Two guards dragged Kurt, unconscious and badly wounded, into a shop that had been half-collapsed by the blast — reasonably hidden, but nowhere they could stay long.
The older of the two pressed uselessly against Kurt’s chest, trying to wake him.
Nothing.
His breathing came shallow and fast, blood foaming faintly at the corner of his mouth.
The younger guard held position at the shattered window, watching the street with mounting dread.
Explosions kept rolling through the city, and the whine of approaching engines was closing fast, like a countdown.
“Damn it!
Command’s gone!
Every channel’s jammed — we can’t reach anyone!” The younger guard’s voice edged toward panic.
“Their people are everywhere!
We can’t fight our way out carrying the Commander!”
The older guard wiped sweat and grime from his face, glanced at Kurt’s blood-soaked armor and pale face, then out at the burning street beyond.
He made the call.
“Listen.” His voice came hoarse but steady.
“Sitting here is a death sentence either way.
Signal flare.
Bring everyone to us.”
The younger guard grabbed Kurt’s flare gun and fired it straight into the sky.
New Mandalorian fighters scattered across the city spotted it and started converging — but so did Death Watch, moving fast to silence whatever they’d just flagged.
By the time Obi-Wan and Satine finally emerged from the underground maintenance network, the sight in front of them offered real relief.
Omen was directing what remained of the force onto Vikings and the new Wraith fighters, all preparing to launch and relieve the command center.
The Kom’rks had already gone on ahead.
“Your Grace, we’ve got a ship ready to get you out of Sundari.” Omen reported the moment he spotted her.
“Get someone in contact with Kurt first.
Let him take command of the current battlefield and organize the counterattack.
This whole ambush was a calculated plot — they don’t have the numbers to actually hold the city.
Their real target was me.” Satine had already worked out the shape of it.
“Understood, Your Grace.
But please, get clear of Sundari for now.
We’ll reach out once things are stable.” Omen pointed toward the Republic Consular cruiser Qui-Gon’s party had arrived on.
“Let’s go.
Us leaving pulls some of their attention off the rest of the fight too.” Obi-Wan took Satine’s arm and led her away.
By then, Omen’s Viking squadron had already reached the airspace above the command center, shifting into mech mode and opening fire directly on the ground forces, while the new Wraith squadron held cloaked overhead.
“In position.
Ready to engage on your mark.” Serco, leading the Wraith squadron, reported in to Omen.
“Fire!” Omen shouted, still locked in the fight against the Death Watch forces below.
“Copy!
Wraiths, engage!” Serco fired his fighter’s missiles directly into the Kom’rk fighters providing air support on the ground and overhead.
The blast of fire threw every Death Watch trooper into confusion.
“Who’s firing?!”
“They’ve got cloaked fighters!”
“Fall back!
Fall back now!”
“Their reinforcements are here!”
“We can’t hold against those transforming mechs!”
The arrival of New Mandalorian reinforcements shattered what was left of the Death Watch assault force outright — several hundred strong, and it broke like glass.
Qui-Gon, still inside the command center, saw the relief arrive and led every surviving fighter out to rejoin the fight, and several other scattered units nearby began converging on the command center to push back as well.
Meanwhile, the Death Watch squad sent to silence the flare had spotted the three of them and opened fire — and Kurt, by then, was starting to come back to consciousness.
“Lisa, take the flank.
I’ve got these guys here.
We’re not letting them take Commander Kurt.”
“Copy that, Bart.” The young guard called Lisa leaned out with his Westar-35, returning fire, Bart doing the same beside him.
Death Watch lobbed grenades from above, trying to finish all three of them at once — but Kurt was awake by then, both hands reaching out through the Force, freezing the grenades midair and hurling them straight back the way they’d come.
So this whole distraction was aimed at killing my cousin.
Kurt’s head still rang, thoughts sluggish, but the picture had come together clearly enough even half-conscious.
Cutting through bounty hunters had gotten too easy lately, and it had made him careless — this time, carelessness had nearly cost him his life, saved only by the armor on his back.
Only four of the Death Watch squad survived the returned grenades — the rest hadn’t had time to scatter and went down in the blast.
The survivors had barely hit the ground to regroup when an attack came from behind, blowing out their jetpacks and gunning them down in a hail of fire — another squad, arriving from the rear.
“Kray squad and Honkar squad reporting.” Two squads approached and reported in to Kurt.
“Commander Kurt, you’re awake!” Bart shouted, relief plain in his voice.
“Later.
Any word on command or the Duchess?” Kurt turned to the two squad leaders immediately. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Commander, all comms are jammed on their end.
Look toward the command center yourself.” Kray handed him a pair of binoculars.
Kurt took them and looked.
His own Wraith squadron was still locked in a fight overhead against the Kom’rk fighters, and the command center itself was still pouring black smoke into the sky.
“This is our chance — a chance to wipe them out completely.
Full offensive on their last stronghold, now!” Kurt swung himself onto a Baruta-class speeder bike.
“Get on, Lisa.
We move fast.”
The rest of the squads mounted up on their own speeder bikes, tearing off at full speed toward the last Death Watch stronghold left in the city.
“Commander, what’s the plan!” Bart shouted over the roar of the engines, bike weaving at full speed.
“No plan.
Improvise.
Break whatever you can with whatever you’ve got!”
“Understood, sir!” The other two dozen or so Mandalorians answered as one, and as they closed in on the stronghold, more scattered New Mandalorian units fell in alongside them, joining the charge.
By the time they arrived, they’d gathered three full platoons — over ninety riders strong — and the target came into clear view: a modest compound, lightly defended, no more than a few dozen troopers left inside, four mounted machine guns covering the gate, and a handful of patrols walking the perimeter.
“Is that them coming back?” one patrolling trooper asked, squinting at the wave of speeder bikes bearing down.
Another raised binoculars and screamed.
“Incoming!
New Mandalorian counterattack!”
“Then the strike team’s all dead!”
The garrison scrambled into position.
“For Mandalore!”
Charge!
Over forty speeder bikes, engines redlined, power pushed past every safety limit — no longer vehicles, but steel predators skimming just above the ground.
“Open fire!
Take out their gun emplacements!” Kurt roared over the engine noise, leaning forward, thumb slamming down on the trigger built into the handlebar grip.
Pew!
Pew!
Pew!
Pew!
Pew—!