Tales of the Mandalorians

[Dieter Schprokets]

Dha Piruna, Ranov'la Aran, and Mandalore John Cabot walked towards one of the Mandalorian's hangers at the New London Spaceport. The Mandalore's pace was quick. He was anxious to share his most recent pet project with the consuls.

"Where are we going, and why?" Dha demanded. "I have numbers to crunch."

Ranov'la looked at his watch, and asked, "Yes John. What is this concerning?"

Both these men were busy, and had been called away from their business unexpectedly by John, with no real explanation forthcoming. Mandalorians did not value patience. It was considered a weakness. In this, they shared a trait with the Bretonian who was now their leader.

"It concerns.." said Cabot, pausing for effect, "The Dha'wherd." He was grinning somewhat madly now...

Both the consuls stopped dead in their tracks. They looked REALLY incensed, like they had just been asked to cluster bomb a refugee camp. Dha was actually speechless, but Ranov'la found some few, angry words, mostly said between clenched teeth;

"What the HELL do you want with those evil bastards?"

The Dha'wherd were a secret society within the Mandalorians, who fell in and out of favour depending on their usefulness to the Mandalore and Consuls. They were assassins, and had no compunction about killing anybody, anywhere, anytime. Their initiation rituals were said to involve murder. They were, to say the least, not nice people. Often the Mandalore had to curry their favour, if only to prevent having their knives finding his back.

John answered, waving one hand to encourage them to follow. "I want them to have something to do. Something less.. bloody.. than their usual diversions. And I think you will like what I have in mind. Come on!"

The consuls carried on, apprehensively. This had better end well..

Soon they were at the hanger. With a bit of unneccessary drama, John opened the hanger main doors using the control pad available. The inside was dark. John turned to his consuls, gave a maddening grin (He knew this was driving them nuts.) then turned on the lights.

It was a hanger full of Arrows. Lean, sleek, maneuverable craft, fun to fly, but..

"Bloody useless in a fight." said Dha. Interesting, thought John. These Mandalorian imports are starting to sound like Brets. He'd actually heard Ranov call someone a "wanker" the other day.

Ranov'la was inspecting the craft, noting that the weapons were decent, the shields pretty well top of the line, but the armor options non-existent. What was most revealing was that the countermeasures and cruise disruptors were absolutely top notch. Ranov started nodding in understanding.

"Interceptors. You've bought a fleet of interceptors."

Dha looked a bit startled. "At what price?" Ever the banker...

"100 million or so, all told, maybe a bit more." responded Cabot. Dha choked just a bit... He muttered something about John never buying used..

John walked up to one of the sleek little craft, put his hand on the wing and turned around to give his sales pitch.

"Gentlemen, we are going to split those demented Dha'wherd bastards up, get them the hell away from us, and make them earn their keep. When they are gone, they can't poison our food, stab us in the back, or put bullets in our craniums."

"But what they CAN do, with these babies, is watch over Sirius for us. They can intercept our targets and slow them down while our bombers, gunships and fighters rendezvous for the kill. They can assist traders in trouble, by disrupting those who hunt them. They can just observe, and report fleet disposition, to us, or to our clients. For a price, of course.."

"And if they do some 'wet work' on the side, well, out of sight, out of mind, I say. Better way out there.." John gestured up to deep space "than here in Bretonia."

John sat down on a workbech, then continued.

"Gentlemen, the Dha'wherd don't like us. Not you, and certainly not me. We aren't dirty enough for them. We prefer the standup fight to the knife across the throat in the dark. They are currently too idle. And gentlemen.."

"They're going to kill us, eventually. I can sense it. Then they will replace us with someone more to their liking. They've done that before."

"AND, we need eyes and ears in Sirius. Two birds, one stone, gentlemen. One stone."

Ranov'la looked at the little fighters, and was nodding and smiling. He was sold.

Dha looked a little less convinced, but that was just because he knew that all this equipment was bought and paid for.

But he reasoned, trying to return it all would mean murder in restocking charges. Better that the Arrows be used, and even if some were destroyed, then they could be written off of the books. Might get the clan into a lower tax bracket. He smiled, convinced that this was win-win, even if every single depraved Dha'wherd got killed in the bloody things...

"When do they leave?" he asked, smiling.

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