Sacrifice

They didn't go in for procedural nicety.

A chieftain with an ornately shaved beard and an eye patch stood up to speak without ceremony. "So, Mand'alor? he said. "Are we going to fight or what?"

"Who do you want to fight?" Fett noted that they reverted to Basic when addressing him, in deference to his ignorance of Mando'a. "The Galactic Alliance? Corellia? Some Force-forsaken pit on the Rim?"

"There's never been a war we haven't fought in."

"There is now. This isn't our fight. Mandalore's got its own troubles."

"The war's escalating. Their troubles might come and find us."

Fett stood by the long, narrow window that ran the height of the west- facing wall. It was more like an arrow loop than a view on the city.

Mandalorians built for defense, and public buildings were expected to serve as citadels, even more so now. The Yuuzhan Vong had wreaked terrible vengeance on Mandalore for its covert work for the New Republic during the invasion, but the carnage had just made Mando'ade more ferociously determined to stay put. The nomadic habit was still there: it was more about a refusal to yield than love of the land. But they couldn't lose a third of the population and shrug it off, not while many still remembered the Imperial occupation.

Sore losers, the Vong. But it's not like I had any alternative.

Better the New Republic than the crab-boys.

Fett scanned the hall, aware of Mirta's fixed and almost baleful stare.

"What's the first rule of warfare?"

On seats, on benches, leaning in alcoves, or just standing with arms folded, the leaders of Mandalorian society—or as many as could get to