Chapter 1
Gavin sat at the controls of his adopted father’s pride and joy, a Sentinel class shuttle he had “acquired” during his time as a mercenary and bounty hunter, idly watching the trails of stars in hyper space as they headed to Kamino for a possible job training a new clone army.
Gavin was a human, with snow white hair and blue eyes.At roughly 17 years old he had reached 6 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds. A far cry from the dirty scrawny child he had been when Talwin had found him on Dandoran.
He had been a thief and a scavenger, scrambling for every meal as far back as he could remember. He had no memory of parents or a home, just a series of kind strangers, or at least people willing to feed or shelter him in exchange for something.
He was running from one of the local gangs of street toughs, trying to avoid becoming an unwilling member, when he had ducked into an alley and run into the armored man. Jumping back to his feet and preparing to run off again he had come to a quick stop when the man grabbed his collar.
“Where do you go in such a hurry little ad?”
To this day Gavin wasn’t sure why he had been honest, but something about the calm voice through the helmet speaker had made him pop out. “I don’t wanna be part of a gang and if I can’t outrun them they will chase me down and force me.”
“Have you no people, no family?”
“No, I am alone.” He had said it flatly.
The Mandalorian had paused for a beat and then asked, “What isi your name and what do you know of my people?”
“My name is Gavin and I guess not much,” Gavin had said, “Mandalorians are tough fighters, usually bounty hunters or mercs. You wear armor all the time and you don’t take much poodoo.”
The guy chuckled. “Greetings young Gavin, My name is Talwin and I would like to make a deal with you. If you are with me no gang of street toughs will bother you. I will treat you to a meal and explain some things. After that you can make a choice.”
He had Gavin at “a meal.”
They had sat down at a nearby café, Gavin had not noticed it at the time but Talwin had chosen a table in the rear, backed by two walls.
“Always think tactically, gain any advantage you can.” A phrase he had heard many times over the last 6 years.
Talwin had removed his helmet and set it carefully on the table beside his plate. After watching Gavin wolf down the first order of food he waved to the waitstaff for another serving and then met Gavins eyes and began to speak.
“It has been said that my people are not a race or a civilization, we are an idea. I find this mostly true. Do you think I was born a Mandalorian?”
That made Gavin pause for a second and examine his table mate carefully.
Talwin was not a huge man but he appeared solid. He had dark skin and amber eyes and had dark, curly hair cut very short. There were visible scars on both his face and his hands, proof he had seen much action in his life.
The thing that struck Gavin the most though was that the man and the armor appeared almost seamless, he moved and acted as if the metal plates were not even there, as if they weighed nothing at all.
“You were born a Mando,” he said.
“No, are you surprised to hear that I was a boy, not much younger than you, when I met my first Mandalorian?”
“Yes, I actually am.”
“Her name was Sasha Byrd and she found me, wounded and starving, in a pirate den she was raiding.” He said with a fond smile.
“She was a Twi’lek woman, larger than life with a heart made of pure beskar.” Talbert continued. “She died just a few years ago. In fact, this is her armor I wear, re-forged to fit me.”
He saw that Gavin was about to choke down his mouthful of food to ask a question but he quickly waved him off.
“Eat your food young one, you look like you need it, just be sure to eat slowly so you don’t get sick.”
“Wearing the armor of someone who has fallen honors them and adds honor to the beskar’gem itself. That is our name for
our armor.”
“To continue, Sasha took me to the medics and got me healed and then she made me the same offer I am making you.”
“To be a Mandalorian is not an accident of birth, it is a conscious choice. You must learn our ways and be tested on them in what we call the verd’goten. If you pass your verd’gotenyou are then forever a Mandalorian, unless you dishonor yourself and become what we call Dar’Manda.”
“There are 6 tenets at the core of the Mandalorian beliefs, if you learn and follow the 6 tenets you are just as Mandalorian as the Mand’alor themself.”
“What are these 6 rules?”
Ba'jurbalbeskar'gam,
Ara'nov, aliit,
Mando'abalMand'alor—
An vencuyanmhi.
Talbert said, and then he gave the translation:
Education and armor,
Self-defense, our tribe,
Our language and our leader—
All help us survive.
“These 6 tenets are what makes one of my people.” Talbert said.
“You must learn our language, wear the armor, learn to protect yourself and your tribe, follow the commands of the Mand’alor and raise your children to do the same.”
Gavin turned that over in his mind as he swallowed the last bite of his third(?), fourth(?), sandwich and finally said, “That doesn’t sound very hard, I mean, learning the language and fighting and stuff might be.”
“That is where being a foundling comes in. There are basically two ways to become a Mandalorian when not born into a clan, the first is simply to live as one, to gain enough honor that a clan recognizes you. This happens, but not terribly often,”
“The other is children like you.” “When a Mandalorian finds an abandoned child, someone without a home or parents or that is being abused, they can adopt them. Once they do, they become every bit as much the child of that Mandalorian as one born by natural means.”
Shock rippled through Gavin. His instinct was to immediately scream “Yes!” He would no longer be alone, no longer hungry, cold, and tired. He had been fooled before though. Generally, when living on the streets if you heard something that sounded too good to be true, it wasn’t.
“There is no trick here, no hidden price or payment.” Talwin said.
Gavin was a bit shocked and threw a look at the man.
“Remember son, I was in the exact same place all those years ago. Think of it like this, what I get from it is a son, and what my people get is another fighter. The cost is that of training and outfitting you and it will be repaid many times over I am sure.”
Put like that Gavin could get his head around it. Talwin wasn’t offering something for nothing. He was offering to train and outfit him but in return he would raise an ally.
All considered it was pretty smart.
He nodded his head yes and Talwin gave him a smile, “First things first, nikyr'tayl gai sa'adGavin”
“There, that’s done, you’ve been adopted. You are now Gavin Byrd.”
“What did it mean?”
The Mandalorian vow is very simple, “I know your name as my son.”
“What now?” Gavin had asked.
“Well, first we fill your belly, then we get you cleaned up and in some decent clothes, then medical, and then I think it is time we return to my clan home for a while.
A hand landed on his armored shoulder and shocked him back to the present.
Talwin stood there, looking visibly older in the last few years, but the kind smile he remembered was still there.
“Up here counting bantha?” He asked.
“Just thinking back Buir, remembering when you found me on Dandoran.
“The day my freedom ended.” Talwin said with an exaggerated sigh.
“Don’t make me feed you to the mynocks when you hit your doddersold man!”
Talwin shot a fist out slowly, that Gavin dodged.
“See, the day is coming.”
In truth, over the years, Gavin had developed a deep love and a towering respect for his buir.
Talwin was a warrior from his nose to his toes as their clan leader liked to say. He was Valorus, the brother of Sasha, the one who had discovered Talwin and he also had a huge amount of respect for the old man.
He had once told Gavin that if Talwin ever pushed for clan leader he would step down immediately and be even more confident of his clan’s future.
Talwin was a warrior, but he had to be a near genius level one. He studied war like a shipbuilder studied stresses and materials. The man went on periodic travels around the rim just looking for new fighting styles or weapons to study. Gavin knew this because they had spent a year doing exactly that.
Talwin had studied just about every major conflict ever, it seemed like. He had a huge collection of books and data cubes dedicated to the subject and would happily converse for hours about it.
One of the things that Gavin had come to treasure was the times his buir and he would sit around the table with various markers and recreate different land, air, and space battles and try to see what changes produced what effect on the outcome.
His adopted father had trained him in the same fashion, 2 years at the small clan holding on Concorde Dawn, working up to his verd’goten.
As soon as the party to celebrate that achievement was over the two men spent 6 months with the clan armorer. During this period Gavin not only forged his own Beskar’gem, (Although only his helmet was true beskar, like most mandalorians), he had also had a hand in forging basically every melee and missile weapon the armorer made.
Talwin insisted that in the field, it might sometimes be critical that a certain piece of arms, armor, or other material be made, and it would be poor tradecraft to not at least be familiar with the process enough to try.
They moved on through every martial arts skill anyone in the clan or even in many of the other clans on the planet knew. Like the forging, the goal was not to make Gavin an expert, but at least make him familiar with the various arts, able to recognize them and be aware of the proper counters. He felt it worthy to note that his buir was conversant in every single one.
Weapons, Gavin was convinced he had held almost every weapon in the universe in his hand with the exception of a nuclear device. He had, of course, had a familiarization course with those too, but it did not include actually handling them.
What he assumed was the final phase of his training was what they had been doing lately. They had been flying around doing various missions, rescues, captures, scouting missions, and now the training on Kamino.
“So, what after this?” Gavin asked.
“What do you mean?” Talwin said with a little smile.
“You know very well. I can’t think of an area of training in being a Mandalorian that we have not covered. You have dedicated yourself to making sure I am capable of just about any task I could be given.”
“I think after this you will be ready to go out on your own for a while. You need to spread your wings some.”
“Maybe meet a nice girl and settle down. Produce some ad of your own.”
Despite his best efforts Gavin couldn’t hide his blush and Talwin chuckled.
“Here.” Gavin said as he reached into a hidden pocket of his armor and held out some jerky.
Talwin felt a tear in the corner of his eye. The one thing that Gavin couldn’t shake about his early childhood was his need to
always have food available. If he didn’t have at least a few snacks hidden around he became unsettled and irritable.
Offering some of his food to his buir was the best show of affection he could give.
The two sat in companionable silence for a while, munching the jerky before Talwin pulled out a board and some colored marker pieces, “So, during the invasion of..”
Gavin just grinned and settled into the debate.
The two were involved in a heated debate over whether a rail gun would be a useful addition to an armor set for dealing with droid and mechanized units with local shields when the alarm sounded and they dropped back into real space near the planet of Kamino.
“Be cautious here, some of what I have heard gives me cause for concern.” Said Talwin.
Gavin was about to respond when they were hailed by planetary control.