#TIE Fighter Pilot OC | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

valkblue · 3 years

Text

Lost and Found - Episode 4

"Tales of Clan Mudhorn" series

Word Count: 17k Pairing: None Rating: General Summary: POV Din + OC — With Gideon's warship on his tail, Din has to think quick and find a solution to get rid of his pursuers. But in doing so, another kind of trouble is getting in the way... Warnings: stuck in space, claustrophobic atmosphere, horror themes and ambient (but it's not really scary, don't worry! 🙃), agressive people and a lot of armed tension, angst, unpacking feelings and emotional break down, Star Wars swearing, slur against Mandos from uneducated individuals! 😱

A/N: This one took me a little longer to translate because... well, just because I had paintings to make on the side, really. But, HERE IT IS!! I played with horror elements here, and I had a HUGE fun doing so. (I'm sure Din and Elara aren't quite agreeing with me on that one... 🙃👍) But I hope YOU will have the same fun as me while reading it!

— The Stowaway

The Crest exited hyperspace without even shaking, despite a few notifications on his screen about the status of the starboard engine. Nothing too urgent, according to Din — an opinion the computer was supporting — but he would still have to find the time to give it some attention. Especially if they were to be chased by more TIEs.

Back in sublight, his pursuers would soon receive the tracker’s feedback and would immediately resume their hunt. Warships’ hyperdrives were much better than the Crest’s, barely above an average one, but it would still take them a few hours to reach their position. And Din didn’t plan on waiting for them; they would have to find a place, a rock, or a random junkyard moon on which to ditch this tracker, and head back towards Ontellar with a slightly lighter mind.

Brrreeep…

A notification for a received transmission pulled him out of his thoughts. Its source, Greef Karga. Din played the message and the small, blue holographic figure of Karga appeared above the projector lense.

"Mando! We haven't had the time to make sure our communications were secure again, but I have news of the utmost importance. After you left, the pilots went to scout ahead of the imperial warship's arrival, but they only managed to get a visual on it just before it jumped to hyperspace and disappeared from the system altogether. Upon her return, sheriff Dune identified the warship as an Arquitens-class Cruiser in a pretty much battered state, but still good enough shape to put up a fight. And while we have no certainty as to their destination, it is safe to say that they'll try to go after you."

Din and Barjuun’s population could indeed confirm this point.

"Sadly, I don't know what intelligence they managed to get on your whereabouts from their spies here on Nevarro. So despite knowing the extent of your skills, I can only advise you extreme caution, and I hope this message will reach you before they do. Safe travels, my friend."

And the hologram disappeared at the end of the message. Din turned the radio off as he took a short breath. This intel didn’t change much to his plans but at least, now, he knew what he’d have to try to shake off, guessing for what he knew of this cruiser class what could be its firepower, its troop and TIE fighters capacity… And what he knew as much as what he could guess only motivated him more to lead them on a false trail. As fast as possible.

Typing on his navicomputer, Din made a search of all the planets, moons and stations in the vicinity. He wouldn’t answer Karga right away. If at all. Especially if he was still not sure of their comms. No need to take the risk to have all his efforts fail so close to success.

With another ring, the navicomputer notified the end of its listing. And among the results, there were a few uninhabitable planets, an agriworld and its two moons, and a small-scale factory world.

He was at a bit more than a hour of sublight from there, and according to the informations he could now read on the screen, he could even consider getting his reactor patched up there so that it would last a little bit longer until reaching a safer place.

An industrial planet would do just fine to dump that tracker. Din selected it as destination.

A calm and steady rumble welcomed Elara’s first conscious thoughts, before she even opened her eyes. The sound was more than familiar, it was almost natural to her, reassuring — the sound of a moving ship — and was keeping her mind numb and comfortably drowsy. The thought that she hadn’t had such a heavy and refreshing sleep since the last time she went hard on a bottle of ‘skee with Chell and the cantina’s owner when she was still a barmaid there overtook all others. The cantina…

A strange sense of joy mixed with terror tugged at the back of her mind and she drew a slow, deep breath before opening her eyes on the dimly lit in a yellow glow interior of a small ship. With a wince, she pulled her numb arm from under her head which she let weight on her jacket. She could remember confused fragments about the vac-heads, Din… the child. She shoot a glance to her left side, where she could feel a little warm ball huddled against her under the blanket that had been spread over them. Elara pushed it back a little, without uncovering the child. She run a light thumb along the thick wrinkles of his forehead in a gentle stroke.

She couldn’t have imagined what she had seen in the shop… That pilot couldn’t have suffocated — and hovered! — on his own. And she hadn’t done anything herself. That, she was certain of it. All she did was to suffer.

About that, where was the pain now?! She felt cautiously on her left side where she could now only feel a vague, diffused discomfort, as if under the effects of an anaesthetic. Maybe Din had given her a few emergency treatments after she had passed out.

Just as cautious, she straightened up, picking up the child in her arms to settle him back against her jacket and wrapped the slightly scratchy blanket around him. He didn’t stir, not made any noise from being moved, breathing hard but peacefully.

Sitting astride on the large footlocker they had used as a bed, Elara took the time of two deep breaths without pain before raising the bottom of her shirt to check on her wounded side. But there was no wound. She pressed a bit harder but only found this numb, tingly sensation like the one in her arm which had supported her head’s weight.

She scoffed, thinking that the Bacta recipe Din had put his hands on was quite something else! In any case, she was grateful to him for having shared some of it with her.

She stretched, enjoying the absence of pain, then stood from the crate, swaying a little; she still had the feeling of having been knocked on the head though. As if to regain her composure, she rubbed her face with her palms, pushing back all the strands of hair escaped from her braid, which she started to undo as she watched all around her.

The first thing Elara noticed was the fresher and its vac-tube straight ahead, and the odd realization that she didn’t feel the need to use it for now, as well an an opened berth right by it. It was empty, and given the size of the hold, she easily guessed where Din was for now; the cockpit, up that ladder, beside the fresher.

She let out a sigh and continued her discovery as she tied her hair back into an almost proper braid. There was a closed locker at the bunk’s exit, two side hatches facing one another and, by the one on the left and the foot locker on which she had just slept, a carbonite pod like those she had already seen on some merchant ships… but man-sized. And she had a pretty good idea of what use Din could have for it.

With a shudder, she started to walk around the hold, until reaching the stern ramp, almost vertical. On the bulkheads, several nets of large square meshes were hanging slack, some containing boxes and bags and a whole lot of things she wouldn’t have expected to find in his ship, and a toolbox was carelessly stuck behind a second ladder, smaller, which led to a drop ceiling and the engines above her head.

She tried to imagine what he could have been doing recently by watching all the clutter around her, where he could have found a ship like this one, and for how long he might have had it given the specific upgrades like this carbonite pod and the suspension rails above it… But she gave up on the mental exercise before really coming up with the shadow of a plausible answer.

Elara let out a slow sigh, leaning forward, hands on her knees as if she was out of breath after a race; she couldn’t come back to the life she had made for herself in Barjuun and this realization felt strange, painful. She hadn’t left anything important behind and she was happy to have found Din again, but… and now what?! She didn’t really know where she was at now anymore.

The best would still be to go and talk with him about it. Elara straightened up with a slow, deep breath and walked across the hold with purpose to reach the ladder by the fresher, and climb up to the cockpit. She scaled the rungs with heavy steps, more to announce herself than anything else, and paused in front of the open airlock, but eventually stepped in.

Through the viewport, she could see that they were flying in sublight and Din was silent at the controls, checking a report on his screen. Everything was actually very silent, and Elara felt suddenly nervous at the idea of disturbing that peace. She sat on one of the passenger seats, watching the back of his seat and his hands moving on the console. For a long minute, neither of them said anything, or made a sound. Only the console made itself noticed with a brief blinking; Din typed on his keyboard and the display on the screen changed, showing the recomputing of a trajectory.

"Something came up," Din finally spoke — and he had all of Elara’s attention, even though he didn’t turn to face her. "I need to make a side trip before going back on my course. It will only take a few hours."

"Ok…"

Not that she had any intention to protest, though. And another silence stretched. Elara looked down at her hands on her knees, scratching the worn out fabric with her nails.

"Thanks for the medical care, by the way," she found the strength to utter, on an almost lighthearted tone. "It's like I've never been hurt. What did you do?"

Bleep-bip…

Din took care of this ringing notification right away, pushing a button and closing his fingers in a tight fist back on the controls.

"I didn't do anything," he then said. "The kid did."

"The kid?!"

Elara muttered a surprised sound before adding:

"In my shop, those imps were looking for you, and him! They had a tracker, they…"

She shook her head and changed the course of her thought :

"I fought them the best I could but he… the kid, he took care of the one who wounded me. He did something I can't explain…"

"I know," Din replied softly, still not turning around. "That's why I have to get him to his kind. He needs someone who can understand, and help him."

Elara nodded, even though he wouldn’t see any of it.

"And this… Jedi you told me about could do that?"

"That's what the armorer of my last covert said. She also said that our kinds used to be enemies, long ago. So I don't know what to expect once I'll find these ones I'm searching for."

Bleep — another notification on the screen and Din steered the ship slowly along the suggested curve.

"Your covert had an armorer?" Elara asked, impressed.

For what she had learned about it during her training, armorers were almost always the compulsory leaders of the coverts they belonged to. But not all coverts could hope for an armorer in their ranks, becoming as scarce, if not as precious, as the metal they were smithing. In general, those joined coverts with children and foundlings, and the community grew around them. Sometimes so fast that remaining discreet became complicated, and some of their members chose to leave to reduce their numbers, and leave room to the youngest…

"It must have been a big one…"

She noticed Din’s tension in the way she saw him quickly lower his head. And there was sadness in his tone — she could even hear it through the vocoder — when he answered:

"We were… quite a few, yeah."

Earlier today he had told her that his last covert had needed to relocate, not that he had left it. Something had to have happened… So, she didn’t push. And another silence lingered between them. In this regard, Din hadn’t changed, still fluent in silence, and if they had always been companionable and comfortable in their childhood, today the situation required some explanations.

Elara plucked up her courage, rubbing her cheeks with her hands, all the way to the back of her neck — even the twinges from this morning’s brawl with those two smugglers had disappeared, the bruise on her cheekbone and the tension in her jaw along with it… She enjoyed not to be in pain anymore when she asked, teeth gritted:

"What are your plans for me, Din?"

As she expected, he remained silent for a few seconds too much to be comfortable, betraying his unease. An unease she was sharing.

"I… can't risk your life again."

But this reply could mean anything. Was he planning on stranding her on a random planet during this side trip? Or even on any rock around? Was he going to lock her inside the ship? Or even freeze her in carbonite until coming up with something to do with her?

So, she asked:

"What do you mean? Why are those imps after that kid and you?"

And, after an obvious deduction:

"Is it because of his powers?"

And Din still didn’t say anything, still not turning to her, even if he looked restless in the way he shifted in his seat. Sorrow, laced with a bit of anger, grasped Elara at the throat and her pent-up tears tingled in her eyes; she would have wanted him to at least face her, even to continue keeping her in the dark.

Shaking and confused, she got to her feet in a shudder, and left the cockpit to go back down in the hold. There, the child was still sleeping and Elara made an effort to remain quiet, even as she paced back and forth along the glowing lines on the ground. Her breath short, she sniffled her tears, her fingers clutched in her hair. She wanted to keep her head clear, not to let herself be overwhelmed by panic, or the otherwise conflicting emotions that were making her blood pound in her temples.

Elara’s quick steps out of the cockpit and down the ladder rungs thrummed in rhythm with Din's ferocious heartbeat, his hands clenched on the Crest’s controls, unable to find the words to express his thoughts. He simply didn’t know where to start…

But now that she had left the cockpit, obviously hurt by his silence and maybe even scared by what he hadn’t helped her to understand, Din felt how urgent it was to react. All his muscles and his mind spurred him into action; he flicked the auto-pilot’s switches and sprang from his seat to stride to the ladder which he went down in a jump. On the lower deck, the child was sleeping in a nest of blankets and leather jacket, and Elara had her back turned to him, hands in her hair, shaking from head to toe.

"Elara…"

But he didn’t get to say more as she spun around, eyes reddened by the tears under her brows frowned by a bit of anger. An anger he could understand all too well, truth be told… And there was also anger in her voice when she exclaimed, keeping it low and choked so as not to wake up the child:

"All these years… I told myself that it was how things were always supposed to happen! That this scar inside you would never heal proper, that this was… your way of doing things!"

Kinda surprised, Din shifted from one foot to the other as if he had just been hit. He didn’t interrupt Elara, and wouldn’t interrupt her; he had let his chance to speak run out, so now, he was humbly taking all she'd have to throw at him.

"I've known the Tribe all my life, and they had been good to my family, and to me…"

He knew that, of course, but he realized she only wanted to get her point across when she added:

"And I respected them all, I respected your ways, learned them even! How hard it was and how strong you had to be…"

She lowered her head and shook it slowly.

"I saw many of you go, and never come back…"

Din shifted again from foot to foot when she looked back up at him.

"Nobody was even talking about you anymore back home."

He was burning to say something now.

"And after a few years, I nearly convinced myself that you had ended up dead somewhere out there too, like everyone else I knew and cared about…"

He made a slight move of his hand to reach to her but changed his mind when a wince of grief wrinkled her whole face.

"I thought we were friends," she continued, raising her voice a little. "That friends are supposed to be loyal to each other, and you left me, Din!"

She was speaking at a normal volume when she added, her breath short:

"Without a word, not a goodbye, nothing…"

Din had done a lot of things he’d had the time to regret, or had simply realized with time, age and experience that he could have done differently. And him leaving the stronghold, from Varthen, the way he did was in both categories, in some capacity. One thing hadn’t changed; he couldn’t say goodbye, not the way most people meant it. The now blurry faces and words of his parents in their last moments always came back to haunt him, the sorrow and the fear he had felt in their last shaking embrace creeping back in…

"You just left too, and never came back… like my parents, and Jord!"

These words were painful to hear, and that, mostly because they were true. He had planned to come back, though; for the covert, for Korben, for her… But he had hoped to get rid of this dull anger reignited deep inside him beforehand, until he realized that his association with Ran and his crew at the time hadn’t done anything to improve his mood. And then, something like ten years had already gone by…

"You left me!" Elara exclaimed again, at a normal volume, and hitting with the flat of her hand against his chestplate.

Hard enough to make him take a step back, and for her to rub her palm afterwards. She sat on the foot locker to catch her breath, and a moment of silence stretched between the two of them. She buried her face in her hands. And now, Din couldn’t remain mute. So, he spoke the only words he found decent to answer:

"I’m sorry."

And he was sincere. Yet, Elara scoffed; he hadn’t had the intention to offense her with his apology, and he felt ashamed to add to her pain. But when Elara pulled her face from her hands, flattened her hair back again, she was neither scornful, nor angry. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she sniffled while looking away, avoiding the weight of the gaze she seemed to guess was on her. So, Din closed the distance still between them and put a knee to the ground to face her. With a light hand on her arm, he called her attention back to him.

"I'm so sorry, Ela…"

And sorrow wrinkled Elara’s face a little more. She then took refuge in his arms, wrapping her own around him in a tight embrace, without any fear of hurting herself against his armor. A bit startled and shy at first, Din then held her against him, rediscovering her touch with an emotion that brought tears to his eyes. A hand cradling the back of her head, he kept her comfortably nuzzled between the side of his helmet and his pauldron. He felt her hooking her fingers with all her strengths to the upper edges of his backplate and he stroke her hair to appease her, and himself along.

"I had lost all hope to hear from you again," she whispered to him, squeezing tighter. "To see you again…"

Her breath quivered.

"You were my dearest friend, it hurt so much to lose you too!"

It had also been hurtful for him to leave the stronghold and this planet that had been more than his home, those Mandalorians that had been his family, and her too. To make things easier for him, he had told himself that she would get over it, that he would get over it too, like everyone would eventually. And he came to believe it…

"And now…" he heard her whisper in a stifled sob. "Now, I fear we may have grown too much apart, that maybe we don't know each other anymore… and that I'm about to lose you even more than I thought I already did!"

A lump in his throat, speechless, Din felt the tears roll on his cheeks. He understood her fear ; sometimes, he too had the feeling that he had changed so much since he left… And not always for the better.

In his arms, Elara moved a little and he felt her sliding her fingers under the edge of him helmet on the back of his neck, searching gently against the high collar of his flightsuit; he knew what she was trying to do, and he let her. She had always known how to find him under all his layers, how to reach him through the armor as keenly as a vibroblade. And he wanted her to. So, he even helped her, tilting his head forward until laying his visor on her shoulder.

Pulling on his collar wasn’t really comfortable but he didn’t say anything about it as her index finger found its way to his neck with a bit of a struggle. And as it had been their habit for so long, Elara stopped there with a slow sigh, satisfied with the simple touch of his curls on his neck, and Din relaxed too, wrapping his arms a bit tighter around her.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he told her softly, and he could hear his own voice quiver a little. "I… had to leave."

Elara rubbed her temple against his helmet.

"I know…"

And those words, said on a softer voice, lifted a weight from his chest. He stroke her hair again, and the both of them allowed that moment to last. Din appreciated to rediscover the familiarity of this touch, of her touch, and he closed his eyes, moved. Only the peaceful hum of the engines was still disrupting the silence that lasted between them.

"Ah-goo…"

Din cracked a peaceful smile but Elara was the first to straighten to turn a curious glance towards the child who had woken up, and was waddling towards them on the foot locker. Din extended a hand to him, and the child grabbed his index finger with both his hands. A brief, incongruous rumble from his small starving belly made him squeak a happy quaver and Elara chuckled.

"Hungry already?" she wondered with a smile.

Din, however, wasn’t surprised considering the effort he had made to come to her help in the shop, then to heal her. He expected that such a show of his powers had to work his appetite. Moreover, the child wasn’t the only one who needed to eat; Din hadn’t drunk, or eaten anything himself since their journey in hyperspace between Nevarro and Zar-Oda.

"Let’s get you something to eat while we still have time before we land."

They still had a little more than an hour before arriving in sight of the factory planet.

Preparing some nutrient soup only took a few minutes; one only had to put enough water in the thermo-canister, empty the powder of a ration packet in it, close it and engage the powercell, then shake once the whole thing warmed up before pouring it in metal cups. Din had served the child and Elara, and had kept some for himself, kept hot in the cannister; he would wait to be alone to eat.

And as he waited, he took the time to explain Elara everything; the bounty on the child, his help against the mudhorn without giving too much details such as how much of a close call it had been, Nevarro’s remnant and his more recent events, the tracking device as well as his strategy to get rid of that, and of Gideon along with it.

She had carefully listened to his every word, heard each revelation with an obvious worry, and only asked some rare, anxious questions over her cup of soup. The steam was reddening her face, making all her freckles almost fade away. Freckles that Din had missed, as well as the patterns they dappled on her cheeks, all over her nose until clearing on her forehead. He remembered that she hated them. But he loved them…

"And this Gideon wants the child for what exactly?" she asked after a thoughtful silence.

"I don't know, but it can't be good."

She nodded, thoughtful once again. On the foot locker, next to Din, the child couldn’t have looked less concerned by their topic, drinking long, noisy gulps of his soup between two mouthfuls of ration bars. Sitting on the ground, Elara took another sip of her own soup. She cracked a smile as she lowered her cup, swirling what remained at the bottom of it.

"At least, the broth isn’t so bad," she then said, her tone much lighter than their talk had been so far. "When you said that kind of powder was a bit stale, I expected way worse. Tastes like fish. It's nice."

Din weakly shook the thermo-canister in his hand, as if to force the powder to mix again with the water it was keeping warm.

"I think it is made from fish parts."

And now, he was pretty impatient to be able to taste it himself. He started to be very hungry. He could have gone in the cockpit, and eat up there, now that he had told her everything he thought to be important for her to know, but he wasn’t all too eager to find himself alone again just yet. So, he would at least wait for the child to be done with his own meal. The little one seemed focused on finishing a whole pack of ration bars while ignoring what was left of his cooling soup.

"Remember that strange fish we caught with my brother once, in the lake?"

And Elara asked this question almost shyly, lowering her now empty cup. The three of them had gone fishing many times, as it was one of Jord’s favorite pastimes, but Din knew exactly what she was talking about; this lake was full of fishes but none of them had ever seen any like the one they had caught that day — big like a harpercod, and shining with blue and golden scales.

"It was huge," he recalled.

"Yeah!" she exclaimed in a burst of laugher, unwillingly catching the child’s attention. "And so shiny! It looked like Volkor's armor after he repainted it!"

At this mention, Din had a brief chuckle which widened Elara’s smile despite her surprised look. He mouthed a silent syllable, holding back in front of this long-buried memory, now recovered like an ancient treasure.

"I…" he hesitated again. "I asked Jord to release it…"

And her brother had let him do it himself. Din also remembered having felt very uncomfortable but only had a confused memory of what had upset him so much that day. Still, he remembered full well the joy and the relief that had followed. In front of him, Elara nodded with a soft smile. Din looked down at the child who let out a sated gurgle, his cup emptied, and he picked again in the open pack of ration bars beside him. Elara put her cup down on the crate and stood up.

"C'mon, Tip-yip," she told the child as she scooped him up in her arms. "We're gonna let Din enjoy his meal in peace, now. Ok?"

The child hadn’t let go of his ration bar and only let out a happy giggle as an answer while Elara was settling him comfortably in the crook of her arm. She smiled to Din when her gaze met his through his visor. He simply nodded as a sign of gratitude, without a word, and watched the both of them walk to the ladder.

"Did you like your soup too?" she asked him, and the child answered with a brief, quiet coo. "Yeah? Oh, you like your food, don't you?"

And they were reaching the top of the ladder when she added:

"Din liked biscuits and fruits when he was a lil' boy, did he tell you that?"

On the foot locker, Din lowered his head with a smile. He put the thermo-canister beside him to take his helmet off which he rested on his thigh plates for a thoughtful moment and a deep breath in, calm. He did like fruits and biscuits. Still liked them, actually. But for now, he would do with his hot broth and a ration bar. More than enough for him to go on for hours.

In the cockpit, Elara sat in the pilot’s seat which she then swiveled to face space, the child on her lap, busy chewing on his ration bar. Everything looked calm out there but there was still no celestial body in sight.

"So, where are we goin' right now?" she wondered, with a glance at the navicomputer.

She typed on the console; it was much different from the ones on the freighters she had flown on up until now but, hopefully, navigation computers systems were always more or less similar. So, she didn’t have too much trouble with this console.

"MH-R-268," she read on the screen. "Mmh, couldn't they bother to give at least a proper name to that planet?! Uuugh, corporations…"

"Prrrr," the child grumbled as an answer.

Elara huffed a laugh.

"You have no idea, kid."

She selected another category in the menus.

"According to this, we're on a steady course, and we should reach it in… well, less than an hour. If we don't get a gripe midway, that is…"

She peeked at the starboard reactor which was groaning louder than the port one, then once more at the screen.

"To be honest with you," she continued for the child, his big, black eyes following her every move. "I dont know much about that kind of ships. Freighters are more my thing… and speeder bikes."

She looked all around her, through the huge windows of the cockpit and on the overhead command panels within arm’s reach above her. For what she knew, it was a gunship, some kind of old design on which she couldn’t have put a class or an era but, in some way, it fitted her idea of a good ship. Reliability over elegance, was what her parents, Lantillian born and bred, had always proudly advocated. And not only about ships.

"But regardless of its current state, this one can hold it together. Which is good."

Satisfied with her own diagnosis, Elara sat back in the worn comfort of the piloting seat. On her lap, the child purred a soft sound as he swallowed what was left of his ration bar. It was a strange little one Din had found, and his powers were even more so. Worrying too.

What was worrying her more however, was to know just how relentless this imperial remnant and its moff were, ready to kill without asking questions, to put their hand on him. She stroke the tip of one of his long ears and, with a slow sigh, her lips pursed, she used the swivelling of the seat and her feet firmly anchored to the ground to rock the both of them.

The cockpit’s peace was only disturbed by a few beeps and weak colour flashes on the console — nothing important, just the usual feedback. But the child, however, seemed very interested by all those colourful blinks; he put his little hands near the control column and Elara slowed her rocking down to let him. Then, he turned his head to her, his eyes, in which all the lights around them shone, wide open in a surprised look. His ears twitched a bit and Elara felt him stomping on her lap with his little clawed feet, not enough to hurt her but she still noticed with how much confidence he was using his claws.

Maybe he had developed this habit with Din, who couldn’t feel his clawing thanks to the armor parts of his thighs, Elara thought with a discreet wince when he clenched a little tighter to hold out a hand, his three fingers reaching for the thin shifter on their right with a grumpy little squeak.

"What is it you want?" Elara asked softly. "You want to stir the ship?"

The child turned his head to look at her, stomping on her knees which she rose to give him a bit more height.

"You want to become a pilot too?" she joked.

She smiled to him when his ears stood up and he answered with a little high-pitched noise, his mouth open.

"I'm sure Din would teach you… but, you may be a little too short for that yet."

She picked him up by under his arms to settle him on the console on which she then lazily rested her elbows, following him with her eyes as he waddled to the shifter.

"How old are you anyway, mmh? You look smart enough to be more than three, or five?"

And according to her, he was also more than capable in the use of this power she had seen him unleash against that vac-head with all the intelligence of a mind perfectly aware of how real the danger was, and had maybe even been trained for it. She wondered what this little one’s life had been before today, before Din found him, and what those Jedi could still teach him to do… Stopping next to the shifter, he grabbed the ball with both hands and started to unscrew it.

"Hey, hey," she stopped him softly, putting a hand on his on the shifter. "Don't!"

The kid grumbled loudly but released the ball to look at her, intently.

"I'm not sure Din would be thrilled that you'd play with parts of his ship, kid…"

"Aaah!" he protested with a high-pitched quaver, almost a laugh.

Elara shot a glance towards the open doors of the cockpit’s air lock then, turned back to him with a slight frown. She nodded.

"Fine, but… just this one time, ok?"

The child laughed again when she started to unscrew the end piece. And one of his hands was extended, fingers wide open to receive the metal ball she gave him. He let out a little happy sound and turned it around in his clawed fingers, focused. Children had surprising choices of toys sometimes… And as this one looked not all too immediately dangerous, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad? Especially since she was there to watch him.

Letting the child sit on the dashboard, Elara leaned back in her seat and tucked herself in her own jacket she had put back on before eating. Hands in her pockets, she busied her fingers with what she found in there, and listened to the electronic tune of the ship’s console — bip-bleep, dreet-droot…

Downstairs, Din had to be done eating as she could hear him busy himself, dragging things and the creaking of metal doors, probably that of the locker she had noticed earlier…

Bip-bleep…

Elara closed her eyes, just for a deep breath, like before taking a dive. She heard the child cooing as he played, turning the little ball in his fingers, and the console's replies. She welcomed this relaxing moment after the day’s fright with pleasure and gratitude, and she let herself indulge in it a bit longer.

Dreet-droot-bleep-bip-bip…

She frowned, her eyes still closed. The sequence played again, then yet another time. Elara opened her eyes and checked one of the screens; the sequence was transcribed there in symbols and numbers.

Bip-bip-bleep-bip-deet-dreet-droot…

Once, then twice. Elara hadn’t spoken binary for so long she had almost forgotten all about it. But she remembered enough to recognize that apparently, a droid was trying to contact the ship.

"Din?" she called, raising her voice a little so he could hear her from the lower deck. "The scanner is receiving a transmission!"

She had stood up from her seat to watch space through the viewport when she heard him almost fly up the ladder. Just as fast, he arrived in the cockpit. She took the child in her arms and sidestepped from the seat to give him room.

Din sat at the commands and switched a few settings on is computer; on the screen and through the speakers, the sequence went on, and Din listened to it carefully.

Dreet-droot-bleep-bip-bip… Bip-bip-bleep-bip-deet-dreet-droot…

Then, with swift moves, well used to his own ship, he typed on the keyboard before switching to manual.

"It's an astromech's distress signal," he read on the screen as he prepared the ship to change course. "Name and coordinates of a ship…"

At these words, Elara searched a bit more in the dark of space around them with careful eyes through the viewport, the child comfortably nestled in her arms, the metal ball in his hands.

"D'you know where it comes from?"

"No," Din relied as he pressed on a button and pushed three switches on the overhead panel. "It didn't answer my ping yet. It's slow and weakening. We've gotta search a little until it answers."

He moved a hand towards the shifter and stopped over its missing knob before glancing at Elara and the child. From the way he barely tilted his helmet, she guessed his intent gaze, and she winced a smile. The child kept on turning the ball between his fingers, unbothered by the stir around him. Without a word, Din slowly shook his head and pushed the shifter forward.

The engines groaned louder, the starboard one sputtering a little, weakening in power to the point of making the entire ship shake. Elara stepped to the right seat and flopped seated in, the child held firmly against her. Din made the ship glide on its port wing and pressed on one of the keys of his keyboard again to send another ping to the signal’s source.

For a few minutes, nothing happened; no trace of a spacecraft as they approached the coordinates, no droid, or anything that could have emitted a distress signal. Silence was becoming heavy in the cockpit when, finally, the computer caught an answer. Right away, Din stirred the ship to follow the beacon but didn’t find anything at its location. Eyes still on space, Elara felt the tension rise and shorten her breath. Din also seemed nervous in his seat. Maybe this tracker had already led their pursuers to them, and were trying to bait them.

"Could it… be a trap?"

"Unlikely," Din muttered. "But let's not take any chances…"

And, he activated the power in the canon in two switches. Both kept watching space, with their eyes as well as with the ship’s scanners.

"Oooo", the child manifested himself, in the arms of Elara who stood up to rock him a little as an answer.

In a brief beep, the scanner confirmed the presence of a craft but it was still nowhere to be seen. Elara heard Din sigh through his vocoder and she put an appeasing hand on his arm, right under his pauldron.

"Maybe it… it has a cloaking device," he suggested, sounding frustrated. "Or a scrambler, like my ship, that confuses the computer…"

With a stronger tap than necessary on his keyboard, he sent another ping. Unsurprisingly, the answer came a little faster this time, confirming the position, and theirs. Looking up, Elara noticed the long shape of a ship whose brownish hull barely stood out on the black void of space.

"Up there!" she exclaimed, tapping on his pauldron. "Look!"

Din tilted his head up and seemed to relax under her hand before he reaffirmed his grasp on the controls to get them up to the height of the large ship around which he made a wide, careful circle. It was a Corellian light freighter, the design of which was familiar to Elara; a YV-666. A bit blocky and clumsy at times, but a good ship. Especially for short hauling.

And for now, the whole ship seemed to be adrift, gone dark after what looked like a power failure, excepted around its aft ailerons, only part of the ship where some green lights were still blinking. An arm raised, Din flicked a switch on the overhead panel.

"Long Storm, do you copy?" he called. "Razor Crest to Long Storm, do you copy?"

No answer.

"Long Storm, this is Razor Crest, do you copy?"

Still no answer. Elara took a slow breath in, tensed.

"Did the droid say what happened to 'em in the transmission?"

"No, but… I see no signs of impact or carbon scoring, or other exterior damage," he listed. "Whatever stopped them must be internal…"

He got a bit closer and added, on a calmer tone, almost focused:

"Something must have happened to the crew, not only their power source. Otherwise, they would have sent a regular distress signal, or a recording… but not a droid's."

He reduced the engines’s power.

"I'm gonna dock and see what's going on inside but… I can't find its hatch."

"There's two on that model," Elara then told him. "One on the tail, right there…"

And she pointed with a circular sign somewhere between the green lights whose shine splashed on the cockpit’s windows.

"And another on the head, closer to the bridge."

Din then moved up along the freighter, almost brushing its hull until noticing the fore hatch, on top of a large rectangular shape at the bow of the ship. Elara went back to her seat, the child clutching at her jacket's lapel and Din slowed down some more, aiming for the hatch without the usual computer assisted markers. It got a bit dicey but, after a handful of minutes and, in one last quake, the gunship had stabilized on the freighter. Din powered the engines down and stood up from his seat to get to the lower deck, Elara on his heels, the child still in her arms.

***

Once downstairs, Elara settled the child in the berth while Din was opening the locker's metal door on the side; it contained an impressive arsenal in which he searched.

"D'you think you'll have to fight down there?" she asked, casting a curious glances at the rows of weapons.

She saw him hesitate before answering:

"It might just be a technical hitch but anyone in there could get jumpy if they start to think they haven't been boarded for help…"

Elara nodded, heedful.

"But why would an astromech be tasked with sending a signal, instead of fixing the ship and resume their flight?"

"That's what I'm gonna find out."

There was a whole lot of reasons that could bring a ship to a halt, and just as much that could justify that it went dark from bow to stern. But some of these were bloodcurling. And as if to confirm this thought, Elara shuddered.

"You know how to use a blaster?"

It wasn't even really a question.

"Yeah, why? You want me to come with you in there?"

"No, I'm just not leaving you without a weapon."

She felt the weight of his gaze on her through his visor and he turned back to his locker, from which he produced a blasterbelt made of worn leather that he gave her. Elara was buckling it to her hips when he handed her the grip of a blaster, a lighter and more compact model than Chell’s and the ones she had wielded before.

"This one should fit."

Elara slid it in the holster in which it indeed fitted almost perfectly.

"Looks good to me," she replied on a cheerful but quivering tone.

Din turned his attention to the locker from which he picked something else; a comlink. He made some fine-tuning, pressed two buttons on his left vambrace and then, the side of his helmet.

"What are you doing?"

"I've set myself at a particular frequency," he answered without taking his eyes off the comlink. "I need to tune this to mine."

And it didn’t take him more than a second or two before pressing on the side of his helmet again and handing the comlink to Elara.

"Thanks," she said as she took it.

Truth be told, she felt more at ease to know she could communicate with him. Din only nodded and put his hands back in the weapon locker from which he uncoiled a device and several cables taken from a metal hanger inside it. With two long strides, he was in the middle of the hold where he crouched to open the hatch in the floor, with a tap on his vambrace. Elara joined him, curious and watchful.

Din connected the cables to the ports surrounding the hatch of the freighter and pressed a few buttons on this device, similar to a controller like the ones used to maneuver cranes in cargo holds to organize the hover-crates. But smaller. Its lights blinked red in a quick sequence then turned to green almost immediately, and the freighter’s hatch opened in a hissing sound on the nerve-wracking darkness below.

Din got up to take something from the metal box beside the ladder to the crawlspace and, back on the edge of the hatch, he snapped what looked like a light stick; it shone with a bright green light and he dropped it down the hole. The glow washed over the shapes of a hallway with thick bulkheads, and Din shot a careful glance inside. When he straightened up, he told to Elara:

"If something goes wrong, you close the hatch, disengage and bail."

Heart and mind racing, she would have wanted to protest, to argue that she wouldn’t leave him behind, that she would probably not know how to lock the ship back to the freighter anyway, that she had never piloted a gunship… But she bottled all that up to only answer with a simple nod. Come back alive, she thought, but then again, she didn’t give voice to it. And Din went down in the darkness, shivering under the greenish glow of the light stick.

The light stick’s glow was weakening as, blaster in the other hand, Din was moving carefully in the hallway, poorly lit with few and far between security diodes along the walkway. Those and the life support systems generally depended from another energy source on ships this size, and he could hear the faint cycling of the air in the overwhelming silence, only disrupted by the deep rumble of the freighter’s slow drifting through space.

The light stick in his hand quickly became more cumbersome than an actual light source and he tossed it on the walkway and, a few meters farther, he didn’t have any other choice than to fix his lamp to the side of his helmet to keep going.

CRRRANG CLANG CLANG CLANG-CRANG…

The metal of the hull and the bulkhead was groaning faintly somewhere in the near perfect silence and Din kept walking, on the lookout for the slightest trace of a fight or a shoot out. But there was no damage, none other than the wear of time around him, and that, even once he had reached what he guessed to be the entrance to the bridge; a door was closing the end of a higher walkway and its two flights of stairs, framing a larger one going down to a sunken half-deck under the bridge. And the bridge was what Din was looking for.

The thick double door was sealed shut and Din tore the side panel open to force its manual override. If there were anyone beyond this door, they had to be passed out or wounded not to have done the same from their end. Or maybe they were dead. He wondered for how long this ship had been adrift…

Din disconnected the safeties in the panel before pulling the lever. It gave a bit of resistance so he had to holster his blaster and use both hands. Finally, the doors parted a little in a trembling creak and he glimpsed movement in the dark bridge, only dotted with some colourful diodes. But he doubled on his efforts; the doors opened a bit more.

This time, he was sure he heard panicked voices. And he didn’t get enough time to draw before a blaster's red bolt tore through the darkness, rivaling the pale shine of his own lamp.

PEW-BING !

Din let out a brief, painful yelp when the bolt hit his right pauldron, jerking him backwards against the bulkhead where he remained hidden against the open panel, once back on the support of his legs and his blaster whipped out. Another blastershot flew, aimlessly, through the pried doors.

"Stop!" Din exclaimed, back to the bulkhead’s buttress, blaster at the ready. "I received your distress signal!"

Some more unrest, then some panicked exclamations arose.

"I'm here to help!"

"Oh, sorry!" Din made out, behind the doors, in a confusion of voices and accents. "Sorry! We-we… Oh… Thank you!"

"I'm gonna get out now, so don't shoot!"

"Yes, yes, of course!"

Teeth gritted, Din had a grumpy wince. Then, he came out of his cover, the hand holding his blaster raised first in a sign of peace.

"W-we thought you-you were the clandestine," one of them blurted out. "That you were coming to-to kill us an-and take the ship!"

"The clandestine?" Din echoed, surprised and carefully walking.

He was standing in front of the opening, narrow but still wide enough to go through sideways when the one who seemed to be the captain under the beam of his lamp explained:

"Our mechanic found him downstairs. When he raised the alarm, our security guard tried to handle it but—"

"But he shot him down!" one of the crew members Din guessed to be the mechanic cried out. "He-he's dead now!"

"Shortly after the fight, there's been a failure in the machine room," the captain continued. "We had an emergency exit of hyperspace, and the power went down. We've been adrift since."

"We were all gathered here already!" another added. "The doors closed shut on us but, we didn't try to get out, to stay safe from him!"

"And keep the bridge," the captain stressed out.

Din held a brief sigh with a look at the surroundings. He then turned back to the crew; they were five huddled here, all aparently from more or less different species and, excepted for the fact that they were pretty restless, they all seemed well.

"We… we've been drifting for two days!" the one bundled up in a jacket stamped with a corporation’s logo exclaimed, unknowingly answering the question Din was about to ask. "And with the power down, we've been in the dark all that time and, we can't reach the other astromechs to know why they didn't fix things up already and—"

"We came to believe that this clandestine may have caused the damage and disabled the droids," the captain cut him short, and he was much calmer than the others. "That maybe he'd rather be adrift with us out there than to get caught at the port."

It was a possibility, indeed. But Din didn’t say anything about it.

"He killed Dwirk!" the mechanic wailed, and one of the crewmembers — one of the pilots? — supported him with a pat on his back. "Kriff… He was out there and-and…"

He let out a plaintive whine.

"Who's Dwirk?" Din inquired. "Is there anyone else out there?"

"Who's Dwirk?!"

The mechanic’s offended cry drew surprised glances from all of them.

"He's our security guy!" he barked angrily at Din. "And now he's—"

"No," the captain answered with a placating gesture for his crew member. "We're all here and accounted for."

"Okay."

"You… are a bounty hunter, right?" the captain then asked, without leaving Din the opportunity to add anything. "Could you… take care of that delicate matter for us?"

Din absolutely didn’t want to and really didn’t have the time, but he had answered this distress call… so obviously he was going to take care of it, now that he was involved!

"Yeah, could you?" the one with the corporate insignia urged him, grumpily. "We… we can still make the delivery on time if we can fix the ship in the next hours."

Din let out a slow sigh, lips pursed.

"Okay," he accepted, jaded "Stay here, and I'm—"

"Oh, no!" the corpo freaked out, and two other with him. "Um, no, no… We shouldn't stay here! We don't know where he is and, maybe he was just waiting for the bridge to be open, to—"

"Yeah, to kill us and take the ship with no effort!" the pilot panicked.

The situation was becoming messier by the second; he now had to deal with a stowaway… and a cabin fevered crew. Only the captain seemed to still be sort of straight in his boots and was trying to reason them. Din brought in his own argument:

"You can just close the door manually once I'm gone and—"

"No!" the corpo insisted. "If you managed to open the door, he could too, and we'd have no way to know if it's you, or him!"

"And he'll just blast us down!" the mechanic howled again. "Like he did to Dwirk!"

"Listen," the corpo spoke up again. "The more we wait, the more it gives the opportunity to that-that… murderer to get up there, and run away with your ship!"

Those words hit Din harder than he would have wanted. In the overwhelming silence of the ship, it was impossible that their stowaway hadn’t heard the Crest docking on the freighter. He shot a nervous glance at the hallway that his lamp flooded with a trembling light before facing the crew again. They blinked but didn’t add anything. A weight on his chest, Din put a hand to the side of his helmet.

"Elara, come in."

The hushed voices rose again between the crew members and Din turned away from them to repeat:

"Ela, do you—"

"Yeah, I'm here! What's goin' on down there?"

A lot and not so great, actually… But he chose his words carefully to answer:

"Stay sharp, they have a stowaway problem here. He's armed, and could try to board the Crest."

"Hu, ok. What are you gonna do?"

Din let out a slow, measured sigh.

"Heading back with the crew first… and then, try to find him?"

There was a silence on the other side of the frequency. Din winced; he wasn’t really sure all that wouldn’t cost them the edge they were trying to keep on Gideon.

"Copy that," she finally replied, as jaded as he was, or maybe just worried.

He touched the side of his helmet to cut the call and turned back to face the crew, still nervous behind their doors.

"Ok, come with me now."

They started to hurry through the gap between the doors. Only the captain acted with some restrain.

"And quietly !" Din commanded, firm.

The crew nodded as one and kept fumbling through the opening, just less noisily. Din took a slow, tired breath. This would have to do…

At the foot of the ladder to the Crest, Din let the crew members climb up one after the other before following.

"Oh, um, hello," one of them greeted Elara.

"Well, that's a-a really nice ship," the corpo also commented with a worried look at the carbonite pod, avoiding it as though he was afraid to fall in it by accident.

Din didn’t bother to answer the comment and after a look at Elara, and the child huddled in the back of the bunk, he extended a hand to the closest of the crew members. Faced with their confusion, he commanded:

"Your weapons."

As he anticipated, they didn’t comply with a smile.

"What?!" the mechanic exclaimed. "Are you kidding?"

To what one of the two pilots retorted:

"You want us to be defenseless if that murderer shows up here while you're down there?!"

But Din only stared in return, hand outstretched. He wouldn't budge. He wouldn’t trust them with weapons in that state; the black streak on his pauldron was stressing is point out. The captain walked up to him with an annoyed sigh and put his blaster in Din’s palm. At least one of them would be reasonable, Din thought. And he felt grateful for it. Following his example after a short moment of shocked silence, all handed their blasters over to Din who placed them on the foot locker. Still in sight, but out of their immediate reach.

"Is that clandestine someone you saw somewhere else?" he asked, once they were all disarmed. "A known criminal from where you took off, maybe?"

At the scale of the galaxy, few were those to chose to stow away on a merchant ship for reasons other than to run from the law, and the risk to get their chain code checked.

"No," they all answered almost in one voice. "No, no-one knows who that guy is!"

"Yeah, he was just there," the corpo continued. "And we don't know how he got in, because our hangars are under constant surveillance."

According to Din, no security system in any starport in the Outer Rim couldn’t be walked around with the help of a few well-placed credits. Some bounties had tried to escape him that way.

"Where did you see him last?"

With no tracking fob, he would have to rely on the locals' testimonies.

"He… he was in the cargo hold!" the mechanic blurted out. "Dwirk and I we, we saw him, and he ran! And Dwirk went after him, they fought, they—"

"What could you possibly be doing around the cargo, the both of you?" the corpo inquired, clearly suspicious. "You had no business being down there!"

The slightly panicked eyes of the mechanic passed on each and every of his crewmates, as well as on Din and Elara, as he mumbled incoherent sounds before returning to the corpo when the latter added, his anger growing:

"Maybe you are the ones who helped him aboard, then!"

"What-no!" the mechanic yelped, appaled. "No, we-we were just…"

He let out a high-pitched noise, then went on, quavering:

"Listen, we're no accomplices! We-we were just… we were just trying the food, okay?!"

"Just trying the food?!" the corpo growled. "The merchandise isn't for—"

"Alright, enough!" Din stepped in, his tone firm and a hand held out between the two of them, as if to keep them apart.

They both calmed down but the corpo added for the mechanic, jaw clenched:

"We're not done talking about this…"

"What else can you tell me?" Din asked, cutting any comeback short.

"If-um… if that clandestine doesn't comply when you find him," the corpo then muttered as he turned back to him. "You must be careful with the crates. Do not shoot on them."

Not exactly what Din intended with his question but, nevermind.

"What's in there?"

"Food," the corpo answered — a little too fast. "Just food, and… some other perishables."

"Food?" Din echoed, skeptical.

"Yes," the corpo confirmed, terse. "But it's very precious food. One kernel from any of these crates is worth more than your ship, and all of it must reach our wholesalers, you understand?"

A nervous move on Elara’s side caught Din’s attention, and he questioned her in silence, with a simple tilt of his helmet. She made a step towards him, her back turned to the crew and pressing her arm against his to whisper, audibly enough for Din to be the the only one to hear her, thanks to his helmet’s audio:

"No freighter would only ship one kind of product in their cargo."

Din pursed his lips and looked back up at the crew.

"What else is there in your cargo?"

The corpo glowered at Elara and the captain was about to answer when he intervened:

"Nothing! Nothing that concerns you."

"Okay," Din declared, and he pointed at the hatch opened on the dark, dead freighter below. "Get out of my ship, and take care of it yourself."

A few worried protests followed his statement.

"I don't take risks for free."

And those words made all the other members of the crew turn against the corpo who then yielded.

"Alright, alright!" he groaned to silence the buzzing of voices around him. "We also have weapons in there! And explosives."

That was worth mentioning, indeed! Din thought. But he kept his mind to himself and listened to the follow-up:

"These shipments are expected on colonies where our corporation is doing some mining work and… and to protect our compounds there from the local wildlife."

Din sighed; true or not was open to debate, but he wouldn’t go in that territory. The sooner he’d get this mess sorted, the faster he could disengage his ship from theirs and resume their journey. Although, he understood a bit better now why they were so adamant to leave the bridge while he’d take care of their clandestine… And he was pretty sure now that this person didn’t have any idea of what was in the crates either, and wouldn’t be so careful with his own shots. If there were any… Din drew a slow breath in, already focused on his task. He’d have to be very careful.

"Fine," he finally uttered. "Don't touch anything."

"Don't get any idea of picking things up for yourself down there as well, alright?" the corpo groused in return.

Din chose to ignore him, facing Elara; she still looked as nervous as she was a moment before. Maybe even more so. Neither of them spoke and yet, she nodded slowly, reassuring and in a sign of silent agreement with the question, the words, he hadn’t spoken. With one last suspicious look towards the crew, Din turned his light on again, at the side of his helmet, and climbed down in the dark belly of the ship.

For starters, Din returned to the bridge where he looked for the ship’s plans. He wasn’t as knowledgeable in freighter classes as he knew Elara to be but one thing was certain; all the plans weren’t only kept on computers. He quickly found a sliding compartment under the comms console in which datapads were stored. Din picked one of them and checked on the plans of the Long Storm's various decks.

And he studied them. Should he go to the end of the hallway in the opposite direction, he’d find all the accesses he’d need. He also identified all the areas that could favor an ambush — for or against him — and through where he could cut short to reach this or that part of the ship, or another deck.

And from there, he’d be able to manage without plans. But before that, he would check on the crew quarters, in the half-deck below the bridge. Din wouldn’t have been completely surprised if this stowaway, seeing how the crew had sealed themselves off, went to hide right under their noses.

The doors of the cabins and the medbay were all closed and none of the panels had been pried for a manual override, so Din would search the rest of the ship. Careful and blaster in hand, he would still keep his light on for as long as he’d be in the hallways. Those weren’t too hard to navigate, around the service shaft and pillars going across the center of the ship, and he easily reached the aft stairs.

Dwooooob-dwoooooob-dwooooob…

Din swiftly aimed his blaster at the remote droid that hovered around the corner of the hallway at head’s height, but he held his fire, breath short. That stupid thing startled him!

Dwoooooob-dwooooob-dwoooooob-dwooooob…

He let it float away without disturbing it, or interacting. Those automatons weren’t a threat, merely tools, and if that stowaway had the required skills to have reprogrammed them to keep watch on the hallways for him, then the hunt would only be easier for it; he’d only have to watch that thing get back to its starting point to transmit its feedback, and dumbly betray the location of his target.

For now, Din would continue his way towards the cargo hold. And if he hadn’t found any trace of a fight up until now, he finally stumbled on the corpse of a Rodian laying on the lights along the walkway, at the corner from which the remote had come. His jacket was burned in places and his own blaster had disappeared from his open hand — Dwirk, the security guard, Din guessed as he crouched next to him. His wounds amounted to two blaster shots square in his chest, and one in the arm.

There were no other traces around and his own blaster’s disappearance suggested that his opponent had picked it up. But Din kept in mind that his target could also have been wounded in the fight, and could have passed out — or died — somewhere without the crew knowing. With a watchful look at the bulkhead and the accesses around him, Din compassionately patted the shoulder of the security guard, and got back up.

His light pushed the darkness back in a pale halo to reveal flights of metal stairs going up and down behind him, between two large doors opening on walkways, running along the vertiginous cargo hold on each side. Choosing the access on the right, Din switched his light off and stepped forward.

If his target was neither on the bridge, nor in the crew quarters, Din expected that he would still be there, among the merchandise with which he had started his journey. Even shut down, and consequently silent, the machine room wasn’t any more comfortable than the cargo hold, nor offered much strategic advantages when it came to exits and recesses. And according to the ship’s plans that Din had done his best to commit to memory, there wasn’t much else on this ship, no other hiding spots, excepted maybe for the crawlspaces.

Like on the bridge, there was a bit more diffuse light here than in the rest of the ship, only lit by the diodes on the ground. The hold was almost at full capacity, separated in volumes by walking paths joining the stairs connected to the solid walkways under the low ceiling. Back as close as possible to the wall so as not to make his presence known, Din watched downstairs through the tubular railing; he couldn’t see any movement on the opposite side and around the center of the hold. And even by switching to thermal sight, the only noticeable changes in heat were due to the current of air, cycled by the vents. If his target was in the hold, or still alive, it had to be under his feet, under this walkway.

Din switched his thermal display off and, holstering his blaster but keeping a hand resting on its grip, he made another light step back; he would wait a few moments to see if there were any movement here, to hear the slightest noise, before starting to think about another plan. For now, he had to keep the element of surprise to its maximum.

Even if his target had heard him coming in, it would eventually grow curious not to hear anything anymore, or end up trying its luck with the Crest. And Din was very patient.

No-one had really said a word since Din went down. The crew members had exchanged a few worried mumbles but none of them had said anything to Elara who didn’t try to chit chat either. She was staying by the berth where the child remained in the back, quietly playing with his metal ball.

The captain was looking all around him, even checking out the carbonite pod with interest, while the others had all more or less huddled together by the port hatch. One of the pilots seemed more anxious than the other and sniffled with his long snout as if he was sobbing. He was making Elara nervous but she also understood his state, their state; she was herself keeping the rageful beating of her heart behind her crossed arms, and her fist clenched on her comlink.

It was an universal custom to answer to a distress call caught by chance on one’s road, and that anywhere in the galaxy, but the rules didn’t say anything about having to hunt down the origin of the problem when it was armed, in a cargo full of explosives… Not even mentioning the fact that they still had a tracker to ditch in a rather limited time window!

Of course, Elara wasn’t surprised Din had agreed to take care of it — it was the most logical decision, considering the fact that he could do it — as much as she could get behind the fact that this crew wasn’t planning on abandoning their ship and its contents.

"This is a pre-Empire patrol ship, isn't it?" the captain observed to Elara, pulling her out of her thoughts. "These old military crafts are getting rare…"

He turned her eyes with their strange colour to her and Elara gave him a polite smile in return. This icebreaker elicited other questions; the mechanic was the first one to dare, brows furrowed:

"Are… are you a bounty hunter too?"

"No," she replied. "I'm a merchant."

"Oh!" the sly corporate supervisor then made himself heard. "In what trade?"

"I'm…"

Elara paused; just this morning, she was a shopkeeper and was learning a bit of tinkering with her friend Chell. And now, she was running away from what was left of the Empire.

"Currently, I'm a peddler prospecting for goods. Sort of."

The supervisor acknowledged, heedful.

"Did you hire this bounty hunter to escort you somewhere?"

She didn’t get to answer anything to him as the pilot, the Human one, spoke up:

"Isn't it a little tight for the both of you in so small a ship? I mean, you barely have any room for your bulk in there!"

"Doo."

Elara turned to the child who was pulling on the hem of her jacket, the small ball still clutched in his other hand. Some of the crew members stepped forward to peek at the child while Elara fondled his little hand. He had to be thirsty, or to need the vacc-tube, and she could only do her best to try to understand like she had done this past afternoon in her shop.

"Oh, and you have a kid on board on top of it!" the mechanic exclaimed. "Hey, hello there?"

He waved with a hand as he leaned forward without getting too close, and the child buried his face against Elara’s palm in a shy demeanor.

"Is it yours?" the mechanic asked again.

Elara pursed her lips, brushing the child’s cheek gently with her thumb.

"Yeah," she lied.

"You should take care, ma'am," the supervisor jolted in. "There are awful stories going on about… about Mandos like your bounty hunter."

His statements caused a slight unrest among his crewmates but Elara, on the other hand, let out a jaded sigh. Yeah, she knew all too well what kind of slur Mandalorians were subjects of. But she would know how to pretend she didn't have the faintest.

"Really?"

Her feigned surprise had to look credible to this guy as he continued, all serious:

"Yes, that they are beasts, stealing children from their parents… to-to grow their ranks of child soldiers."

Elara gritted her teeth and cracked a soft smile for the child who was staring at her with his big eyes barely blinking, and gloomy-looking, the little clawed fingers of his free hand gripping her index tightly.

"It’s okay, little one," she whispered quietly to the child. "He’s gonna be back soon."

And she hoped to be right with all her heart.

***

There had been a lot of things Din had liked in growing up among Mandalorians; they were good parents, trusting of them — him and the other foundlings — and who had encouraged them to be curious and experiment things, to try to chase their ideas all the way and innovate…

Din had also enjoyed the time they had to play between their hours of teaching, and had learned even more through their games. At thirteen, he already knew how to fight with and without the advantages of his armor, to establish strategies, to use at least four different types of blasters and most importantly, to pilot a gunship.

Learning to pilot with Korben, his caretaker, was even one of his happiest memories. Another was the days he had spent in the mountains with him. If Din had learned with the other foundlings to shoot and survive in the wild with Crahl, their instructor, and the oldest foundlings who had already got this training before them, Korben had taught him much more than shooting and some survival skills; he had taught him patience, to track a prey, to push it to a terrain more at his own advantage, to hold his aim and his focus on an objective, and that sometimes for several hours on end.

There, in the hold of this freighter, he had only been waiting for a good half-hour, lying in ambush, and only the hull’s metal had groaned its boredom. Apparently, Din wasn’t the only one to be patient.

Dwwooob-wooob-dwooob…

The remote was coming back. Din sidestepped, feet light, to reach the access and the hallway. There, he could make out the shape of the remote, hovering slowly, its lights blinking in the dark, and he walked forward to catch it, gripping it with two firm hands. The remote fought with all thrusters against this sudden restraints but he managed to bring it back to the walkway.

ZAAP!

Din barely contained a painful yelp against the weak electrical current the remote shot at him to try to escape his grasp. But he held on. The droid was struggling at arms length, shaking them around despite his strength, thrusters furiously pushing to wrench itself free while he was taking it to the walkway's railing. There, Din raised both his arms, resisting with all his muscles, and hucked the remote across the cargo hold before it zapped him again.

The droid tried to course-correct with all the power of its repulsorlifts and thrusters but only managed too late, spinning on itself, and slammed in one of the crates in a loud, metallic bang.

Wwwooooozzzzwooob-dwoooooob-wooob CLING-CLANG!

The unexpected fall of the remote caused the stir Din had hoped for; a human shape moved in the greenish half-light of the hold, getting out of the cover of the crates and the walkway on which he was standing to glance up. Maybe the stowaway saw him but, barely had he tried to sneak peek that he ran back to hide under the walkway. Blaster out, Din strode to the stairs to get down in the hold where the remote was reeling and trying to resume a stable flight, assessing its environment.

Watchful and careful, he walked in the direction in which he had seen his target scutter. He walked around a pile of crates secured one to the other, going down under the walkway. Then, blaster first, he left his cover. But there was no-one there. A bit confused at first, Din immediately switched to thermal vision and looked for the variations in temperature of his steps on the metal floor.

The pale shapes were leading around the pile of crate and off, towards another, before starting to go in circles. It only took a split-second for Din to sense a trap.

But a split-second had still been too much…

Something crashed into his side, catching him around the waist, and the momentum sent them slamming against the bulkhead in a metallic clacking. Din didn’t let go of his blaster and expected to get shot somewhere by his target but this one seemed uncomfortable to shoot in the dark despite the reflection of the lights in his armor, or maybe the armor was actually what had changed his target's mind.

With a kinda clumsy move of his free hand, Din turned his filter off to face the fist of his target, aimed at his throat and which he barely dodged in time, stepping aside. Then, he threw his knee to the stomach of his target who staggered on a few steps back. In his turn, he pulled his blaster out, and shot. Din only got the time to get cover behind another pile of crates to see the shot vanish in red sparks as it hit the steps of one of the stairs.

"STOP!" Din shouted behind the cover of the crates, blaster clear. "Don't shoot! There are explosives in this cargo!"

"And let you catch me instead!?" the stowaway retorted. "I'd rather blow that whole ship up!"

Din bobbed his head, nervously, grasping the handle of his blaster more tightly. He would rather not, if he had his say in the matter… With a quick look around, he made a brief survey of the situation; from where he stood, he could prevent his target’s escape towards the walkways, and by extension, the upper decks too. No matter where this man would choose to go through, Din would notice it, and could take him down. He had stuck himself.

"I'm not here to hunt you," he told him however, placatingly.

"Why are you here then?!"

"I answered a distress call."

And his answer led to a moment of silence he didn’t break. Even as it started to last. He glanced at the walkways and the rest of the cargo all around but there wasn’t any movement anymore. Even the remote had resumed its flight and way out of the hold.

"How's the crew?" the man suddenly inquired. "Where… where are they?"

It was a surprising question, according to Din.

"They're fine," he said, still on the same appeasing tone. "They're on my ship."

He wasn’t really sure it was the right answer to give, if there was even a good answer to give but he couldn’t leave this first step unaddressed.

"Did they ask you to get rid of me?"

To that, Din chose honesty:

"Yes, they did."

"How much did they give you for that?!"

Din let out a slow sigh, lips pursed.

"Listen," he said, still calm. "I don't know what you're running away from but, you killed someone on this ship. Things aren't looking too good for you right now. And as long as this ship isn't fixed, you're stuck in here, and so am I."

Another silence greeted his words. What was worrying Din the most, at the moment, was the looming threat of much bigger problems in the shape of an imperial warship that would reach them sooner than later.

"Would you help me escape?" the stowaway tried to negotiate. "I-I have money, I can pay you and you just drop me on the nearest planet."

Din winced to admit to himself that if this situation was going to last longer, he might have to accept that bargain… He’d figure the rest out later. For now, this tracker in his pocket was starting to itch.

"Why didn't you take an escape pod?"

Din heard some movement on the clandestine’s end and he tightened the clutch of his fingers on the grip of his blaster again. The thought that he hoped he wasn’t leaning back on the crate of explosives briefly crossed his mind.

"I… don't know where they are."

This confession softened him a bit.

"Tell you what… Let's calm down and talk, alright?"

He made a sign with his hand out of the cover of his pile of crates before walking out, blaster held clear.

"First, why don't you tell m—"

PEW-BING !

The blaster bolt hit him right in the chest, sending him back first on the ground with a painful groan but his hand still holding onto his blaster, and his mood way less gentle! He rolled on the side to regain the cover of the crates.

"Stop it!" he yelled, furious and jumping back to his feet. "I said don’t shoot!"

Din heard footfalls on the metal floor and stayed alert to his target’s escape but he didn’t go for one of the walkways. Instead of that, he pushed the pile of crate behind which Din was hiding; hearing the magnetic connections between the crates stacked together snap in a sinister creak, Din threw himself to the side. Just in time to avoid getting crushed under the metal avalanche.

"Sorry, partner!" his target shouted, running away to the stairs. "But, I'm gonna take my chances with your ship up there!"

Din’s heart skipped a beat. He wouldn’t leave any more room to compassion this time; he’d catch that guy, and would get this over with, no matter how and without remorse. He jumped over one of the toppled crates and strode down the central path; his target was ahead of him, about to reach the stairs on the left. He launched his arm forward and his whipcord with it. The cable caught the legs of the runaway who fell flat on the first step with a furious groan.

He hadn’t dropped his blaster however and turned it against Din who dodged the shot, which went to hit the bulkhead in a worrying sound and a cloud of wheezing steam. Without releasing his own blaster, Din struggled to pull his cable and the weight of the man back to him. The man aimed again, shaking his legs to try to escape, and the bolt hit Din in his left pauldron. The impact made him yank harder on the cable and the stowaway’s next shot went hitting the ceiling.

The whipcord a bit looser at his ankles, the man managed to get out and ran almost on all fours on a good meter before getting back up ungracefully. The cable winded itself back in his vambrace and Din caught up with him, throwing his gloved punch to the side of his face.

His target reeled clumsily towards the closest pile of crates, a hand to his face and the blaster shaking in the other. He leaned on it with all his weight, breath catching. Then, Din walked forward; his priority would be to disarm him before grabbing him. As he extended a hand, the stowaway rose his blaster, not at him… but at the crates.

"You're gonna let me leave or no-one is getting out of this alive!"

Din held back his move; he had no certainty whether those really were the crates containing explosives and he doubted that the guy knew anything about it either, but he still paused. The other didn’t wait any longer to get away, stepping backwards, barrel still aimed at the crates.

"I'll send the crew back here, you can fix this ship and leave, I don't care… Let's call it my thanks to you for having tried to take me down gently. Now, blaster down, get back, hands up!”

Din clenched his fists before dropping his blaster to the ground and slowly raising his hands, computing every possible course of action. He watched his target walk backwards with unsteady steps towards the stairs, a hand pawing at empty space behind him to find the railing without turning around. He would make a dumb mistake, Din was sure of it, and he would only have to wait for this moment to act. And this time, Din wouldn’t be trying to take him down gently.

***

The Abednedo pilot sniffled again. Though he had stopped when the captain had come to encourage him to put himself together, but a quarter of an hour later, he had started again.

Maybe it was because his co-pilot had come to bother him with his impatience, moaning about how long they’d still have to wait, or maybe because the supervisor and the mechanic had almost picked a fight over the pilfering-in-the-crates, but the pilot had started to sniffle again.

"What the kriff is happening down there?" the Human pilot muttered again as if to himself, but loud enough for the captain to hear. "He's been gone for almost an hour now!"

"Calm down," his captain ordered him with a quick glance at Elara — so brief she thought she had only imagined it.

With a sigh, the pilot started to pace again, whispering to himself. The co-pilot sniffled again. Elara closed her eyes as she drew a sharp breath, the thumb of her left hand following the ridges in the comlink’s shape, held clenched in her fist, and the right one rested on the thin mattress of the bunk, next to the child who wasn’t playing anymore, clutching his little metal ball, thoughtful.

"Do you have an R2 unit docked on that ship that could start to help us with the repairs while we wait?" the captain inquired.

It was an excellent question but knowing Din, he didn’t. Unless his opinion of droids had changed during all those years, and based on what he had mentioned about this rewired IG unit. But no droid had translated their distress call for her in the cockpit before the computer analyzed it, so she was pretty sure that, no, he didn’t have one.

"I’m starting to be concerned too," the supervisor commented, without even giving her time to answer. "I thought that a bounty hunter would get this all done quicker. Especially a Mando!"

Elara scratched the comlink ridges with her nails to keep her anger in check.

"Isn't just one of them supposed to be worth a squad or something like that?!" he continued, to all the others. "Maybe the stories aren't true and they're just good at scaring farmers and taking their kids away, like all bandits…"

This time, Elara sighed loudly, rubbing the back of her fist clenched on the comlink under her chin.

"Can you contact him?" the supervisor insisted.

Elara froze and tightened her grip on the comlink even more. Yes, she could but… should she? She was afraid to distract him, and didn’t want to risk him making a mistake because of it.

"Just to ask what's taking him so long!"

She shot a glance at the child whose eyes were following her. He let out a slow whine, ears low and a worried look on his face. Maybe she was simply projecting her anxiety on him… Elara closed her eyes with a brief sigh.

"Fine," she grumbled, teeth gritted. "But if he doesn't pick up, you give it a rest."

They didn’t answer.

"Alright?!"

This time, they agreed in a few mumbles, not really convincing. Or at least, she wasn’t really convinced. Oh well, she would know how to be convincing, should they push her again. Elara brought her comlink to her chin, and pressed on the connector.

"Di—ahem Mando, come in…"

No answer.

"The crew is wondering what's taking you so long.

She refrained from from injecting all of her disapproval in her tone. Still no answer.

"Mando?"

Calling him by that name was already painful but his silence was even more so. Anguish swelled in her throat and she swallowed hard, fingers clutching at the comlink, reluctant to call him again.

"This guy is dead!" the pilot sigh in exasperation, flailing.

And those words froze the blood in Elara’s veins. She held back from pressing on the comlink’s button again.

"What are we still waiting for?!" the pilote went on, openly seething. "For that murderer to come and finish us all while we are stuck here?"

His co-pilot sniffled a bit louder, faster, and Elara shot a glance at the child.

"I agree," the supervisor declared. "We can't wait any longer."

"I say we take that ship and go get help somewhere!" the pilot incited them.

Elara spinned around.

"Are you out of your kriffin' mind?!"

She didn’t wait for an answer to put the palm of her hand on the grip of her blaster.

"It pains me to say, but we may not have a choice," the supervisor stated. "Would you know how to pilot this ship?"

The pilot nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, sure do."

Elara whipped out her blaster and aimed it at the pilot; all froze, raising their hands almost in reflex.

"Don't even think about it," she stated, firm, her anxiety vanished.

Some shot nervous looks towards the weapons on the foot locker while the supervisor tried to reason with her:

"Listen, ma'am, you'd be as happy as we'd be to get at least at a safe distance from this ship should anything explode down there. But there must be a planet nearby where we could just go, and ask for help."

"Get that idea out of your head right now!" Elara commanded calmly, and she wasn’t kidding.

"We will let you keep the ship once we got help," the supervisor pleaded. "You can go where you want after that, or even get back here with us if you feel somewhat obligated to that Mando…"

Elara gritted her teeth, her breath catching as her own anger grew.

"You can even keep the armor for yourself, and start your business with the price you'd get out of it!" he suggested, with an almost cheerful lilt in his voice.

Something grew cold deep inside Elara who stepped aside from the berth, closing it by elbowing the side panel, without taking her eyes and the barrel of her blaster off of them. Should it come to blasterfire, the child would be safe.

"I won't be part of this," the captain declared, in a last effort to appease the situation that he was guessing would take a tragic turn soon enough. "I'm going back into my ship and I'll try to fix it on my own if I must."

And everything in his tone was showing that his decision was final.

"Think about your child!" the supervisor tried to reason her. "Don't risk their life over some hired gun you barely know!"

Elara’s blood was drumming the rhythm of her anger in her ears.

"We can take you safely where you need to go too!"

"Get back down to your own ship," she ordered them, her tone grave and at gunpoint. "Or I freeze all your butts."

The threat made the co-pilot whine in fright and kept them all silent for a soothing minute. Elara brought the comlink back to her chin.

"Mando, come in."

And from the bottom of her heart, she had only one plea — Din, come back! On the other end of the line, still no answer. Taking that silence as a confirmation, or an invitation, the supervisor tilted his head at the pilot to prompt him to climb up to the cockpit. Faced with the blaster’s barrel, he wavered. Elara pocketed her comlink; should they come to blows before shooting, she’d be ready. But in spite of her determination, the pilot seemed to find his courage and stepped forward again. Elara got in his way and the barrel at his forehead made him stop, raising his hands in a sheepish sign of peace.

"Ah, enough!" the mechanic growled, his voice shaking. "I won't stay in here a minute more! I want to get out of here!"

He moved and grabbed a blaster from the crate, intent clear to lend a hand to the pilot who, taking advantage of the situation, tried to disarm her, at least so that she wouldn’t be threatening him any longer. Elara kicked the leg of the pilot who stumbled backwards and blasterwhipped the mechanic who dropped his weapon with a surprised "OW!".

But the pilot was already charging again, furious. She didn’t struggle too much to grab him by the neck and smash his forehead against the bulkhead beside the ladder. He let out a muffled groan and reeled again when she let go of him; the supervisor caught him as he was stepping dangerously close to the open hatch. In the meantime, all of them seemed more compliant and assured of how serious she was.

"I said, get back to your ship, or I put you all in carbonite."

In front of their general pause, she added:

"I know a few Hutts that'd be willing to pay good credits for a bunch of live slates to add to their collections…"

Those words caused her audience to shiver.

"Ma'am, please, we—"

CLANG — All jumped as noise from the hallway below echoed up to them through the hatch. Those who were the closest to it jumped a few steps back and the mechanic hid behind Elara who aimed the barrel of her blaster at the dark well.

"It's him!" he bleated. "He's comin' to kill us all!"

The sniffling pilot whimpered, letting himself slide down to the floor, back against the bulkhead. Elara was hoping with all her heart, beating hard, that he was wrong. A but of pale light trembled in the hallway and they all held their breath. Behind her, the mechanic jumped when she called:

"Identify yourself!"

"Don't provoke him!" the supervisor protested, in a choked voice.

"It's only me," Din’s vocoded voice answered from the bottom of the ladder. "I'm coming up…"

Elara’s shoulders sag in relief, and she let out a curse as she lowered her weapon. All the others were relieved too but she didn’t pay too much attention to them. Din was already reappearing through the hatch, alone. His visor stared at the blaster in Elara’s hand, then the faces of the pilot and the mechanic as they were pressing him with questions — What took you so long? Did you find him? Can we go back to our ship now? But all agreed on a same and unique question; where was the stowaway?

"I took care of it," Din answered on a clipped tone. "You can fix your ship and go."

They didn’t need him to say it twice and, without asking for more details, they recovered their weapons and hurried themselves towards the hatch.

"Thank you," the captain then said, calm and extending an open hand to Din. "I won't speak for the rest of my crew here, but you have my gratitude."

After a brief pause during which Elara guessed he was staring at the captain’s face, Din accepted his handshake.

"Actually, can I ask for a little more than your gratitude?"

The captain’s eyebrows rose, yet not looking hostile to the request, and Elara was curious as well. The supervisor, however, let out an almost disdainful snort.

"We can't pay you for having followed the rule of—"

"I'm listening," the captain cut him short.

With one hand, Din then searched in one of the leather pockets of his utility belt from which he pulled out the tracker.

"Take this with you."

The captain accepted the tracker, watching as it blinked.

"What is it?"

"It's a tracking device. I was on my way to get rid of it when I found you."

"Who's tracking you?"

Din slightly bobbed his helmet.

"It's better for you if you don't know."

"Don't accept it!" the supervisor interjected, livid. "We had enough trouble as it is! Sorry, Mando, but you'll have to settle for our thanks."

"Enough!" the captain ordered, his look made even harsher by the strange hue of his eyes. "I'm still the captain of this ship, and the decision is mine!"

No-one objected, despite some offuscated faces.

"Please, Mandalorian," the captain then encouraged him. "What do you want me to do with it?"

Din nodded, thankful in his turn, before explaining:

"Keep it with you for another hour, and then destroy it."

"Is that all?" the captain asked, confused.

"Yes. Don't keep it too long or my troubles will be yours."

On those words, the supervisor jolted in again.

"Oh, we won't, you can count on that! Now, I'd say we took enough of your time, so let's go…"

And he started to go down the ladder, followed by the co-pilot who was sniffling a lot less now, revived. Din faced the captain.

"Thank you."

The captain nodded in his turn with a look for him and Elara.

"Safe travels to the three of you."

And he headed towards the hatch where the mechanic was going down after the other pilot. Once down the ladder, the captain addressed them one last wave of his hand clenched on the tracker from the dark hallway, and Din closed the hatch. Elara finally holstered and she returned by the berth to open it. The child greeted her with a little high-pitched squeak, his ears up and looking more alert. His ball clutched in his hands, he extended his arms, and Elara scooped him in hers while Din was busy uncoupling the two hatches.

"It's alright now," she cooed him. "We'll be back on the run…"

Din closed the floor of the Crest with a pressure on his vambrace and stood up to walk up to Elara and the child.

"You're both alright? I couldn't answer your calls."

"Yeah, I figured," she reassured him too. "We're fine, don't worry. Mmh, aren't we, kid?"

The child let out a light, happy quaver, center of both their attention, and she perceived Din’s sigh through his vocoder. Then, he said:

"Let's get out of here…"

She followed him up to the cockpit. There, Din didn’t take long to settle in his seat and start to engage switches and buttons. A loud clang came from somewhere below the ship when Din restarted the reactors, gently at first, then he pushed their power, careful to the starboard one. Elara took care of buckling the child on his seat and settled in her turn. There was a strong jolt when Din disengaged the Crest from the Long Storm, and they got away at a good speed.

Through the cockpit’s windows, Elara watched the YV-666 whose darkened shape was still drifting for now, and shrinking as they were putting more distance between them.

"What happened down there?" she then asked, softly.

The light of the indicators and the weak lighting of the cockpit glinted on the metal of Din’s helmet. He was plotting a new course on his navicomputer.

"It's not our problem anymore."

Elara would do with that answer. In the meantime, the tracker wasn’t their problem anymore either. And quite frankly, she hoped it wouldn’t become one for that crew, as unpleasant as their encounter and their company had been… Elara let out another relieved sigh as she slouched in the passenger seat with a glance at the child who was watching her in silence. She chuckled.

"Is it always that eventful around you?"

"Pretty much."

Bleep — on the screen, the charting towards a planet named Ontellar was displayed as a list and Din confirmed their course. The computer also informed them that they weren’t in the gravity well of any celestial body. Grabbing the lever on the left, he pushed it forward; the stars stretched in thin ribbons, and they jumped in hyperspace.

***

BAM, BLAM, CLANG…

Not so sure whether the noises of sheet metal and the bangs were only in his painful head, the stowaway squeezed his eyes shut. There were voices around him, and those, he was sure weren’t in his head.

"Destroy it now, don't wait any longer," a grating voice insisted, somewhere behind him.

And the plea didn’t receive an answer.

"Why would you listen to that Mando, we don't owe him anything anymore!"

Those words, however, jostled him alert. The violent pang somewhere behind his head and a clinking of metal around his wrists nailed him in place, in this barely comfortable position.

For the first time, he opened his eyes on his bright surroundings. He took time to get focus and he noticed that he was tied to the railing of the metal stairs leading up to the bridge, that the Long Storm’s engines were rumbling again and that their sound wasn’t topping the violent migraine from the hits, and the fall…

He perfectly recalled that Mando as well, and their brawl, and with how much speed he had managed to catch up with him, and disarm him once they were back in the hallways, where he couldn’t have just threatened a crate at random anymore! Were there really explosives in there, or had he just said that to make him doubt?

He groaned and rested his forehead back against the cool metal. That was his best idea of the day; the pain softened a little. He closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling.

"Destroy it, now!" that voice insisted again.

"He said an hour," the captain answered, only voice he recognized for having heard it in the hangar before sneaking on board.

"Three quarters are time enough!"

With a sigh, he hoped they weren’t talking about him…

bMasterlist: Tumblr Post / Tumblr chronological reading order Tag list: @hathorik @pheedraws @the-blind-assassin-12 @something-tofightfor ... feel free to tell me if you want to be added!

#my writing #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fic #mandalorian fanfic #mandalorian fic #din djarin #din djarin pov #OC pov #fic:lost and found #tales of clan mudhorn series #the child #baby yoda #my art #star wars #pedrostories #that's how it works?!#tocm masterlist

7 notes · View notes