Lekku. LOG-007. The Edge Of The Flame.

LOG-007. The Edge Of The Flame.

I’m fifteen years old, and I don’t fight kids anymore.

They moved me out of the foundling pit rotations six months ago. I think they got tired of seeing their best prospects get dropped by a half sized red Twi’lek with a knife in her boot and something wrong in her eyes.

Now I spar with adults.

They don’t go easy.

Neither do I.

The man I’m fighting today is twice my size, built like a crash wall. He’s got this big nasty scar above his left eye. Moves like someone who doesn’t think I can land a hit.

He’s wrong.

The bell chimes. We start.

I duck the first swing. Drop low. Pivot off my right foot and slide under his guard, twin practice pistols flashing up like reflex. Two pop pop shots into his lower ribs.

He grunts. Doesn’t drop.

Tries to grab me.

I twist. Backpedal. My left blaster goes up, my right hand already drawing my vibrodagger from the sheath at my hip. Feint. Rotate. Kick the inside of his knee and roll out before he can catch me.

We reset.

He nods once. Just once.

Respect. Or maybe a warning.

Either way, I’m grinning under the helmet.

Varin watches from the gallery above. Arms folded. Helmet on. Still. Always still.

He doesn’t shout advice. Never has. But if I screw up, he’s the first to make me relive it frame by frame until I hate myself more than the bruise.

So I don’t screw up.

Much.

After the match, I strip down in the prep bay and down a bottle of water like it’s my last. Sweat stings my side. My armour’s getting tighter, which means I’ve been growing again. I might finally be tall enough to see over the dash of the gunship. Might even get Varin to-

Speak of the devil.

The man himself steps into the bay. Tosses me a flight suit.

“Training. Now.”

—

I’ve flown sims before. Everyone has. But this is real. Physical. Every jolt matters. Every correction goes straight into your spine.

I strap in.

He slides into the co-pilot seat, flicks the startup sequence like he’s checking a grocery list.

“Try not to break anything.”

I fire up the engines.

They hum.

So do I.

I’m not perfect. My turns are rough. My altitude shifts suck. But I get the feel for it fast. Like I’ve done this before.

No, not before.

Like I was meant to.

I quietly question whether I’ve got some kind of Skywalker thing going on with flying, even as I bank too hard around a rocky outcrop and scrape the left stabilizer.

Varin grunts.

“Better than most first runs.”

Which, coming from him, is basically a standing ovation.

I don’t smile.

But my lips do twitch slightly.

—

Later, I sit in the hangar, watching the sun bleed into the canyon, wondering what the hell I’m becoming.

I can shoot. Fly. Cut. Lead. I’ve been molded into a soldier. A warrior. A Mandalorian.

But what kind of warrior am I choosing to be?

One that protects?

One that kills? Destroys?

One that survives, maybe?

It’s a question I continue to ponder, for many days to come.

—

The forge runs hot tonight.

Not just in temperature, though it’s enough to cook the hair off your arms if you get too close. No, there’s something else in the air. Something quieter. Heavier.

Finality.

My hands are steady as I slide the last plate into place. The framing clicks, the curve along the jawline matches the templates I memorized weeks ago. Lekku guards sit folded and seamless along the back of the helm, slim enough to let me move, thick enough to take a hit.

No frills. No sigils. Not yet.

It’s mine.

Forged by my own hand.

It’s not perfect. There’s a faint ripple across the left brow seam, and the finish on the cheek plate isn’t as clean as I wanted. But it fits.

The armourer nods once.

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to.

The weight in my chest says it for her.

I lift the helmet.

It’s about as heavy as I expected.

I breathe in. Slow.

And lower it over my head, enjoying the hiss as it seals around me.

Then everything goes silent.

No chatter.

No clang of steel behind me.

No rasp of the forge.

Just my heartbeat.

Steady. Deep. Centered.

I blink. My HUD flares to life, system pings running diagnostics I coded myself. Targeting assist. Motion sensor. Internal filtration.

But it’s not the tech that hits me.

It’s the stillness.

Like for the first time in years, I’ve stepped into a place where nothing can get in unless I let it.

This is the final line.

Not a weapon in my hand. Not blood on a knife.

This.

This is the moment I stop being a foundling.

I’m a Mandalorian. 

Not pretending. Not surviving.

I am a Mandalorian.

It’s a giddy thought.

And under the armour, under the synth threaded padding, the blaster scarring, the scar tissue still healing in my ribs, I feel it again.

That hum. That pressure. That impossible, buried thing I still won’t name out loud.

The Force.

Quiet now.

Waiting.

I don’t know what to do with it.

It’s a knife I haven’t drawn yet.

And maybe never will.

But it’s there. With me.

Part of me.

It makes me feel dangerous.

I exhale slow.

Inside the helmet, it sounds like a promise.

One could say that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

My parents, my actual parents, granted to me in this second life, are gone. My past burned out in a desert slum. I should’ve rotted there. Or vanished. Or become someone else’s tragedy.

Instead…

I was taken.

Rebuilt.

And if I’m being honest…

It feels like this was the best thing that ever could have happened to me.

—

By eighteen, I’ve stopped being watched like a bomb with a cracked timer.

I’m trusted now.

Which means I get more freedom, more contracts, and more ways to get shot in the spine by strangers I don’t trust.

Call it a promotion.

I've run security for spice freighters in the Mid Rim. Hunted a debt jumper on Ord Vaug who didn’t realize his targeter still pinged when he used public terminals. Got dropped into a blood feud on Kintan where the pay was good, but the locals were better at holding grudges than credits.

No one holds your hand once you're called vod’ika without hesitation.

I earn my keep. Not just with a blaster, either. Planning. Infil. Extraction. Small crew work.

People listen to me now.

Even Varin.

Especially Varin, actually. He does seem to prefer it when someone else takes point.

Right now, we're three Mandalorians on the edge of Republic territory, drinking something fermented under twin suns that definitely shouldn’t be fermented.

It’s an outdoor bar. Cracked stone benches. Shade sails flapping overhead like they’re trying to leave. I’m half watching a group of drunk off worlders play sabacc with bad hands and worse attitudes.

The datapad on my knee scrolls slow.

Newsfeeds. Trade reports. Senate voting logs. Jedi sightings. Conflict rumors.

I skim headlines.

Senate Deadlocked Over System Secession Talks: ‘We Will Not Be Threatened Into Staying.’ Says Raxus Representative.

Temple Silence on Master Dooku’s Departure Continues: ‘No Comment’ from Jedi Council.

Unmarked Banking Clan Funds Traced to Outer Rim Worlds-Senate Ethics Committee to Investigate.

Mercenary Demand Hits Five-Year High: ‘We Work for Who Pays On Time.’ States Guild Captain.

It’s not screaming yet.

But it’s close.

I swipe the screen away and lean back, helmet clipped to my belt, lekku tucked under my collar. Sweat beads along my spine. Not from the heat.

The date pings quietly in the corner of my display, I do the mental math and come up with a date.

24 BBY.

I stare up at the sky.

A cruiser floats into view, Republic Navy, heavy transport class. Civilian flight paths re-route automatically as it enters the upper atmosphere. Big enough to make the locals glance up. Not big enough to get them scared.

But it gives me a bad feeling, one justified by the memories from my first life.

Varin watches it too. Leans against the post next to me, arms folded. Says nothing. Doesn’t need to.

I feel it in my bones.

Something’s cracking across the stars.

Big.

Loud.

Permanent.

The war’s coming. 

And I know where I’ll be when it starts.

Right in the middle of it.

…What a time to be alive.