Saga Watching Death: The Secret Journal of Praetor Ordo [DDC 2015] - Updated 1/22

Title: Watching Death: The Secret Journal of Praetor Ordo

Author: Volund Starfire

Timeframe: Between 21 BBY after the Battle of Geonosis) and 20 BBY (Month 31 after the Battle of Geonosis)

Genre: 2015 Diary Challenge, Mandalorian, Death Watch, Journal

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dave Filoni for his awesome rendition of the Death Watch and Mandalorian society (even if it was a little HATED BY EVERYONE WHO WEARS A T-VISOR in the beginning). And, to Uncle George who gave us a great galaxy to play around in!

Author’s Note: This is my take on the events in and around the Death Watch story arcs as they are depicted in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

 

Entry 056
1-Jan-15

It all started about noon. Dal’buir was inside the house fixing lunch and I was helping jag’buir with one of the mining droids. The old astromech had a bad motivator and popped its upper hatch on the way out of the mine with a load of ore. If mother could hear what father was saying, he would be hard-pressed to get even haashuun from her for lunch. She always said that I should watch what I say and often chided him on his language while teaching me. I thought it was kind of funny since I have used far worse language (both Basic and Mando’a) with my friends in town when I saw them.

Jag’buir sent me to the repair shed looking for a new motivator. I found it, but before I could unbury myself from the mess I had made, I heard the speeders coming. Besides the low whine of a landspeeder, I heard the higher pitch of a couple of speeder bikes. Then, over those, I detected the low rumble of something else. It took me a moment to realize that it was a jetpack. I’d only ever heard them in town, and then only in the distance. I carefully climbed over the pile of parts to peek out the door.

There were seven men talking to father. They were all dressed the same. Blue kute with a dark blue blast vest, their beskar’gam was dark gray and their kom’rk and lovik’gam were gray. Their buy'ce was also dark gray with light blue around the black visor. All of them wore jetpacks, even the ones on the speeder bikes. They were also armed with a pair of pistols on each thigh and some carried carbines.

“Why are you here,” my father said. There was a hint of fear in his voice, but he didn’t show it in his posture. “I gave tribute last season and the next tribute isn’t for another three weeks.”

“Recruiting,” one of them said. The rest laughed at that comment, but then went dead silent. One looked up at the house and his finger dropped onto the trigger of his carbine.

“I already told your boss, I fought for his father for twelve years and was rewarded with exile to this rock.” Jag’buir lifted himself up to his full height, his cybernetic leg creaking a little with the strain. “I’m done with fighting. All it ever gave me was dents to my armor and this leg.”

“I never said it was you that we were here to recruit, old man.” The leader pulled a pistol and shot my father square in the chest. He fell to his knees and looked toward me for only a moment before he slumped forward.

Three of the strangers ran up to the house where I heard mother screaming. There was more blaster fire and then silence. After a couple of minutes, I smelled smoke and heard things being thrown inside the house. The three walked back to the group, one shaking his head.

Another started walking toward the shed. I wouldn’t be able to hide if he opened the door. Father taught me the kind of sensors those helmets held. I was surprised they hadn’t found me yet, as it was.

“Maybe he’s in the mine,” one of the others said. The leader nodded and the group of three ran for the cave entrance. The one walking toward me stopped and turned back to his commander.

I knew it was my time to strike. Only with surprise could I even hope to overcome the sensor package in his buy’ce. I burst out of the door and threw myself down at the backs of his knees. They buckled the moment I hit and I reached up and dislodged his pistol from its holster. I shot once under the back of his helmet and hit his gauntlet with the butt of the grip.

It must have been dumb luck because the rocket shot off his pack and blew up the droid that was standing near the commander. At the same time, the dead warrior’s jetpack thrusters activated. I rolled off of him, catching his arm and redirecting him in a spin at the mouth of the mine.

I leaped for one of the speeder bikes and pushed what I thought was the throttle. There was no explosion from the cave, just a sickening thump as he hit the wall. By the time it registered, though, I was halfway to the tree line. If I could make it there, I could get to the primary speeder lane for town.

I saw a blue glow a moment before every nerve on my body was overcome with pain. I jerked straight and vaguely felt myself falling before I blacked out. I came to a moment later and was lying on my back on the ground. Five of the armored men stood over me, one with a tourniquet on his left arm.

“You missed,” one said to another.

“He’s on the ground, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” the commander said, pulling his pistol with his one good arm. “Let’s make sure there is no more trouble for the ride back to camp.”

I was looking down the barrel of the blaster when things seemed to slow down. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, and then a blue ring came out of the barrel. The ring hit my face and everything went white. A moment later, it went black.

I woke up in the cramped hold of a land speeder with six other kids. I don’t know where I’m going or if they’ll take my journal, but in case they do… Whoever you are that finds this, please help.

I live on Concordia, outside Refugee Mining Center Tad’eta. My mother and father were killed. My name is Praetor Ordo, I am twelve years old, this is my journal, and I’ve been kidnapped by Death Watch.

 

Nice exciting start

 

Thank you. I've had the plot bunnies for this one for a while. I'm going to use it to run through the entire TCW Mandalorian arc with a few surprises.

I just hope people appreciate the Mando'a I'm adding in. For those of you who want to know what it means, I would like to suggest the Mando'a Dictionary. I've taught myself how to speak it and am in the process of teaching myself how to read it.

It's added to Sindarin, Latin, and Akkadian (Sumerian) in my repertoire.

 

Fascinating start!! It will be interesting to see how things play out.

 

Entry 57
8-Jan-15

I don’t know how long we were traveling. The stun blast took out the chronometer function of my journal. All I know is there were no windows and the compartment was lit with a sole red lamp.

Inside the compartment were six other kids are like me. One, I’d guess he was about nine or ten, was just sitting in the corner of the speeder crying. Talking to a couple of others, I found out that their stories were almost identical to my own. However, I was the only one to take out any of the seven that came ‘recruiting.’

I felt the speeder slow to a stop before the door opened in front of us. The light was blinding, but showed the forests outside the mining zone. The air was full of oxygen here, which meant we were near one of the terraforming centers, and it smelled of pine, dirt, and sweet sap.

“Everyone out,” one of the faceless warriors said, waving his carbine to get us to move faster. I crawled out and looked back to make sure the other six got out, too. The little one was pulled out by the back of his shirt and thrown face down on the grass to the laughter of two of the other men.

We were outside one of the old strip mines. This one looked really old, though. There was grass on the rim and shrubs clinging to the sides of the walls. As we walked down the slopes to the bottom I saw that the edges were rounded and smooth. That meant it was a mine from before the war because of the erosion.

In the bottom of the mine pit, there were about a hundred kids and a lot of those strange armored warriors. The kids looked about my age with a few older and a few younger. Though, I noticed that there were no girls, only boys. The warriors were the same way, only boys with no girls.

When we got to the bottom of the pit with the other kids, one warrior used his rocket pack to jet to the second tier of the mine. His armor was beaten and dented, not like the others. Also, he had a huge scar across his buy’ce. He lifted it off of his head and revealed a plate bolted over his eye. His hair was white and he had a sneer that seemed to never fall off of his lips.

“My name is Ruus’alor Devin Farr,” he said. His voice was loud and echoed around the walls, drawing even the whimpering to a silence. “I am your Rally Master.”

He looked around at us and spat. “You will follow orders without question. If you question, you will be shot. If you disobey, you will be shot. If you fail, you will be shot. If we are displeased with your performance, you will be shot.”

He looked around at the frightened faces. I wasn’t scared, though. He made eye contact with me and I narrowed my gaze. I wanted to kill him, to kill them all for my buire. I saw him smile at that before continuing his gaze around.

“Are any of you injured?”

There was a slight buzz of conversation before a boy not too far in front of me raised his hand. We cleared a small circle around him, but I found myself uncomfortably close to him for the look Devin Farr was giving him.

“I think my wrist is broken,” he said. He held out his arm a little. There was a purpling bruise around his forearm and his hand was a little bluer than it should have been. He cradled it back against his chest.

Devin nodded to a warrior who walked through the crowd toward the boy. When someone wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way, they were back handed or kicked. Finally the warrior made it to the young man and grabbed his wrist. He let out a cry as the warrior turned it.

Finally, the warrior let the boy’s hand go and started walking back to the edge. The kids cleared a wider path this time. Once back in his original position, he looked up at Devin and nodded.

The older warrior smiled like a wild nexu, drew his pistol, and fired a single shot that hit the boy in the chest. The force of the blast flung him back into me. I didn’t move, only let his lifeless body fall to the ground.

“You are now Ge’verd,” Devin Farr announced, donning his helmet. “For those of you who do not speak the glorious language of our forefathers, and you will soon enough, that means you are almost warriors.”

He launched himself into the air and hovered over us. “Get them their uniforms, feed them, and show them where to sleep. Welcome to Death Watch!”

 

Entry 62: Daily Life

The slow ones were the first to die, followed soon after by the weak ones.

It’s almost sickening how I am no longer even fazed by the deaths of others. We began a few weeks ago with one hundred and fifty kids, and are now down to just seventy-five. Most of them were killed by Rally Master Devin Farr or his instructors; the rest either took their own lives or died in training.

The training was brutal. We woke up and had too little time to deal with personal hygiene before being run out of the camp and onto the obstacle course. After the obstacle course, we ate breakfast while being given classes. After the classes, we were back on the obstacle course until dinner and technical training. After the training, we were allowed to go back to our barracks for what little personal time we had. Most of us used the time to clean our clothing and gear, clean up in the fresher, and pass out until the next day.

The camp was at the base of a strip-mining pit. It was on the other side of a mine from the pit we were initially brought into. It was a series of modular arch shelters set up for various purposes. The largest was the command bunker that the warriors and Rally Master slept in. There were a series of barracks for us that held twenty kids each. There were a couple of other bunkers set up for an armory, kitchen, and some that none of us had any idea what they contained.

There were two starships on either side of the base; Kom'rk-class fighter/transports we learned in one of our classes. There were also a row of speeder bikes, a couple of land speeders, and an Armored Assault Tank that was purchased from the Trade Federation. Strewn about the grounds were also supply crates and moisture vaporators. Some of the crates were full, others were just for training.

The training was brutal. Most of it involved an obstacle course set up around the lowest tier of the mine. We had to climb the steep wall to the tier and then run around the course until it was time to stop. Three-quarters of the kilometer-long course was just flat ground to run across; anyone who slowed to a walk was shot. The remaining quarter was the obstacle course.

It involved climbing, swinging, crawling, and jumping across various hazards. A couple of kids were injured and shot, a warning to the rest of us to be more careful according to the Rally Master. Those of us that survived were becoming stronger and quicker, though. As I said before, the slow were the first to be killed, followed by the weak.

We also all learned the benefits of our new uniform. We were each wearing the same blue combat suit that the warriors wore. In addition to the suit, we also had lovik’gam, or knee armor, attached to magneto-plates in the combat suit, which saved me more than a few times from injuring myself during falls. Each of us also wore positive-traction boots and grip-gloves. Those protected and aided us during the daily exercise, but also kept us warm during the down-time.

The classes were a respite that we all looked forward to. Most of them dealt with teaching Mando’a to those who were not raised with the language of our forefathers. We also had classes related to the history of the True Mandalorians and the schism of the Supercommando heresy. I knew it was propaganda, but I paid attention during the classes to avoid execution. My buir taught me all about the Death Watch movement and the battles with Jaster Mereel’s supercommandos.

The technical classes familiarized us with the integrated head’s up systems of the buy’ce. We also learned about the jetpacks, weapons, and vehicles that were primarily used by Death Watch. Every day we looked at a different item. We were shown basic maintenance and repair, but never how to actually use them. Oh, and we didn’t look at any explosives.

At the end of training, we would be allowed to go back to our open-doored barracks. A couple of kids tried to escape during the darkness of skotah’ca and munit’ca, the short night where Kalevala eclipses the sun and long night of the moon’s rotation, but they were killed before they got more than a few steps outside.

The barracks were sparsely furnished. We each had a cot with blanket and insulafoam mattress and pillow, a wall locker for the small amount of gear and hygiene items we were allowed, and a blanket for the colder nights. The barracks held twenty of us and we all shared a large refresher in the middle of the bunker.

It was hellish, the entire thing. The first week, most of us cried ourselves to sleep. After that, we either stopped or walked outside the doors. I’m not going to die, though. I’m going to live long enough to see the entire lot of them taken down and killed, hopefully by my own hands.

 

Entry 67: Target Practice

It felt good to be doing something other than running the obstacle course. Instead, after breakfast and classes, we went up to the second tier of the mine and began marksmanship training. It was not any less brutal, but at least was something different than the past month.

The first morning of the training, after our classes, we were taken to the armory and given a set of thigh plates like the warriors wore. Holstered on each plate was a Westar-35 blaster pistol. Their sleek silver and gray bodies were heavy, but didn’t feel that bad when the thigh armor was magneto-sealed to my coverall.

One of the kids pulled his pistol out and immediately shot himself in the head, which caused some of the warriors to laugh around us. Another pulled his out and shot one of the warriors in the chest, which caused even more laughing as the blaster bolt struck the armored plate uselessly. The warrior’s full-powered blaster killed the fool on the spot, though.

The weapons we were issued are little more than target blasters. The boy that shot himself came to a few minutes later with major burns from the plasma, but little else. The blasters were identical to those carried by the warriors in all other respects, though. They were now our responsibility and we would be punished severely if we lost them.

We spent a couple of weeks on how to aim and fire the pistols, since they didn’t have sights. Mostly, it was firing by feel and reflex, but we were also told it would be much easier when we received our helmets. Not that it stopped the instructors from beating those who were bad marksmen.

We spent another week on dual-firing the pistols. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but was definitely more fun. I was one of the few that had a hit rate higher than 90%. For the last part of that training, we were all put in a group and told the last one standing would win. I wasn’t the last one standing, but I was in the top five. Not that the burn to my right shoulder didn’t hurt. One kid was hit in the head and lost an eye; he was still unconscious when the Rally Master killed him.

We practiced on the Westar-35 Blaster Carbines, as well. They were also under-powered, but were enough to kill at close range. They had a greater range than the pistols and were more accurate. It was easier to sight along the length than the pistols. I think I was a little more accurate than others, but only because I wasn’t beaten.

At the end of the marksmanship training month, the Rally Master has us all form up into a group. He had me and two others separated from the rest of the mass, and had another three taken aside away from us.

“You three are free,” he spat toward the other group. “Start running and make your way out of the pit.”

The other group looked at him for only a moment before he fired a shot at their feet, causing them to take off running for the ramps up toward the rim of the strip mine. Before they were even a dozen steps away, a warrior tossed a rifle to me.

It was medium weight, but not Westar design like the other Death Watch weaponry. On the contrary, it was a sniper blaster rifle. It had a longer range and precision optics for taking enemies out at a further distance than most common blasters.

“You three are the best shots here,” Rally Master Farr said. “They are the three worst shots. Prove your skill is justified by killing them, or die.”

The first kid took aim and fired almost immediately. It was too quick. The shot missed by two meters over all three of their heads. The kid was dead before he even looked away from the scope, a smoking hole in the center of his chest.

The second kid was more careful with his shot and caught one of the three in the small of his back. The sniper rifles were full power because the boy slumped forward and hit the ground while his legs ran two more steps.

I lay down on the ground and let the rifle rest on one hand while I pulled it into my shoulder with the other. My father showed me how to shoot the small game in the forest near the house, this wasn’t really any different. I just sat there, the target reticule centered on the back of the rear runner’s neck and waited.

I heard a warrior draw his pistol behind me, but ignored it. Likewise, I ignored the low tone of an internal comm from Farr to the warrior that caused the pistol to go back into its holster. I disregarded the green light in the scope telling me it was linked to Farr’s heads up display. I just waited until the boys were in the right position.

The only way I would be able to defeat Death Watch is by being the best. The only way that could happen was to give in to the training, the blood thirst, and the brutality. I squeezed the trigger and let the blaster bolt loose from the barrel.

I had waited for just the right moment, when both boys were turning to climb the last ramp to the edge of the pit. The bolt tore through the neck of one, taking out enough to put him down for the count before slamming into the head of the other. Buir always told me I had a special skill with lining up shots.

“Clean hit,” Rally Master Farr said before jetting off the landing and back into the main camp.

My revelry was short-lived, though. He hadn’t even landed before the sniper rifle was ripped out of my hands and I was kicked for lying down. We were run around the obstacle course a couple of times before Technical classes.

 

Entry 77: My First Revenge

I can’t use my right hand very well, but it’s not too bad. Thankfully, I didn’t break it. I think it has more to do with the new armor on the backs of the gloves than anything else. It’s not much, but it definitely helped with the training we had this past month.

Yes, we received a new piece of armor for our kits. Small tombstone shaped plates that mag-connect to the backs of our grip-gloves. They’re made out of the same light metal as the rest of the armor plates and painted the same dark gray as the thigh armor.

Instead of more marksmanship, this month we ge’verd who survived were lead to the raised gravel pit. The Rally Master was already waiting for us with his usual cadre of warriors in their identical armors. This group looked slightly more muscular, though.

“Today, you will learn unarmed combat,” he yelled out to the 61 of us who were gathered on the perimeter of the put. “Those of you who cannot will be killed.”

We were broken into groups of ten with one extra kid in my group. For the next week, we were taught how to throw proper punches, kick, elbow, knee, and headbutt. At first, we did this against pads with the instructors demonstrating proper techniques on those who didn’t do it right.

By the end of the week, I had the fighting styles down fairly well. Then we moved to wooden targets that were generally humanoid in shape. We were taught combos and aiming our shots, again with the instructors showing us the proper way if we didn’t get it right the second time around.

The training progressed into having to break the boards. The first kid who tried broke his elbow and was killed on the spot by the Rally Master. The rest of us were much more careful. It still hurt, though. One kid dislocated his fingers, but we pulled them back into place after training was over.

We went on to match-ups against other kids. I lost a couple of fights, but won a few more. Some of the kids were getting brutal in their attacks, but I made sure to stay in control. We’ve all talked about how easy it is to five into the training and be as bloodthirsty as the warriors, but without the training we’d just get dead.

After the match-ups, we were given instruction in how to use the butts of our pistols and the rest plates of the carbines as weapons, and how to include them into the combination of shots. But the end of the training was the most surprising.

One morning, after our run, we came down to the pit to find the instructors all had long sticks with electro-pads up most of their length and wider grips. We immediately formed up on our respective instructors before the Rally Master landed in the center of the pit.

“One thing that all members of Death Watch must do is to be able to fight jetii. Each of the instructors are carrying dar’kad'au, or stun lightsaber sticks. One touch, and you be rendered unconscious.”

A trainer activated one of the strange weapons and the plates on the blade glowed to life with blue crackling electricity. He reached out and lightly tapped it to a kids arm, causing the kid to let out a scream and fall to the ground, convulsing and wetting himself.

“Don’t get hit.” The Rally Master jetted off and we were left with our instruction.

My father had often told me about the Jedi. They were wizards who fought with laser swords. He said they were invincible, but that only the Mandalorians knew how to really kill them. I was learning just that.

At the end of the month, we were set into one-on-one matches in front of the Rally Master. I was the eighth to fight. But, I was watching the instructors. Mine always used his jetpack to jump and come down with a flying kick before striking with his stunstick. I thought I could use that to my advantage.

My instructor’s first attack was a sweeping slash, but I didn’t back away from it. Instead, I stepped into it and threw a punch into the instructors elbow. I heard a grunt and the roar of his jetpack activating. At the last second, I dropped to the ground and hooked my foot around his ankle.

It didn’t do much more than throw off his balance, but that was enough to make him go higher than he usually did in the fights. He came down with that same kick, his fake jetii’kad raised for a downward slash.

At the last second, I rolled forward and threw myself backwards. I missed the kick and the force of my weight pushed him off balance. I turned and pulled at the maglock of his jetpack, sending it useless into the sharp gravel. But, he also wasn’t able to recover as quickly with its weight replaced by mine.

I was able to kick hard into the back of one of his knees before wrapping my legs around his waist. At the same time, I grabbed the edges of his best and jerked his neck armor against his throat.

He dropped his weapon and started scratching ineffectively against the metal as it pushed into the neck seal. The Rally Master rolled his head a little and nodded to me. I knew what I had to do, and I was glad to do it.

Letting go of his vest, I wrapped my right arm around his helmet and grabbed the left ear plate. My other hand did the same behind his helmet and found purchase on his right. Before he could get his hands from his dislodged neck armor to his helmet, it was too late.

With a roar of strength and emotion, I pulled as hard as I could with both hands. A moment later, I felt the vibration of popping from somewhere inside the helmet and heard the wet snaps below it. The warrior went limp.

I stood over the man’s body, his head looking over his right shoulder, his neck broken. The Rally Master smiled and nodded as I walked back to the edge of the pit with the rest of the kids.

One down, more to go.