(A/N: Sorry for the late chapter, we are driving to Illinois, and i just got done with my turn of driving!)
=== Raxor ===
The winds screamed across the high cliffs of Kala'din, carrying with them the smell of smoke and ash. Below, the once-vibrant valleys of Ryloth were scarred by years of war, craters pockmarked the fields, broken Separatist tanks smoldered in the distance, and droid husks lay strewn like corpses across shattered towns. The sun was setting, its dying light bleeding crimson across the horizon like an open wound in the sky.
Cham Syndulla stepped onto the stone ledge alone, his boots crunching softly against scorched gravel. The heat from nearby fires shimmered in the air, but it was not the flames that caused the chill in his spine.
There, like a statue of mythic fury, stood Raxor.
He was utterly still, standing at the edge of the precipice, the wind tugging at a red hand sewn cloth hanging from his waist. His armor was scorched, black as volcanic rock, its heavy plating adorned with the burning sigil of the Salamanders Chapter carved into his massive shoulder pauldrons. A heavy bolter was magnetized to his back, and his chainsword, still flecked with oil and machine gore, was planted in the ground at his feet.
Cham halted several paces behind him.
"I was told you would speak with me," Cham said, folding his arms. His voice was firm but respectful as he had seen what this monster of fire and iron could do on the battlefield. "So here I am."
The Astartes said nothing.
Cham frowned. "You're the one they call Raxor, leader of the Pyro Drakes. We've watched you burn through Separatist armies like they were made of paper. Are you what they call an Astartes?"
Still silence.
Cham stepped closer. "Your actions tell of orders and liberation. You fight for the Twi'lek people, but I've seen what happens when off-world powers claim they're 'saving' us. We've had our fill of conquerors."
Raxor's yellow optics remained locked on the valley below.
Cham's voice rose. "I'm done with half-truths. What do you gain from this war? What does the Imperium want with Ryloth?"
Raxor remained still for a moment longer… then his helmet hissed and slowly disengaged, the seals releasing with a puff of steam. He lifted it from his head and tucked it under one arm.
Cham saw his face, blackened with soot, his skin a deep volcanic hue, the result of gene-forging that separated this being from any normal human. His eyes burned like embers, not with rage, but with something deeper. Hatred.
"I care little for your opinion, Syndulla," Raxor said, his voice low and powerful, like distant thunder across a canyon. "I am here to fulfill my orders."
Cham's mouth tightened. "Orders? From who?"
"From the Emperor of Mankind's Regent," Raxor answered, turning back toward the horizon. "But also because someone dear to me asked me to."
At the name, Cham's eyes narrowed.
Raxor continued. "Every time she sees more Twi'lek refugees arrive on Imperial worlds, they are broken. Scarred. Starved. They come from chains. Or worse. You do not hear her weep, Cham Syndulla. But I do."
He paused, his voice softening only slightly.
"She weeps for your people. And I… am tired of hearing her weep."
Cham stared at the giant warrior, struggling to process the words. He opened his mouth, but Raxor was already speaking again.
"When the last droid falls and the last slave pen is torn apart, this world will come under the rule of the Imperium."
Cham stepped forward, anger boiling to the surface.
"So that's it? You free us just to chain us again? I will not trade one slave master for another!"
Raxor turned his head slowly, his eyes burning brighter.
"You would be wise to watch your tongue," he rumbled. "You speak to one of the Emperor's Angels. I have turned warzones into glass for lesser insults."
Cham's hands curled into fists.
"I don't care who or what you are. Ryloth will not bend its knee to another foreign tyrant!"
Raxor leaned in slightly, and for the first time, his fury bled through.
"Then die in chains, fool. Because whether you kneel or not, this world is MINE now."
He stepped forward, his towering form casting a shadow over Cham.
"I am the resistance now. You may dress yourself in the trappings of leadership, but you are a soldier. And you will fall in line like one."
Cham was speechless. The fire of rebellion in his chest met the absolute immovable will of the Astartes. He had faced droid generals, Hutt warlords, and corrupt senators, but this was something else entirely.
Then, Raxor turned from him, once again facing the burning land that stretched below the cliff.
"But I will offer you something," he said quietly, almost as an afterthought. "Kneel. And I will deliver to you Orn Free Taa."
Cham's heart stopped.
Orn Free Taa, the bloated, decadent senator who had for decades claimed to speak for Ryloth in the Republic, now whispered to be a traitor in the Separatists' pocket.
"We have found evidence," Raxor continued. "Documents. Recordings. Money trails. He is not just complicit. He is one of the architects of your people's suffering. And when he comes here to bargain with us, I'll let you have a piece of him."
Cham's voice was a whisper. "Why give him to me?"
Raxor didn't look at him.
"Because you need a victory. And I need your soldiers focused on a single purpose. Execute him. Parade him through the streets if you must. But do it knowing that his crimes will not be tolerated under the Imperium's rule."
Cham stared at the Salamander's back, wind whipping at his red cloth.
His throat was dry, and his mind raced.
But the choice was clear, even though it was not an easy one.
=== Nameless Mandalorian ===
Deep beneath the cracked streets, tucked away behind a crumbling civic building that once served as a university, lay the remnants of Ryloth's historical archive, a subterranean vault buried under dust, ash, and decades of forgotten corruption.
The Mandalorian crouched low, his armor scorched from recent engagements. He moved through the rubble, the flicker of a glowrod in one hand, and a holopad in the other.
He had been assigned to investigate the archives for intelligence, specifically, dirt on Orn Free Taa, the corpulent and corrupt Twi'lek senator who had ruled over this people with self-serving arrogance for decades. What they needed was concrete, irrefutable evidence to bring to Raxor. Something that couldn't be hidden or denied.
The elevator shaft leading into the archive had long since collapsed, but the Mandalorian had rappelled down manually, using grappling hooks and his own grit. At the bottom, he found the main archive chamber, half-flooded, eerily quiet, its walls lined with data-hives and silt-covered terminals. Ancient, but some still hummed faintly with life.
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and moved to one of the datahubs, kneeling and pulling a magnetic data-tap from his utility belt. A short whir, a few beeps, and then the device blinked green. Connected.
He began to sift through files. Thousands. Maybe millions. Public records. Historical logs. Legislation filings. But he wasn't here for any of that.
He narrowed the search: Orn Free Taa – personal dealings, non-public, sealed archives.
A list populated. Many were encrypted. He cracked them one by one, the glowing blue of the holoscreen reflecting in his visor. His breath slowed. He felt something cold crawl beneath the beskar.
(File: Personal Transaction – Asset Disposal / Category: Twi'lek Slave.)
He opened it.
The entry was brief but damning. An unnamed slave girl had been purchased by Orn Free Taa during his rise to power, kept in secret at a private estate far from the eyes of the public. She had grown pregnant sometime after. The record wasn't specific on whether it was consensual, only that the pregnancy was considered "a liability" by Taa.
Rather than risk scandal, he had quietly sold the girl to a familiar buyer in the Outer Rim: Jabba Desilijic Tiure.
The Mandalorian clenched his fist.
That alone would have been enough. Proof of corruption, of human (and Twi'lek) trafficking, and a gross abuse of power.
But something gnawed at him.
He dug deeper.
Query: Jabba the Hutt – Slave Transactions – Twi'lek Female (Unknown), + Child
It took longer to gain access. Raxor's cruiser in orbit had a clearance channel to Tatooine where the Hutt Space data market information was stored.
After an anxious minute, access was granted.
The Hutt transaction files were... cold. Clinical. Written in galactic Basic and Huttese. Jabba had purchased the slave woman from Taa for a cheap sum, perhaps hush money to ensure silence. She had arrived pregnant, and gave birth within weeks.
File ID: 44-Kappa-Ryloth. Subsection: Birth Record.
He opened it.
There was a small attached image, blurred and poorly scanned, but visible. A young Twi'lek woman, exhausted and broken, in chains. In her arms, a tiny infant wrapped in rags.
The birth record was stamped with a grim, red seal: PROPERTY OF JABBA.
He scrolled down.
Mother: Deceased.
Child: Twi'lek, female. Slave designation: S-23791.
Name given by mother: Sienn.
The Mandalorian went still.
He reread the name again. Once more. Just to be sure.
Sienn.
His breath caught.
He quickly downloaded the files, locking them into a sealed, encrypted packet and sending an urgent transmission to the strike cruiser above.
"This is Operative 47-Besh. I have found something… something big. Inform Captain Korrin and Lord Raxor immediately. Package en route."
Sienn wasn't just any survivor of Ryloth's suffering.
She was proof of it. The child of betrayal, slavery, and corruption. The living legacy of Taa's crimes, and perhaps, the reason Raxor's fury had burned so fiercely from the moment they stepped foot on this planet.
The Mandalorian holstered his tools, slung his rifle back across his chest, and turned for the long climb back to the surface.
There would be no mercy for Orn Free Taa.
=== Raxor ===
The lavender skies of Ryloth were darkening into dusk, the sun dipping behind the jagged cliffs surrounding the encampment.
He stared out toward the capital, Lessu, a city still under control of separatist holdouts. Lights flickered along the mag-rail bridge that led to its plateau stronghold, like fireflies blinking in defiance. Raxor had not spoken for several minutes since Cham Syndulla departed back into his command tent to contemplate the Salamander's offer of a united front.
Raxor did not pressure him. He understood the weight of such choices. The seeds of rebellion needed careful tending, even if blood had already watered the soil.
Then came his second in command.
"Lord."
Raxor turned his head slightly, visor flaring faintly with green reflection from the datapad Korrin held out.
"You will want to see this."
He took the device without a word. Korrin stepped back and folded his arms behind his back, silent.
Raxor began to read.
As he did, his gauntleted hand clenched tighter around the datapad. Without so much as a growl or a twitch of visible rage, he crushed the device in his palm, the metal shrieking briefly before collapsing into twisted scrap before he dropped it to the ground.
Silence fell.
A few rebel soldiers nearby turned their heads. Korrin didn't flinch. He knew better. He had seen Raxor in battle, seen what true fury looked like. The Salamander's control was terrifying not because it muted his anger, but because he contained it like a star poised to go supernova.
The green giant turned back toward the horizon. The lights of Lessu flickered like dying stars.
"Korrin." His voice was low. Measured. Molten.
"Prepare the legion."
The Mandalorian straightened. "Which units, my lord?"
"All of them."
A gust of hot wind blew across the plateau, rustling the banners of both rebel and legionnaire. The firelight of the camp reflected in Raxor's armor like veins of magma, as if something ancient and elemental stirred beneath the green plates.
"We march on the capital."
He turned toward Korrin fully now, eyes burning with the fury of a father, a protector, and a living embodiment of wrath restrained too long.
"Prepare my forge. And get Sienn here. Now."
===
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