Mandalore was weak.
Jack didn't need Cassandra's projections to see it. He could hear it in the arguments between clans, feel it in the way warriors trained without unity, without doctrine. Beskar was still strong. Mandalorians were still dangerous.
But Mandalore itself is broken and lost its way.
He stood in orbit aboard his command vessel, looking down at the iron-gray world through the viewport. Storm systems crawled across the surface like scars that never healed. Cities clung to survival. Leadership clung to relevance.
Cassandra spoke quietly.
"Current Mandalorian governance lacks centralized military authority. Planetary defense systems are outdated. Clan loyalties supersede planetary unity."
Jack nodded. "They can't survive what's coming."
"They believe neutrality will protect them," Cassandra continued.
"That belief will get them conquered," Jack said.
The Republic had no army.
The Separatists were mobilizing.
The Jedi were stretched thin and blind to anything that didn't announce itself.
Mandalore sat in the middle of it all, proud, unarmed, and its current leadership is strategically deprived.
That would not last.
Jack turned from the viewport.
"Show me force projections," he said.
The holotable lit up showed the clones of ODST and Spartan formations disciplined, shielded, and trained in doctrine.
Basilisk war droid wings, modernized and networked.
Fleet assets purchased quietly, crewed by professionals, not patriots.
"You are planning a planetary takeover," Cassandra said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"There will be resistance," she added.
Jack's jaw tightened. "There always is."
He brought up the final layer.
Mandalorian cities.
Clan strongholds.
Defense grids.
"I'm not here to wipe them out," Jack said. "I'm here to take control before someone else does."
"From their perspective," Cassandra replied, "you are someone else."
Jack didn't argue.
"They don't have a future as they are," he said. "I do."
Cassandra paused, then asked the question she hadn't before.
"Is this about power?"
Jack was silent for several seconds.
"No," he said finally. "It's about not letting Mandalore become another Reach."
That settled it.
Orders went out.
Not to clans.
Not to leaders.
To units.
Targets were selected with surgical precision: command nodes, shield relays, orbital control stations. No scorched earth. No mass bombardment.
Decapitation, not annihilation.
Mandalore would fall quickly or not at all.
As the fleet shifted into position, Cassandra finalized the last protocols.
"Once initiated," she said, "this operation cannot be undone."
Jack slid his helmet on.
"I'm not here to ask permission."
The first strike launched without fanfare.
No declaration.
No warning.
Just silence followed by precision.
Mandalore, the world that had broken itself over centuries, was about to learn what it felt like to be taken apart by someone who knew exactly where to cut.
And Noble Six intended to rule what remained to become the new Mandalor.