The void stretched endlessly before him—dark, ancient, and waiting.
From the observation platform of Outpost Thorn, the Mandalorian Lord stood tall, armored in deep gunmetal beskar, his helmet off as he watched the silver arc of the asteroid base expand with new plating and shielding.
The war was no longer theoretical.
He had come to this world as a stranger. Now he commanded clans, forges, and battle stations that grew like iron tumors in the belt of this system. But as power grew, so did the eyes that watched.
They'd had their first taste of war—and their enemies hadn't waited long to respond.
A Shadow Returns
An alert chimed in the command pit. Static overtook the holotable as a crimson warning flared across the system scan. Listening Post Varla—gone. No distress call. No sensor spike. Just silence.
The Lord stepped forward, visor narrowing.
"Replay the last ten minutes of transmissions," he ordered.
His war council obeyed. A flickering image—brief, distorted—showed droid silhouettes tearing through blast doors. Not Separatist models. Newer. Leaner. Efficient. The work of something learning from the past.
The Mandalorian Lord folded his arms.
"They're not probing. They're harvesting."
Sira nodded, jaw tight. "They didn't come for kills. They came for data. Tech. Prisoners."
"They came to learn how to kill us properly," he said.
Fortifying the Stars
The Lord ordered full mobilization. Orbital facilities surged into overdrive.
Forge Post Krayt, recently founded, was reinforced with shield generators scavenged from deep storage.
Auto-defense turrets were installed on outer asteroid perimeters.
A flotilla of Fang-class interceptors began systematic patrol routes.
He walked the length of the drydock where the first Mandalorian corvette was under construction—M-001, still a skeleton, but brimming with promise.
"Give her thicker plating on the forward hull," he told the chief engineer. "And I want integrated disruptor cells in the primary cannon array. She's not just a ship—she's a message."
Back in the War Council chambers, he activated the tactical holomap, highlighting asteroid corridors and lunar blind spots.
"They're using gravitational shadows to sneak into our orbit. That ends now."
Into the Maw
When another outpost—Cragspire—went dark, the Lord didn't wait for intel. He donned his full armor and led the retaliation himself.
Five drop pods, ten Mandalorians. Quiet, fast, lethal.
They landed hard and silent in the burnt remains of Cragspire's docking bay. The atmosphere was thin and sour—like something had vacuumed the life out of it.
No bodies. Just missing cores. Sliced databanks. And the smell of scorched iron.
"I don't like this," Talyen muttered, scanning the wreckage. "It's too clean."
The Lord found a section of wall where blast scoring had melted away a panel. Beneath, carved faintly into the structure, were Sith glyphs. Old ones. Symbols of manipulation and control.
He stared at it for a moment.
"They're not just droids," he said. "Something is behind them. Something ancient."
Striking Back
Back at Thorn, he summoned his elite to the War Table.
"We're done playing defense," he said. "If they want data, we give them static."
He activated Ghoststrike Protocol.
This time, he didn't delegate. He led.
Operation: Ghoststrike
The enemy relay station was embedded in a hollowed asteroid crater, shielded by scattered debris fields and droid patrols.
The Lord led the insertion himself, his armor laced with cloaking mod enhancements. His rifle was magnetized to his back. His beskad was sheathed but waiting.
Inside, the station was a steel tomb. Silent. Efficient.
They encountered minimal resistance at first—until the inner chambers, where spider-like recon droids leapt from walls and ceilings, clicking in unison. A firefight erupted in zero-G, flashes of plasma lighting the dark.
The Lord disabled two droids with his beskad before firing a concussion charge into a cluster above. The blast tore through a side tunnel—and revealed something hidden beneath the plating: a buried Sith holoprojector.
He stared at the silhouette flickering in red—a figure with horns, cloaked in darkness.
Enough.
He planted the final charge beside the relic and said into comms, "We burn it all. On my mark."
The asteroid relay station erupted in a flash of white fire. Nothing would be recovered.
End of Chapter
Back aboard Outpost Thorn, the M-001 Corvette gleamed under new lighting. Its hull plating was thicker now. Reinforced. Ready.
The Mandalorian Lord stood at the prow of the hangar as systems whirred to life behind him. Below, the engineers saluted. Above, the stars flickered like the eyes of waiting gods.
He spoke to his gathered warriors.
"They struck from the dark. We answered with fire."
He turned toward the galaxy, his voice rising:
"We are Mandalorians. We do not kneel. We do not forget. And we do not lose our wars."
The drums began again.
War was no longer coming.
It had arrived.