Chapter Text
“I'm what?” Granta demands, and doesn’t rip the datapad out of Hunti's hands to see for himself, which he thinks speaks volumes to his growth as a person. And, possibly, to Hunti's aim with a knife.
Hunti raises a brow, then flips the pad around to show Granta the denial from the Coruscanti administrative services. It’s perfectly proforma, and Granta eyes the signature at the end of the message, contemplating whether it’s worthwhile to track down the clerk and kill them.
Unfortunately, that won't do much to change the conclusion that’s been laid out in sparse prose just above the name of the official.
“Already married,” Hunti says, ever so faintly dry. “According to all galactic records. For ten years now. What anniversary is that again?”
“It depends on the tradition,” Granta says with dignity, and waves a hand, ignoring the prickle of anger that comes with having miscalculated. Even if the one he apparently miscalculated is himself. “Immaterial. Bribe them. It’s hardly the first time Coruscanti paper-pushers have pushed through something that they shouldn’t.”
“Are you sure?” Hunti asks, mildly dubious. He leans forward, pointing to a line in the message, and glances up at Granta with one dark red brow raised. “Your marriage was registered on Empress Teta. If you divorce within the first twenty years, you owe the government there fifty percent of all holdings.”
“What?” Granta jerks the pad closer, but—Hunti is, to Granta's deep displeasure, entirely correct. Empress Teta has archaic and absolutely insane laws regarding marriages, a lingering remnant of Krath rule, and absolutely no one registers weddings with them. Not even the citizens of Empress Teta, as far as Granta knows. Why on earth anyone would do so willingly is as great a mystery as the marriage itself.
There's a pause as Granta fumes, and then Hunti asks quietly, “Sabotage? Did someone get ahold of your personal information and register a marriage for profit? Maybe to get your holdings?”
The clerk kindly provided a copy of the registered marriage certificate, and Granta flips to it, scans the page with a scowl that deepens as he takes in the neat lines. “What personal information?” he asks sourly. “There’s absolutely nothing for anyone to find. At best they could dig up my school records and my residence on Coruscant, but everything else has been erased.” One of the signatures at the bottom is his own, unmistakable, and Granta presses a thumb to the other, deeply annoyed with himself. The forgery is perfect. Even an expert in fraud wouldn’t be able to find anything wrong with it. How aggravating. “You said it was filed ten years ago?”
Hunti nods, silent but watchful. Ready for orders, which is admirable, even if he is willing to mock his employer in a moment of crisis.
“I would have been sixteen,” Granta says, and tosses the pad aside in disgust, rubbing hard at his brow with his fingertips as he tries to calculate the best way around this hassle. “A very stupid sixteen, with a tendency to get exceedingly drunk at odd hours.”
His mother had died when he was sixteen. Her heart gave out while she was working a months-long run of brutal overtime shifts, trying to pay back some of the debt she’d incurred when sending him off to the Academy. Granta doesn’t remember most of that next year, frankly. Yerphonia has a few strains of very strong liquor going for it, if little else by way of entertainment planetside.
He managed to keep his grades up, even through that, at least. She would have been disappointed in him if he hadn’t.
There's a pause, dark and rapidly darkening further. “Sixteen,” Hunti repeats, metallic purple eyes narrowing as he pulls himself up straight to his considerable height. It always rather makes Granta want to kick him in the shins, even if being on the shorter end of normal is more convenient in his line of work. “Who exactly decided to marry a drunk sixteen-year-old? Is that even legal on Empress Teta?”
“Quite legal,” Granta says sardonically. “The ruling family there still indulges in arranged child marriages with a frequency that would make the Onderonians blush. And there's no need for you to defend my virtue, I assure you. The man I married has no idea I even exist, so it would have been difficult for him to take advantage of me. Regardless of all my youthful fantasies to the contrary.”
Another pause, and Hunti shifts back on his heels and levels a long, deliberate look at Granta that Granta entirely refuses to acknowledge. “You married someone without their knowledge?” Hunti asks after a long moment. “You forged a marriage certificate with someone you’d never met while drunk and a teenager?”
“What part of stupid sixteen-year-old fails to register in your brain? Should I say it in Huttese? Cathan? Ryll? I could try Na’utol if you don’t object to the southern dialect, maybe that would allow the words to process—”
Hunti raises his hands, expression pained. “I understand that you were a precocious child,” he says. “But—he hasn’t noticed, either? In a decade?”
Granta pauses, because that is…a very accurate observation. One that would be entirely unexpected in most of the population, even. Ten years is quite a long time for an adult Human with romantic inclinations to not even consider marriage, but Granta has plenty of systems set up that would have flagged his name on the marriage certificate if anyone else accessed it. He always likes to know when people are researching him, after all. It’s a good way to keep an eye on brewing trouble.
But, of course, it’s not entirely surprising that the object of his teenage ardor would stand above the majority of the population.
“He’s never been given to all of that romantic…mess,” Granta says, waving a hand with calculated dismissiveness, and—impossible not to reach for the pad again, even if it’s a tell. Even if it’s a weakness, to keep looking at the signature set into the form when he already knows what it says.
He makes himself breathe out, rough, like he’s annoyed, even though a curl of something else entirely has eaten the annoyance, made off with it. “Hells. Now we need another plan for getting access to Mas Amedda’s estate before he dies.”
“Tell Floria to marry him instead,” Hunti suggests, though his gaze is still on Granta's face. “She’s technically your ward still, isn't she?”
“Dane would try to kill me, and I would hate to lose a useful subordinate,” Granta says absently, though—it’s a decent idea. Floria is nineteen, and while her turning up as Mas Amedda’s wife will raise eyebrows, it would hardly be surprising for anyone to learn that a politician as corrupt as Champala’s senator had twisted tastes. Floria’s excellent at crying on command, too, and she looks striking in black. She’ll make the funeral convincing, if nothing else.
“Dane regularly uses his sister as bait for bounties, so I think I can talk him around.” Hunti folds his arms across his chest, and from the look on his face, he’s far more interested in the concept of Granta’s marriage than Dane and Floria’s peculiarities. “Is this the sort of thing I should send someone to look into, or are you just going to stay married without him knowing for another ten years?”
It stands to reason that Granta has to do something about this. He didn’t know, before, what his stupid sixteen-year-old self had done, but now that he does, it needs to be addressed. He can't just hope that the status quo remains as it has indefinitely, as tempting as that idea is.
What to do is a far trickier subject, however. For the first time in a very long while, Granta has no plan, no plot, no idea what to even do.
The easiest way to fix this would be to send notice, call it an administrative error and threaten to sue, get it sorted without ever leaving Coruscant. But—
Granta's gaze goes to the signatures again, his own familiar scrawl and the far neater, more artistic sweep of one he’d studied far too often as a student, tucked away in the back corners of the Academy. Obsessed over, the way he did everything about the man, in ways that weren’t remotely productive, but…
Not comforting. Not quite. But fantasy and daydreams were much preferable to thinking about the funeral he couldn’t bring himself to attend, the abandoned house on Nierport VII he didn’t want to visit, the empty, gaping hole of an estate on Telos IV that meant absolutely nothing to him.
Sixteen truly was the stupidest age, Granta thinks, touching the sharp sweep of the signature’s final letters. More elegant than most in Basic, but then, Mando’a script is particularly ornate in its more ceremonial applications. It stands to reason that skill in the Mando’a writing system would carry over to Basic in such a strikingly beautiful way.
“Sir?” Hunti asks quietly, and Granta closes his eyes, mutters a curse at his own mad impulses. But—
He wants something. It itches, bites at his spine with needle teeth, makes him twitchy and restless in his seat with the unfamiliar force of pure desire. The control Granta has always valued so highly has all but evaporated, fled in the face of that graceful, curving signature that Granta forged in a drunken, obstinate, belligerent stupor.
For years—for his entire life—everything Granta has done has been measured, calculated, careful. Everything that matters has been planned out perfectly, executed exactly as it should be. Emotion doesn’t sway Granta. Only logic and reason and the movements on the board before him. Every action serves Xanatos’s revenge, the greater plan. Granta wants to see his father avenged, but—not so much that he’s a fool. Not so much that he’s blinded by emotion. That’s the point.
He's never wanted something so much that he’s been tempted to recklessness before. There’s a strange thrill in it, like leaping a wide gap between skyscrapers when there's a chance he might not make it across, or meeting an enemy he hasn’t accounted for. It makes his skin prickle and his heart beat faster, and he stares at the signature for another moment, then closes his eyes.
Stupid. Stupid. He was the one to put that signature down on the document. It’s a forgery. There’s nothing real about it. But—
But.
“I believe,” he says, and the words want to catch in his throat, but he doesn’t let them, “that my husband is currently visiting Concord Dawn in secret, if the intelligence is correct. Perhaps I should go in person and make sure his cover holds. It would be a shame if anyone from the Death Watch found out that Mand'alor Jaster Mereel was on one of their occupied worlds, after all.”
Hunti pauses, like that response caught him off guard, but Granta doesn’t wait. He pushes to his feet, snapping the pad shut and sliding it away in the pocket of his coat without looking at the bounty hunter.
“We’ll leave in an hour,” he says, with enough authority that it shouldn’t invite any questions. After all, he doesn’t pay Hunti to ask questions. “I’ll arrange for Floria’s nuptials to Mas Amedda and her appearance in polite society on our way. I'm sure she’ll be delighted to be a bride so soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Hunti says, careful, and then, “Sir—”
“And see if any of the tailors on Concord Dawn are our people,” Granta says without waiting for him to finish. He pauses in the doorway, flashing a smirk back and entirely ignoring the deepening frown on Hunti's face. “After all, I would hate to meet my husband after a decade apart looking anything but my best.”
It’s better for all of Granta's various plans if the turmoil in Mandalorian space stays at a low but constant boil, which is another good reason to get involved with matters there. It’s one of the reasons that Jaster is still alive at all, Granta knows—the Republic has been playing all sides of the Mandalorian civil war, trying to keep both the True Mandalorians’ and the Death Watch’s expansionist goals in check. If the Republic is spending all its time watching the Mandalorians across the border, though, it gives Granta all that much more room to maneuver, and he wants to keep that space as free as possible.
It’s kept Jaster a step ahead of most of the attempts on his life, too, and Granta's not grateful for that, because all of his plans would have gone more smoothly if he could have just shown up as Mas Amedda’s widower himself and slid into the man’s secrets without trouble, instead of using Floria as an intermediary, but—well. It’s not a tragedy that a man as cunning and brilliant as Jaster Mereel is still alive, even if his interests have been turned away from history and philosophy and to statecraft—something that Granta, being what he is, will never have a part in—over the years by necessity.
Jaster’s writing is still an indulgence Granta allows himself, once in a great while, when everything else has been finished. Even if it’s not applicable, directly, to his own life, it’s still interesting. Mandalorians are a ruthless, practical, cutthroat bunch, and Granta enjoys insights into their methods every now and then. Jaster created the True Mandalorians in the mold of the old Crusaders, after all, with their morals and their mindset, and it’s fascinating, watching him rule Mandalore as the first leader in centuries chosen by public consensus, with the same ideals as the Crusaders who almost conquered the Republic once.
Concord Dawn, despite the fact that half of the planet is nothing but asteroids and scattered space debris from past civil wars, is a wild but peaceful world, nowhere Granta has set foot before but rather enchanting. The Mandalorian settlements are scattered and far-flung, the major cities abandoned during the days of the Taung in favor of farming enclaves, small communities carved out of the plains and hills and fiercely defended. It’s a Death Watch world, conquered by Tor Vizsla before Granta was even born, but beyond a collection of battlefields scarred by old craters and expanses of scorched earth, everything is almost unsettlingly quiet.
Hunti casts a wary glance over the scattering of ships positioned around the old port, the only part of the city that’s still occupied, everything around it reclaimed by time and grasses and small, twisted trees. Granta already noticed the outlier, but it’s still interesting to see the way Hunti's eyes land on one particular ship and immediately narrow.
“A Gossam ship with Commerce Guild insignia?” he asks, wary. “Here?”
Granta hums, pulling his hair up into a high tail and casting a glance towards the abandoned city. It’s clearly scaled for the Taung, neatly laid out in quadrants, and rises out of the plain like it burst up fully-formed, dragging the vegetation with it. Crumbling buildings have trees escaping their windows, moss and grass growing from their cracks, something vining and blue-green in the sunlight practically subsuming them. The streets are wide and have become nothing but grass with patches of duracrete peeking through, and Granta is only as superstitious as will serve him well, but it feels…
Well. Haunted is likely the best word for it. There's a reason none of Concord Dawn’s residents have ever resettled the cities in the centuries since the Taung went extinct.
“If they're running Commerce Guild codes directly from Castell, it must be someone with permission to do so,” he says, dragging his gaze back to the Guild ship. “President Mai would never allow one of her ships this deep into Mandalorian space for a social visit.”
Hunti grunts, slinging his blaster rifle across his back and turning to lock down the ship. “If Concord Dawn actually had open ports, we might be able to tell why the Guild is here,” he says, displeased. “Or at least where they were going.”
The capital isn't much of one, by galactic standards, and it’s a fair distance from here. Granta hums, thoughtful, as he considers possible destinations, but—the governor’s mansion is just as far as the capital, and there’s a smaller spaceport for visiting dignitaries there. This one, in the heart of Concord Dawn’s agricultural wards, is for freight more than anything, and permission for anyone but a Mandalorian ship to land here is hard to secure. Of course, that means the Guild representative could be anywhere in the nearby wards, with no way to tell exactly where.
“I’ll put out a few questions to our people on Castell,” Granta says, and heads for the pair of speeder bikes that are waiting for them, Hunti a step behind him. “For now, though, you have the map?”
Hunti doesn’t call Granta on the fact that he’s already memorized their route. “Yes, it shouldn’t be more than a few hours from here. Two checkpoints on the way, but we have a person at the first, and the second’s supposed to be easy to get through with a little grease.”
Granta smiles lazily. He loves autocratic, one-government rule; it makes it so easy for corruption to thrive when there’s no check, no one looking for accountability. Like a gift, specifically for Granta and his businesses. “Excellent. Teleq is still on route?”
“He should land tomorrow morning, and meet up with us by afternoon.” Hunti swings himself up onto the bike, checking the controls, but Granta pauses beside his, a flicker of motion among the ruined city’s buildings catching his attention. There's a Mandalorian in simple armor leaning back beside a doorway, almost hidden by the shadow of a tree. His straightening drew Granta's eye, and as Granta watches he turns away, steps forward towards the doorway. A figure emerges from it, meets him, and Granta watches with interest as two more step out of the shadows of the building’s tree-choked interior. One in armor, plain and unmarked with any clan symbols, like the others, and the second—
Not a Mandalorian, Granta thinks, cocking his head. Not the Commerce Guild representative, it’s likely safe to say; he’s an older man with a long beard just starting to go white, his clothes in the traditional style of Metalorn’s academics, long and flowing and pale, starkly at odds with Mandalorian armor all around him. Familiar, too, though likely not a household name to anyone but a former student of the All-Sciences Research Academy.
He had a portrait in the main hall, during Granta's time there. Honor to a former professor who went on to do great things, and Granta had read his writings, walked past his face every day for years on his way to and from classes.
Arn Horada shouldn’t be on Concord Dawn, though, or anywhere in Mandalorian space for that matter. He’s a professor at Alderaan’s most prestigious university right now, if Granta remembers correctly, and in high demand amongst academics. To have him here, now, looking furtive and faintly tense as the three Mandalorians escort him out of the building and deeper into the maze of the ruined city, is interesting.
There’s always something happening in a spaceport. They're one of Granta's favorite places for exactly that reason, and even here on Concord Dawn, in a place that shouldn’t have anything going on at all, it’s nice to see that that still holds true.
Granta watches until they’ve entirely disappeared into the shadows, then pulls himself up onto his bike as if he didn’t see anything at all. Another question to put out when they stop next, he thinks, amused. After all, if there's something to know, Granta wants to know it, and secrets even more so.
It’s clear after just a few hours here that Concord Dawn isn't nearly as peaceful as all of the reports make it out to be.
Granta sinks back on his speeder bike, absently adjusting his gloves as he watches the queue ahead of them move slowly through the checkpoint. It’s much more heavily fortified than it should be, and from the conversation in the heavy transport ahead of them, full of low voices and dark looks towards the Journeyman Protectors manning the narrow gap between the hills, Granta gathers that all of this is something new and unexpected, even for the citizens.
Beside him, Hunti's expression is growing increasingly dark and foreboding as the wind sweeps past them, fluttering his red hair, the silver ribbon holding it in a loose tail. He checks the time again, then glances towards where a pair of Journeyman Protectors are searching a woman’s bags, and says quietly, “I don’t like this.”
Granta doesn’t, either. They're surrounded by Concord Dawn’s citizens, no other off-worlders obvious in the line, and that’s going to get them extra scrutiny. The first checkpoint was easy enough to get through, but—
“They weren’t worried about the spaceport,” he says, just as soft. “Interesting how they're focusing their attention on the road to several clans’ holdings.”
Hunti casts him a sharp look, eyes narrowing. Granta doesn’t look over, but keeps his attention on the Mandalorian woman watching the Protectors riffle through her gear, tight-lipped and clearly angry but not moving to confront them. Concord Dawn is a Death Watch world, but—still Mandalorian. Still proud and aggressive as a people. He can't imagine standing by quietly comes naturally to a woman in heavy armor, either, but she’s not making a fuss as they paw through her weapons and supplies.
Fear, maybe, Granta thinks, watching her, or maybe it’s something else. The men in the flatbed in front of them, heavily heaped with crates stacked higher than seems entirely advisable, are getting tenser as the minutes stretch, and behind them, several positions down, a Mandalorian in heavy red armor with a clan patch on the shoulder is leaning back against the side of his speeder, arms crossed, helmet tipped to watch the checkpoint.
Fascinating, Granta thinks, and smiles lazily to himself, checking that both of his throwing knives are secure in their wrist-sheaths. Ahead of them, the Protectors wave the woman through, then turn to the flatbed as it slides closer. One of the Protectors waves, and the driver slides out, dropping down to the ground and nodding more or less politely as he offers his papers. The other jumps out as well, and when two more Protectors move to approach the crates, he takes a few quick steps to meet them.
“What’s this even about?” he asks, and Granta sweeps a look over him, taking in the short, sweaty brown hair, the breadth of his shoulders. Someone used to wearing armor, though that’s not a surprise on Concord Dawn. More tellingly, someone who’s been wearing armor recently, if that helmet-hair is anything to go by.
Neither of the Protectors seem to notice, though; one waves for him to open the crates, and says, “Just a safety check. There have been rumors of terrorists trying to target the harvests before they can be brought in.”
“No one would be stupid enough to try that,” the Mandalorian says, though to Granta's ears it rings hollow. “Even terrorists need to eat.”
The other Protector shrugs. “If they're Republic-funded, they're not eating anything from Concord Dawn,” she says, and leans in as the lid of the crate pulls free, wrinkling her nose. “Fertilizer?”
The young man nods. Around the edge of the lid, his hands are white-knuckled. “There’s been a shortage, given all the trade restrictions. We’re having to ship it in from Hrthging right now.”
The Protectors pause, trading a glance between themselves for a long moment. then, deliberate, the woman raises her comm. “Get the massiffs over here,” she says, and Granta can see the way the young man goes two shades paler.
“It’s just fertilizer!” he protests. “What are the massiffs even supposed to smell through all of this?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” the woman says coolly, and draws her blaster. “Up against the side of the transport. Keep your hands clear.”
The young man hesitates, eyes flickering from the truck to the Protectors as he wavers—
A body in red armor steps past Granta, posture loose and open but intention clear as he approaches. The man on the speeder, Granta thinks, cocking his head as he passes. He hadn’t expected that.
“Is there a problem?” the Mandalorian asks, and both Protectors whirl, weapons in hand in an instant.
“Go back to your place in line,” the man in red says, sharp. “This is just a routine check.”
“That’s my cousin you're threatening,” the man says, cool. “Lower your weapons and I’ll go back.”
One man against at least seven Journeyman Protectors, Granta calculates. He checks the time, frowning faintly as he realizes how late it is. All he wants is to get through this checkpoint, reach the small town at the convergence of several clan lands, and find his husband. They have an anniversary to celebrate, even if Jaster might not be aware of that fact yet.
Annoyance flickers, and for a moment Granta considers the options. Easiest to let this play out, though it’s going to take time. Time he doesn’t want to spend sitting in the sun, even if the potential chaos will likely provide an opportunity to slip through the checkpoint unseen.
“Credits,” he says to Hunti, who leans over to hand them to him without complaint.
“The woman,” he says, low, and Granta hums in thanks and slides off his speeder.
“Really,” he says, pitched to carry, and when the closer Protector rounds on him, wary, he raises his hands with a perfectly mild smile. A touch of concentration is all it takes to smooth over the edges, to make himself just a little easier to dismiss, the details fading as soon as the man blinks, and Granta steps forward, catches the red-armored Mandalorian's arm with casual ease. “I know you said that we’d be safe here, my love, but I didn’t expect there to be this much security.”
The red-armored Mandalorian pauses, flicking a glance down at Granta, but he doesn’t shake Granta off. After a bare instant of calculation, the man huffs, folding his arms over his chest, and says, “I didn’t expect the security to be aimed at us, I’ll admit. We’re all loyal citizens here.”
Frowning, the woman looks between them. “This is for the safety of Concord Dawn,” she counters. “Up against the transport—”
Granta sighs, pulls away from the man in red armor to approach her, hands spread as if to show they’re empty, but he lets the edge of one credit chip catch the light just briefly as he reaches out to touch the woman’s hand. “I understand that you’re in the middle of things,” he says, makes it charming, light, perfectly unmemorable as soon as he’s out of sight. “But we’ve been trying to make time for this honeymoon for months now, and I would hate to see all of our plans delayed by unnecessary hold-ups. Meeting my husband’s family is something I've wanted for a very long time, sir.”
The woman slides her arm out of his grip, stepping back, and she’s skilled enough at this that Granta can't even see the credit chips disappearing up into her sleeve. “New clan meeting?” she asks the man in red armor, and he nods without pause.
“My cousin’s twitchy,” he says. “I hope you won't hold that against him. That’s why I agreed to help get the transport back home, even though it’s our honeymoon.”
“Teach him how to act like a normal person and not a terrorist, then,” the woman says, waspish, but she steps away, waves a hand. “Take the massiffs back to the shade, they won't be able to smell anything anyway through this reek. Hurry up, you’re holding up the line.”