from people trying to escape the source of the blast and gunfire." The Jedi spoke with an almost obscene clarity to his voice, eyes locked with his Master, old habits died hard.

"It speaks."

"I wasn't finished," Wolfe cut his master off, eyes forward as he looked through him and to the city beyond, "I wanted to say you were right, but I was so intent back then on getting away from you I never could admit it. Nothing in this world is the way we see it, and everything can be altered to suit our purposes. We can even be broken down to suit the needs of others. At the same time, there are aspects of this world that do not change. We do have to choose a path and walk it, what we face on that path can be altered, but we choose how we get there, and we cannot change how got where we are. I'm forever stuck with what you did to me, but I get to choose now what I do with this gift."

The sound of the imploder played once more in the Jedi's mind and he sighed.

"People will die, it is an immutable fact of our world. I had to kill you to get to where I am, I cannot be so naive as to think people will not die where your ilk or mine are involved."