Chapter Text
Jaster scrolled through the Bounty Hunter’s Guild holosite, letting out a snarl as he dismissed yet another request as dishonorable. Really, setting a bounty for an ad because she wanted to avoid an arranged marriage? At ten years old? Good for her, and Jaster hoped that she could continue to evade her family. He sighed before flipping to the Private Requests bar as a notification popped up on the screen of the datapad.
Client: Hodi-Karna, Head of the History Department of the Naisi-Tehn University
Objective: Retrieve a sacred statue of the goddess Ethi-Vali-Nah that was stolen from the University. Thief is unlikely to have made it off the planet.
Payment: 100 credits and a carbon-frozen Mandalorian that our University has had in its historical archives for years
Client’s Message: Ori’Bajurla Mereel, the authorities of my university have prevented me from contacting you beforehand for the repatriation of your fellow Mandalorian, despite what I knew to be right. However, in my culture a man’s place of work has complete control over his underage family members, and my children were threatened if I tried to contact you. I was able to argue for your help in retrieving our sacred statue, and have managed to convince my superiors that the statue is worth relinquishing the carbon-frozen Mandalorian.
It was nice to have his degree acknowledged, mused a small part of Jaster’s mind. His position as Mand’alor seemed to overshadow his other accomplishments these days, even if Jaster was damn proud of being Ori’Bajurla be ruyot- the equivalent to a doctorate in history in the Republic. In fact, if it wasn’t for his degree, he likely wouldn’t have become Mand’alor in the first place. His dissertation had covered how Mandalorians throughout history had adapted the Canons of Honor to their own time period. The last section of his dissertation had proposed a way to adapt it to their current time period - and that last section had eventually morphed into his Supercommando Codex. The Codex was why people had started following him in the first place, and why they had proclaimed him Mand’alor. Therefore, Jaster thought he could make a very convincing argument that obtaining his degree led directly to him becoming Mand’alor.
The larger part of Jaster’s mind, however, was furious. Someone had trapped a fellow Mando’ad in carbonite, and had refused to free kaysh. It might not have been the people in the University who had trapped them, but by refusing to free kaysh upon requiring their “artifact” they were just as guilty. And then, when somebody had actually tried to do the right thing, they had threatened his ade! Jaster couldn’t fault Hodi-Karna. The man was only trying to protect his ade. The man’s bosses, on the other hand? Jaster longed to introduce them to the business end of his blaster.
Jaster accepted the job before calling together a squad to complete the bounty, making sure to tell the baar’ure of the group to be ready to release their fellow Mando’ad from carbonite. Jaster had calmed down on the way to Naisi-Tehn, but by the time they were breaking atmosphere he was livid again. He took several deep breaths, hoping that only Hodi-Karna would meet with them. If the Professor’s superiors appeared, Jaster doubted he could restrain himself - or his verde - from hurting them. And while usually Jaster wouldn’t mind hurting people who would threaten ade, he thought it might make helping the frozen Mando’ad more difficult.
***
Jaster stared at the Mando’ad frozen in the carbonite. He grimaced, and turned to Makk, the Kobok baar’ur that had accompanied him and Silas to meet with Naisi-Tehn. “We might not be able to revive him,” he said.
“Me’ven?” Makk asked.
“See the kom’rk? How it extends up past the elbow in the back, unlike ours? And see the ridge on the front?”
Makk nodded.
“The extended elbow is a feature predominantly found in beskar’gam dating to before theDral’han,” explained Jaster. “And the ridge? I’d bet good money that’s cortosis - back when we regularly fought against Jetii, a cortosis ridge was frequently incorporated into armor - cortosis can short out kad’aue, you see.”
“So you’re saying that, at the least, that kaysh has been carbon-frozen for roughly seven hundred years, if not more,” Silas said grimly.
“’Lek,” agreed Jaster.
Makk’s mandibles clacked in an expression of concern. “Saadis and I will try to revive him, nevertheless,” he promised, and Jaster let out a sigh of relief before turning back to Hodi-Karna.
“Could I see the holo of the statue again? And what size is it, there wasn’t a reference in the holo on the bounty.”
Hodi-Karna nodded, pressing a button on the holo to pull up an image of the statue. “It’s about this big,” he said, spreading his arms to indicate something roughly twice the size of Jaster’s Buy’ce. “It’s made of jade to symbolize vitality,” the Professor added, “with detailing made of gold and the horn of a Kari-Jina, respectively representing prosperity and martial prowess.”
Jaster nodded, because the information truly was interesting, but he knew that the more time they wasted, the higher the chance of the thief escaping. At least with the high security leading into and out of the spaceports of Naisi-Tehn, the bounty was unlikely to have made it off the planet without his illicit procurement being detected.
***
So far, the thief seemed to have gone to ground, because there seemed to be no sign of him on the planet. Either that, or he had somehow escaped from Naisi-Tehn, which Jaster hoped wasn’t the case, because that meant that they were wasting time on the planet instead of pursuing the thief. Jaster and his verde had so far come across a man covertly trying to hand off a briefcase to another man, and the briefcase seemed to be about the right size to hide the statue, so they had stepped in, only to find that they had broken up an underground spice ring instead of finding the statue. They turned the spice dealers into the local authorities, picking up some extra pay for doing so, before turning back to look for the thief.
Then they found a man who was selling antiques. Jaster thought he spotted the statue, but it turned out that it was a popular relic to make replicas of - and the ones the man was selling were made out of some sort of plastoid, not jade. Jaster took the opportunity to buy an actual physical book printed on parchment, though, so at least the encounter wasn’t a total waste of time.
Finally, they managed to find the thief as he was trying to escape on a commandeered ship. The thief didn’t have any fighting ability whatsoever, it seemed, so the most difficult part of the capture was making sure not to damage the statue. Then they turned the thief into the authorities before returning the statue to Hodi-Karna. Jaster, Silas, and Makk then carefully carried the block of Carbonite back to their ship, where the small medbay waited. Right before they entered hyperspace on their way back to Manda’yaim, Jaster placed a call to Jango. Even now, three years after his adoption, his ad still worried whenever Jaster left Manda’yaim.
“Su’cuy, buir,” Jango said. “Me'vaar ti gar?”
Jaster talked to Jango until the ship moved to hyperspace.
***
“Me’ven? You’re saying kaysh is actually still alive?” Jaster demanded. The being on the bed looked human, and male, though of course that wasn’t any guarantee among Mando’ade.
“’Lek, Mand’alor,” said Saadis. “Kaysh has life signs, though kaysh is still asleep so far.”
“Let me know if anything changes,” Jaster said, before looking at the Mando’ad’s beskar’gam. Most of their armor had been kept on, though his buy’ce and one of their kom’rk were laid on the table next to kaysh so Makk and Saadis could more easily access their veins for a bacta drip. Most of the paint had chipped from the process of carbon freezing, leaving only faint traces of blue and grey visible. Jaster fought back an instinctive grimace upon seeing those colors - the Mando’ad might be wearing Kyr’tsad colors, but kaysh was from a time long before said terrorist group. The Mando’ad’s buy’ce was also strange, having much more of the face visible than was usual, even considering the time period in question.
Five hours later, Jaster was called back to the medbay. “Kaysh is awake, but seems to still be blind and deaf from carbon sickness. We can’t communicate. Luckily, kaysh seems to be calm enough,” said Saadis.
“I… might be able to communicate,” Jaster said, then explained his idea.
“You know Pre-Dral’han Dadita?” Makk asked incredulously. “Why would you ever learn that?”
“Well, it’s obviously useful! It’s now our only chance to communicate with kaysh until kaysh’s ears recover,” Jaster defended.
The Kobok medic made absolutely no attempt to hide the long-suffering clatter of his mandibles - his species’s equivalent to a sigh - by muting his buy’ce. “And did you know that at the time you learned it?” he asked pointedly.
“...Nayc,” admitted Jaster. “It was just interesting.”
“It’s worth a shot,” said Saadis. “Go ahead - and see if kaysh can tell you what their symptoms are.”
You’re safe, with Mando’ade, Jaster tapped out on kaysh’s arm. The baar’ure want a sitrep.
“I can’t see, and can’t hear,” came a deep voice, rough from the carbon freezing. “Also nauseous. What happened?”
Slowly, Jaster tapped out the news. They had been in carbonite, and it had been several hundred years since they had been alive.
“Tion gar gai?” the Mando’ad asked, and Jaster realized with some chagrin that they hadn’t introduced themselves.
Ner gai Mand’alor Jaster Mereel, bal Baar’ure Saadis Min bal Makk. Tion gar gai? Jaster tapped out.
The Mando’ad let out a soft chuckle. “Ner gai Mand’alor bal Jetii Ba’ji Tarre Vizsla.”