Ros had given me the coordinates and Talen had given me ideas on how to slip out at night. Together, they managed to give me enough space to quietly make my way out of camp and take one of the Beroya speeders bound for a series of sharp canyons that would eventually turn into a quarry if I went too far, according to Ros who had insisted on giving me physical directions in the event of total electronic failure for whatever reason. I figured it never hurt to be prepared so I didn't protest too much about it.

Slipping out was the easiest part of the whole thing once I got rather well acquainted with the mess of landscape that was Concordia. Apparently, it had once been a forest moon, but the mining had reduced it to a mostly barren landscape that was only about seventy shades of beige, grey, and brown. There was the occasional pocket of trees now and again, but the landscape was mostly canyons and quarries where the Mandalorians had once mined for resources to fuel their endless wars.

So we had been told, anyway.

Shooting along the landscape and making for the quarry gave me a lot of time to look around and see all the sights. Concordia was massive and dramatic in its landscape with canyons and sharp drop-offs, and when I began to approach the canyon where Wylan said he'd be, I understood why it would have been so significant. The narrow passages must have made whatever fight they had an absolute nightmare.

I dismounted my speeder at the entrance of the narrow canyon that Ros had described and began to make my way inside when I realized that something felt off. You start to get a knack for that type of thing after being in the slums of Coruscant long enough. Despite that, I had no way of knowing where anyone who wanted to jump me was with the way that the canyon was set up, and before long I suddenly began feeling like I had walked directly into a trap.

I heard the shot and felt the weight snap around my legs before a sharp zap jolted up through my body. I hit the ground with a grunt as I realized I had been had. I flipped over to see myself staring into the helmet of a Weequay in beskar'gam and the rifle he had shoved into my face.

"Well, look at what we have here," he gave a gravelly chuckle as he kicked my pistols away and cocked his head down at me. "Nice try, Clone, but you're in Beviin territory, and we don't care much for your kind here."

"So what? You pulled a dirty little trick instead of fighting me head-on. I'm not impressed, Mando," I realized after I said it that getting mouthy wasn't the best choice all things considered. He did kinda have the drop on me and I was in a pretty rough spot, but hey, I blame the Kaminoans.

"Think you could take me? You may be Jango Fett's blood, but you're no Jango - whether he's one of us any more or not." I heard the gun charge up, "So what are you doing here?"

"This isn't Beviin territory," I countered as I glanced over at my guns, grateful for the helmet. "So I could ask you the same question."

"Don't get smart, Clone." The joke was on him, I was still smarter than he was. "Now what are you doing here?"

I really wasn't in the mood to get shot, but I also wasn't in the mood to respond, "Pull off this cord and ask me nicely."

The idiot did it and was about to shoot me when the whir of a charged blaster made him freeze.

"Get away from my son." The voice made the Weequay's eyes widen as it turned to look over its shoulder and stared straight down the barrel of a blaster.

"You too, Ordo?" The Weequay snarled. "You and Ros are getting soft."

"I said: step away from my son," the blaster pushed itself against the Weequay's temple, and as the alien grumbled and moved away, I saw a familiar figure place itself between me and this other Mando. "Get out of here before I blow that ugly face of yours straight off your skull, Nokonz. I'd hate to have to explain to the Alor'ad why you're dead."

"You're pushing your luck, Ordo. If you and Beroya keep this up, there'll be hell to pay-"

"Puff up to me again," Wylan had stepped up to the Weequay and dwarfed him in ways I didn't even know were possible. I could almost see the alien shrink back some as Wylan's beskar helmet nearly met his nose, "and I'll rip those braids clean out of your head and wear them as trophies, shabuir'ika. Now run back home to Beviin before I tear that beskar right off your body."

The Weequay looked like he wanted to say something, but the way Wylan held himself made him slink back before he mounted his speeder and took off without another word. "Good timing, old man," I laughed as he turned and pulled me to my feet.

"You okay, ad?" He gave me a once over and I nodded, "Good."

I took the moment to look him over. He was still wearing his dark beskar'gam with those grey jaig eyes on the helmet, only now he too was sporting the shoulder cape bearing the sigil of Clan Ordo. He had a rifle slung across his back and a pistol on his thigh, and he was cutting as impressive a figure as ever.

"Rumor had it you joined up with Death Watch," I probed him quietly as I reached to grab my blaster up off the ground.

His response was a quiet swear and a shake of his head, "Believe me, I did for a while. Pre Viszla always had my blaster when he needed it. We were a proud people before the Clan Wars. You saw what we became. No, I stopped when I saw that he threw his lot in with that Dathomiri and his monster of a brother." He looked back at me, "Mandalore will always be ruled by Mandalorians. I won't follow anyone else."

"You're here to take your home back then?"

"Yeah. Came alone. I wanted to meet with Bo-Katan when we heard about Pre. Woman's got the right of it. Not too fond of accepting Jedi help, but we all have to make concessions in wartime," he paused and finally turned all the way back around to face me with a nod. "Glad you decided to come back."

I nodded in reply, "Wouldn't miss a good fight."

I heard him chuckle behind his helmet and he gestured for me to follow him, "You may make it as one of us yet, ad."

"Why did you ask to meet, exactly?"

"I need to make some stops before I head back to Ros, but I can't make them alone."

*

Wylan led me through the canyons until they opened up into what once looked like it might have been some farmland had it not been totally barren. He turned to look at me as we passed into the open and he sighed, "Clan Ordo's land. Won't have to worry about the garbage anymore. We shoot dar'manda on-site and none of the other Clans are stupid enough to contend with us on our home turf."

"Good to know," I looked around the horizon and couldn't help but sigh. Despite the barren nature of it all, the land was beautiful. Once, when there were still green fields on Concordia, I bet it must have been stunning. "Where are we headed?"

Wylan was quiet as he surveyed the land before he just said, "To visit someone." I was beyond confused, but he looked to me and gestured onward with his chin.

The two of us continued onward across the plains, leaving my speeder back at the canyon to be picked up later. I soon found out why, and it was simply because where we were going, I wasn't going to need it. There were patches of green on Concordia, and the Ordo farmstead was one of them. It was modest and had a pen for grazing animals, some of which looked over the fence and trumpeted when they saw us approach, and part of me already felt like I was home.

As Wylan approached, a small droid scampered out and made a whirring chirp as it ran on two little legs towards him. "Beten... this is a surprise," Wylan knelt down and held a hand out as the little BD Unit jumped up onto it and scurried up onto his back. Wylan began all but cooing at the little droid in Mando'a before he seemed to remember that I was there. He looked back at me and we stared at each other for a moment before his voice dropped from the doting coo and back to its usually gruff self, "Pretend you never saw that."

"Saw what?"

"Good. This is BD-103. His preferred name is Beten."

"Sigh?"

"He used to irritate me before he saved my life getting attacked by a Reek one day. Don't owe him a life debt or anything, but he's been with me for a long time." The kriffing droid actually waved one of its little feet at me as he finished. "He followed me after I offed some pirate that had him locked up. Couldn't ditch him so I modified his shock prod to be lethal instead."

"That's a companion droid, Wylan."

"And? If he can't defend himself, he's a dead droid. Now come on, we're going to see someone important."

Beten beeped an exclamation and jumped to my shoulder excitedly, "Uh," I looked desperately at Wylan, who pulled off his helmet with a half-smile, "do I just... drop it on the ground or...?"

"Hurt that droid," Wylan said, as his smile fell, "and I will shoot out your knees and break your spine."

"Okay, so it just stays on my shoulder then."

"He stays on your shoulder. Now come on."

So, with Beten on my shoulder and Wylan walking ahead, I took my own helmet off and followed him across the estate. There wasn't so much as a sign of life outside of the random animals strolling around the farm, and it wasn't until we came to a smaller plot of land some ways away from the main buildings that I understood what we were going to see,

Several small markers set a few meters apart headed large flat tombstones that laid across the ground. Each one had an intricately carved face that was so lifelike I likely could have been looking at a living human being. Wylan stopped short of the one closest to us and looked down at it before muttering something quietly as Beten jumped down from my shoulder and scurried over to him with an inquisitive beep.

He paused at the grave and knelt down in the Concordian dirt in front of it before he set his helmet down beside him. "Talon Ordo. My buir, your forebear." He stared down at the grave for a moment before he reached down and brushed some dirt away from the stone top and gripped something pressed into the lid, "Told myself I was going to save this for kids of my own after the old man died. Never had time." What he pulled away was one of the most beautiful swords I had ever seen. He turned to me holding it in his hands like it was something close to sacred before he looked up at me, "He gave this to me when I left with Ros. I was nineteen. The next time I saw him was at his funeral." A silence fell between us as he looked at the blade and then back to me, "Talon Ordo forged this beskad from the flames and beskar that melted and made the beskad of his father. Now, it's yours."

I was at a loss for words as I looked at the sword in his hands, "Wylan..." As I reached for it, he hesitated and pulled it back just slightly with a frown on his face.

"If I give this to you, you have to promise me that you will uphold our Code. Ba'jur bal beskar'gam. Ara'nov, aliit. Mando'a bal Mand'alor... An vencuyan mhi. You will teach your children our ways, you will wear our armor, you will defend our home, you will honor your clan, you will speak our tongue, and you will honor Manda'alor's call. You will survive. This is our way."

"Ba'jur bal beskar'gam. Ara'nov, aliit. Mando'a bal Mand'alor. An vencuyan mhi. I understand, and I will."

"We'll... make an exception about the beskar until you get out of the GAR," Wylan chuckled as he looked the beskad over one more time before he handed it to me, a look of an almost sad pride on his face. The blade was perfectly balanced and forged out of the most beautiful metal I had ever seen. It had the vibroblade edging on it, fit my hand like I had been born with it there, and I gave it a test swing. It hummed through the air like it was singing a song of its own.

"Wylan..." I stopped myself as I looked at him, "Buir, I can't accept this... It's too fine a gift."

"It's no gift," he said, his face shifting at the use of the Mando'a. "It is your heirloom. From a father to his son and his son after that." He stopped a moment and looked at me. Something on his face changed before he seemed to give himself a little shake to clear his head, "Tal'buir would have liked you, I think. You know, despite the whole Clone thing."

"You speak highly of him," I held the sword in my hands, turning it over and over and rather unsure of what exactly to do with it.

"Talon Ordo was the greatest man I ever knew and will ever know," Wylan's eyes never left the beskad. "I'll tell you stories of him sometime when we're not being hunted like animals."

*

Wylan wove his way through the canyons and valleys of Concordia like he had been doing it his whole life. The two of us on speeders were making quick time moving through the open landscape, and as we came to the top of one of the hills, Wylan stopped and turned to me as Beten crawled up from his jetpack and turned its weird little head to me. "Listen up, ad. When we go down there, let me do the talking. My vod is... well, he's an Ordo. Let me do the talking. Don't speak unless you're spoken to, but don't let them walk over you, yeah?"

"Roger that, buir."

We rode down into the camp and found several dozen helmeted faces staring at us. Wylan didn't even need to posture as he dismounted his speeder. If anything, him not putting on airs somehow made him more intimidating. Many of them weren't paying us too much mind aside from the occasional doubletake from surprised Mando. Wylan was moving with a purpose, and I'll freely admit that he was more than a little difficult to keep up with. He led us straight to a gathering of Mandalorians closer to the center of the camp.

"Jai'galaar teh Haran!" One of the Mandalorians called out when they saw us approaching and before I knew it, we had about thirty heads all turned our way, all sporting the Clan Ordo sigil on their shoulders or their breastplates. There weren't many jaig eyes on the helmets, but the veterans almost all sported them and made their way over to us. Some of the Mandos had grooves forged into their helmets to allow for horns and lekku, sometimes both, and Clan Ordo seemed so different from the homogenous Mandalore I had seen on the holos.

The Mando who had heralded Wylan's arrival made his way over and pulled him into an embrace. They two were about the same height and wore similar beskar, striking that same imposing figure. "Welcome home, vod. Is this...?"

It was one of the most scrutinized moments I had ever found myself in, but Wylan clapped a hand on my shoulder and nodded as I pulled my helmet off, "Meet my ad. His name is Kando. Kando, meet your ba'vodu Tarrec Ordo."

Tarrec and Wylan could have been blood-brothers. They both had the same sharp features, the dark eyes, and the whipcord bodies, and only the darker tone of Tarrec's skin set them apart. He looked to me with a look on his face before he turned back to Wylan with a bit of a scoff, "Ros is rubbing off on you."

"Kid kills beskar'ad with his bare hands," Wylan shrugged, his hand never leaving my shoulder. "He's saved my life and Ros' more than once. He's proven himself."

"After all that talk buir did about Jango selling out and you walk back here with one of his test-tube babies..." Tarrec shook his head before he walked over and slapped me on the opposing shoulder plate as a grin came across his face, "If ner vod vouches for you, I'll take it. Wylan doesn't impress easy."

The more people mentioned it, the more I was beginning to wholly accept it as fact.

"You'd accept it whether I vouch or not. He's my son. Where's the debate?" Wylan pulled me along with him as Tarrec flipped his helmet in his hands and slid it back on as Wylan did the same.

"Always the stickler for tradition, I see."

"We are tradition, or did you forget? I'm here for armaments. I need to get back to Ros as quickly as I can. He plans to launch an attack against a mining facility and I need to coordinate," Wylan turned to Tarrec briefly as the sea of onlookers parted for us as we wove between them. I didn't need to see their faces as they stepped aside. Wylan was a kriffing legend to these Mandos and you could tell by the way they watched him as they passed.

Tarrec chuckled through the vocoder of his helmet, "That's why buir always liked you best. Tradition for the lot of you. If it's weapons you need, ner vod, take them. We'll reinforce you and Ros however we can. Clan Beroya has been with us for a while. If he thinks those aruetiie have something worth killing for, we're there."

"According to Kando, they have fuel for some powerful beskar'ad. We need to be sure they don't get to use it."

"Fuel?" I could hear the smile on Tarrec's voice more than I could see it. "Planning on burning it to the ground, Jai'galaar?"

Wylan chuckled, "Who am I?"

I knew at that moment that I was in for one hell of a ride.