Chapter Text
It was over.
Countless rotations it had taken you to plan your escape. Stolen hours when you were meant to be elbows deep in the bowels of a customer’s starship had instead been spent discretely stashing supplies in hidden corners of the hangar. Endless nights and scores of hours of sleep had been sacrificed to mulling over your options as you lay in your bunk, devising one strategy after another. You would only get one chance. When your moment came, you knew you couldn’t let it pass you by.
And you hadn’t. You had done it. A satchel full of ration packs, a canteen, and the clothes on your back had been all you had to your name, but you had managed to stow away aboard a freighter, wedged into the maintenance access crawlspace near one of the escape pods. Forty-eight hours you spent jammed between the bulkheads, breathing as quietly as you could manage and not daring to move any more than was needed to open and delicately sip from your canteen. When you felt the tell-tale jolt of the ship dropping out of hyperspace, the wave of relief that passed over you had made you nearly faint.
That had been over a month ago according to this planet’s local calendar. In that time, you had found yourself a bed at a local hostel. You had landed a job at a cantina clearing tables – perhaps not the best use of your skillset, but it paid, and to say you needed credits would be an understatement. You had even managed to save enough money to replace the pair of work boots you had been wearing for nearly a decade and had taped back together more times than you could count.
Freedom agreed with you. It was the easiest you had breathed, the soundest you had slept, since you were a child.
And now it was over. It had all been for nothing.
The bounty puck on the bar hummed quietly as it projected your image into the air above it, the blue hologram flickering, your name printed in red below your expressionless face.
Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the man who had presented you with the puck reach into his utility belt and pull out a tracking fob. The red beacon was blinking rapidly as he pointed it at you, the incessant beeping nearly inaudible over the sounds of the cantina. But even as he stood there, clearly expecting some kind of response from you, all you could do was stare at your own face in the hologram. You could hear the blood rushing in your ears, could feel your hands start to tremble uncontrollably. This couldn’t be how it ended. You had worked so hard –
“I said, this is you?”
You started, wrenching your eyes from the buzzing bounty puck to the man before you. He was tall, broad, and clearly humanoid, and he was clad head to toe in gleaming beskar armor, his face hidden behind a helmet with a distinctive black, T-shaped visor. Even in your brief survey of his appearance, you could see no less than four weapons stashed across his body. A set of binder restraints was clipped to his belt.
You gulped audibly. A Mandalorian. They had sent a Mandalorian after you.
There was only one thing you could do. You had to try to run.
In the same instant this occurred to you, it seemed that the Mandalorian had a similar thought.
“It will be worse for you if you try to escape,” he said, his voice low and modulated through the vocoder in his helmet. He made a movement as if to reach for the binders. “Best if you come quietly.”
Not kriffing likely.
Before you could consider it further, you spun around, grabbed ahold of a rung on the closest liquor shelf behind the bar, and threw your weight back. The heavy steel shelf tipped precariously and then, with an incredible crash, fell forward. You dodged out of the way just in time to avoid the shower of shattering liquor bottles, more than one breaking on the helmet and pauldrons of the bounty hunter before you.
“Dank farrik,” you heard him curse, but you didn’t stay long enough to see how he fared. Instead, you leaped over the bar and bolted toward the rear exit.
You had never been much of a runner, but you were nimble, and this was your cantina. It was just after shift change at the local lommite mine, which meant that the place was packed with patrons of all species dressed in bulky safety gear and carrying dusty equipment packs that made it difficult to navigate between the tables. Ducking and weaving through the crowd, it took you only a moment to reach the door.
You were tempted to glance over your shoulder as the exit door slid open, but the sound of shouting and arguing behind you was enough to tell you that you were being pursued. Instead, you took off running down the back alleyway.
There was no way you were going to outrun him. You had never encountered a Mandalorian personally, but you had heard enough stories to know that they were fierce hunters – clever, resourceful, and at the peak of physical fitness. Your only hope would be to lose him in the maze of buildings that made up this part of town. This area was densely populated, the buildings packed in close together and laid out in such a way that it was clear that very little planning had gone into the design of the neighborhood.
Take him on a wild bantha chase, you thought, your breath starting to come short in your chest, your legs starting to ache. Take turns at random, change levels when you can, try to make it back to the hostel. Get your pack. Head to the nearest space depot. Get off planet. Start again.
You could do it. You could start again. This didn’t have to be the end of your freedom.
You could hear heavy footsteps behind you.
He was faster than you. He was closing in.
Nearly skidding into a wall, you threw yourself down the next alley, pushing your arms and legs to pump as hard they could. You were getting out of the mining district and into the market district; stalls and carts began to pop up along the walls as you continued to run. You dodged them with ease, but a dozen yards behind you, you could hear chaos erupt as beskar crashed unceremoniously through wood and fabric. If you hadn’t been so out of breath, you would have laughed.
Your joy, however, was short-lived.
As you came careening around the next corner, you found yourself inches away from a moving produce cart being pulled by a rolo droid. You had come in too fast – by the time you saw it, there was no way to stop.
In an instant, you slammed bodily into the cart, bending over the side and flipping headfirst into the pile of what appeared to be some kind of vegetable. The rolo droid squealed in protest, beeping and whirring and spinning in place, but you couldn’t be bothered trying to apologize.
The impact had knocked the wind out of your lungs – you gasped ineffectually, clutching your ribs as you attempted to work up the strength to fling yourself out of the bed of the cart. Every second spent trying to catch your breath was another second for your pursuer to close the distance between you. But it didn’t matter in the end – you weren’t fast enough. The moment you managed to get your arms under you, you heard a faint fwip cut through the air, and a grappling line wrapped snuggly around your leg.
A sharp tug, and you were yanked from the cart and onto the ground. Another, and you began to skid down the coarse pavement of the alley floor. Your arms flew out, scrabbling against the stones, but it was no use. Before you could figure out which way was up, the heavily armored figure of the Mandalorian bounty hunter was hovering over you, the setting sun glinting harshly off his beskar helmet. The grappling line was retreating into his vambrace.
Wordlessly, he stepped forward, planting his boot on the line near where it wrapped around you, effectively trapping you at his feet. You could do nothing but lay gasping on the ground, glaring poisonously at his helmet in what you hoped was the direction of his eyes.
“Put on the binders, or I’ll do it for you,” he said, unhooking them from his belt and tossing them onto your heaving stomach. Bitterness burned in your gut at the sound of his modulated voice. He didn’t even sound like the chase had taxed him at all; he was completely unphased. “And I won’t be gentle,” he added.
You swallowed hard. It really was over.
After a moment of silence, you clasped the binder cuffs around your wrists – one then the other. They glowed blue against your skin, tight, cold, and heavy.
The Mandalorian reached down then and wrapped his leather gloved hand around the connector in the center of the binders. With what appeared to be very little effort, he hauled you to your feet. He permitted you a moment to steady yourself before tugging once more on the grappling wire still around your leg. It slid limply away, and he deftly tied the end around the binders, creating a makeshift leash.
“Let’s go,” he muttered. And with a firm pull on the wire, he set off down the alley, you trailing reluctantly along behind him.
As you expected, he led you to the yards on the other side of town, specifically the ones intended for short-term docking. He stopped only once along the way, grabbing several skewers of cooked meat from a street vendor near the terminal. For a wild moment, you expected him to offer you one, but instead he took half of the skewers and stuck them into the small brown satchel he wore across his body. He kept the remainder in his hand, but made no move to eat them, which you found odd.
Had you been in a quieter part of town, you might have heard a wet swallowing sound and a high-pitched gurgle of approval coming from the vicinity of that satchel. As it was, however, you simply continued to follow your captor in silence.
The docking yard was as you remembered it – congested and impossibly loud. Species of all varieties milled about, standing in line to board their transporters, searching for their luggage on long conveyor belts, chasing small children, and arguing with the ticket and security droids that lined the terminal. It had been easy to blend into the chaos when you arrived. No one had batted an eye at the sight of your body slipping awkwardly out of a maintenance port on the underbelly of freighter. Now that you had returned, however, you couldn’t help but feel as though the crowd hushed as you passed. Perhaps it was simply the humiliation of being dragged through the throng on the end of a bounty hunter’s leash like a charhound, but you were certain that you caught more than one judgment-filled gaze as you passed.
The Mandalorian led you through the crush of people with confidence. It didn’t take long for you to realize that his ship must have been parked further down the terminal, for as you continued following behind him, the crowd began to thin, the massive ships designed for transporting large numbers of people falling away and being replaced with smaller personal transport vessels. It wasn’t until your eyes landed on a pre-Imperial patrol gunship that had clearly seen better days that you realized that this was where you were headed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you muttered under your breath, taking in the patchwork hull, the fading paint job, the countless dents, the blaster marks… You weren’t entirely certain of the specific make, but you knew it fell into the ST-70 class of assault ships. Then again, you wondered, did it matter what it was if it looked ready to fall out of the sky at the slightest provocation?
The Mandalorian glanced sharply at you over his shoulder, and your heart jumped into your throat. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to talk smack about your captor’s ship.
Luckily, you were saved from having to answer for that comment by the sound of a small, blue Rodian dressed in a dock worker’s uniform calling out in Huttese.
“Uba bata shado, murishani,” he said, nodding to the bounty hunter in greeting. You’re back quickly, bounty hunter. Or at least, that is what you thought he said. Your Huttese had always been rather rudimentary.
Your escort pulled up short at this, his head tilted and his shoulders stiff.
“Well, I’m good at my job,” he said, a hint of hesitance in his voice, as though unsure how to respond.
The Rodian replied, once again in Huttese, but there was enough in that sentence that you didn’t understand that you refused to even attempt to translate it. The Mandalorian, however, had no such issues.
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve been docked here less than three hours. I’m not paying you for the whole day.” His deep, raspy voice buzzed through his vocoder. The revelation left a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Less than three hours. Less than three hours it had taken him to find you, even in a city of this size. A part of you wondered if that was more of a reflection on his skill as a bounty hunter, or if perhaps it said something about your skill as a fugitive.
Oblivious to your distress, the two went back and forth for a few moments, the dock worker in Huttese, the bounty hunter in Basic.
After a time of seemingly no progress, the latter said decisively, “I’ll pay for a half day, but no more.” He took a step into the Rodian’s space, dragging you stumbling behind him. The reptilian made an offended noise, clearly about to continue to protest, but he was stopped short by the Mandalorian swiping aside his cape and hovering his hand threateningly over his holstered blaster. “I think that’s more than reasonable, don’t you?”
A beat of silence passed as you glanced between your captor and the dock worker. He appeared to be weighing the offer and the potential risk of continuing to argue, but before long, the tension left his body, and he extended his hand toward the Mandalorian in resignation. “Okey-okey. Wamma tonka.”
The bounty hunter nodded once and produced what appeared to be some denomination of New Republic credit from his pocket. Dropping it into the Rodian’s waiting hand, he gave a tug to your grappling line and pulled you toward the shabby gunship.
“Tell me, are you going to attempt to run again?”
It was the first thing the Mandalorian had said to you since he had taken you captive. It had taken little time for the two of you to board his ship once he resolved the issue with the dock worker, and he had just managed to pull up the exit ramp and close the blast doors. Interestingly, he had also stashed his few remaining meat skewers from the street vendor in what appeared to be a chilled rations locker that sank into the port-side wall.
Now, he stared intently at you, his hands on his hips and his helmet cocked at an angle, as though contemplating what to do with you next. You were still attached to his grappling wire by your binder restraints, though he admittedly had given you a bit more slack in the line once you were securely locked up in the belly of the ST-70.
You mimicked his stance as best as you could while still bound at the wrists and attempted to project a confidence you weren’t sure that you truly felt.
“What do you think?” you asked, your voice as even and neutral as you could make it.
He seemed to consider the question for a moment before replying, “I think you’ve already put up more of a fight than I expected.”
A thrill shot through you at that – a quick zing of pride that even though you hardly seemed to have been much of a challenge for him, you still had managed to subvert his expectations of you. A smirk tugged at the corner of your lips. “Then I think you have your answer.”
It was the truth, and you knew that he knew it, too. If given the opportunity, you would try to run again. You had fought and planned for too long to give up on your freedom this easily.
Something like a grunt of displeasure sounded through his modulator, and suddenly his posture was less relaxed, becoming straighter and more intimidating. “Fine,” he rasped.
With a sharp yank on the grappling wire, he tugged you toward him, knocking you off balance, and grasped firmly onto your shoulders.
“Hey, what’re you – ”
As the question started to leave your lips, your eyes landed on the padded recess in the starboard-side wall. You didn’t know how you had missed it when you first entered the ship. It was just deep enough for most full-grown bipedal species to stand inside. Several color-coded gas canisters lined the edges of the recess, dispenser funnels pointed inward.
“No,” you whispered, the breath suddenly stolen from your lungs.
A mobile carbonite freezing unit. You had only seen a handful of ships in your lifetime equipped with one. He was going to freeze you.
“Oh, kriff – no, no, no, wait, you can’t – ” Panic rose in your chest, threatening to suffocate you even before the pressurized gases could manage to surround you. Immediately, you began to struggle against his grasp – twisting and throwing your weight, beating your bound fists against his hard, shining breastplate.
Silently, mercilessly, almost easily, the Mandalorian wrestled you into the unit and punched the activation controls.
Your eyes slammed shut and a scream caught in your throat as ice-cold gas shot from the canisters nearest your feet. And then –
…nothing.
A beat passed. Silence. No carbonite panels. No freezing gases designed to hold you in place, in stasis, until someone decided to free you. There was just…nothing.
You gasped, your eyes flying open and quickly scanning your surroundings. A shrill beeping sound came from a control panel somewhere near your head.
“W-what happened?” you stammered, a wave of knee-weakening relief threatening to overtake you. “Why did it stop?”
“Damn it,” your jailer muttered. One hand came up to bear down against your sternum, keeping you pressed firmly back against the padded chamber. The other was aggressively thumbing at the protesting control panel.
A breathless, slightly unhinged laugh bubbled up in your throat. “It’s malfunctioning, isn’t it? Your unit’s broken.” Perhaps your luck hadn’t run out entirely.
“Shut up.” His voice was tight, his words terse.
That wild laugh overflowed for a moment, pressing your chest into his gloved hand.
“Oh no,” you huffed in mock sympathy. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, buddy.”
The bounty hunter cursed again under his breath, slamming his fist into the carbonite unit’s control panel one last time. “For now,” he growled.
“Now what are you going to do with me?” you asked breathlessly. A strange feeling of victory continued to linger in your chest. It hadn’t been you that had caused the malfunction, of course, but you couldn’t help but feel as though somehow the points for this particular encounter should go to you. After all, the son of a mudscuffer wouldn’t be able to get rid of you so easily now.
He seemed to take a moment to deliberate, but then he was pulling you back out of the recessed chamber and instead tugging you further into the ship’s cargo hold. “Come on,” he grunted. “You’ll say here until I can get the carbonite unit repaired.”
Pressing firmly on the tops of your shoulders, he forced you to lower yourself onto the deck plating, sitting you against the wall. He had your binder cuffs separated with a few deft movements, but quicker than you could react, he was reattaching them, this time so that they looped around the base of a ladder that appeared to go to the second floor of the ship.
“And uh…what exactly am I supposed to do in the meantime?” you asked incredulously. He couldn’t really expect you to sit on the cold, unforgiving metal floor with your arms hanging awkwardly from this ladder, could he? Even if he took you right back to where you had run away from, that was a two-day journey through hyperspace. You would surely lose circulation in your limbs by then.
The Mandalorian was less than sympathetic. “Just keep quiet, and don’t bother trying to break out of that binder – you’ll break your wrists before those cuffs release. Otherwise, I don’t really care.”
“Got it, I’ll keep that in mind,” you replied. Your tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Stay put,” he reiterated, jabbing a finger at you as though he were scolding a small child.
You rolled your eyes as you watched him grasp onto the sides of the ladder, one boot stepping up onto the lowest rung. However, before he could begin to climb up to what you assumed was the cockpit, you heard a strange sound coming from somewhere on his person.
A giggle, a high-pitched, gurgling babble – like the coo of a baby.
This seemed to startle the bounty hunter, as he immediately dropped his grip on the ladder and glanced down at the brown satchel strung across his body. Your gaze followed his just in time enough to see a tiny, green, three-fingered hand wave out of the satchel before he shoved it back down. He quickly wrapped his cape around his body to conceal his torso and in doing so, the bag.
“Wait – what was that?” you demanded. He couldn’t be carrying a baby in that satchel…could he?
His only reply was a weary sigh, and before you could repeat yourself, he was up the ladder and out of sight.
The next several minutes following the Mandalorian’s hurried departure were almost perfectly silent. You assumed you would be taking off soon, but in the meantime, while you were still on solid ground, you couldn’t help but take a few moments to test your restraints. There would be no point once you were in the air – where exactly would you escape to, once you were in the expanse of space?
You first tried to brace the binder cuffs against the side of the ladder, tugging down as hard as you dared with both hands against the center connector. Perhaps you could force the two cuff units to separate from each other. No success, though this didn’t really surprise you – the durasteel was nearly indestructible. It would take someone a great deal stronger than you to break them.
Your next attempt was simply to try wiggling a hand out of one. It quickly became very clear that that wasn’t going to happen either. Luckily, the insides of the cuffs were lined with padding, designed to mold tightly to the form of the prisoner regardless of their size without wounding them. If they hadn’t been cushioned at all, you may have done as the bounty hunter had suggested and broken your wrist. No matter how you twisted or pulled, your hand simply would not contort into a shape small enough to slip through the cuff without injury. In fact, you would probably have bruises later from the attempt.
Cursing softly under your breath, you took a moment to survey your surroundings as you contemplated your next move. It would be too much to ask for a toolkit of some sort to be sitting around somewhere you could reach. Small tech like this binder didn’t really fall within your expertise, but you were reasonably certain that given enough time and the right equipment, you could override the release code mechanism and remove them that way. However, judging from your current predicament, the likelihood of those conditions being met was less than zero.
Just as you resigned yourself to being tied to this ladder for a bit longer, the deck plating below you started to vibrate, and the distant roaring of the gunship’s engines turning over filled your ears. You were taking off.
You braced yourself as best as you could, folding your legs up to plant your feet flat against the floor and push your torso back against the wall. Given the ship’s apparent age, you could only assume the ascent through the atmosphere would be a bumpy one, and it wasn’t as though there was any safety gear for passengers in the cargo hold. However, to your great surprise, either the Mandalorian was an exceptional pilot or the ship was sturdier than she looked. The rise through the atmosphere featured minimal turbulence, and by the time you could feel the artificial gravity and life support systems activate, there was nothing but the constant, low-frequency vibration of the engines to indicate that you were anywhere other than solid land.
A handful of minutes passed, and then you felt a swooping sensation behind your navel as your body was suddenly, briefly tugged toward the rear of the ship.
You had jumped to hyperspace.
After that, the silence returned.
In that way, this wasn’t much different than your last experience with space travel. You had been alone, cramped, uncomfortable, and frightened, with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company, and surrounded by an almost oppressive quiet. Though you supposed you could acknowledge the improvement in the view. Rather than staring directly at the anonymous gray hull of an escape pod, this time your eyes had a whole cargo hold to explore.
Really, there wasn’t much to see. The Mandalorian seemed to run quite a bare-bones operation. To your right appeared to be most of the storage space on the ship. A few wall panels that likely pulled out when pressed, as the cooler locker had when you first boarded, a stack of gray cargo bins that had slid to the back of the hold during the hyperspace jump, and, of course, the dreaded mobile carbonite freezing unit in the starboard wall. You suppressed a chill and sent a brief thank-you into the universe that you hadn’t been subjected to that.
Directly across from where you sat tied to the ladder was a large silver cabinet, the contents of which you could only guess at. All you knew was that it must have been important, as it took up the most amount of space in the hold by far and appeared to be under a coded lock.
Finally, to your left, fully open and exposed to the rest of the room, was a somewhat grimy multi-species vacuum ship head as well as an alcove where a thin, bare bunk had been tucked away. You balked at the apparent lack of a full refresher, or at the very least a sonic shower. Did this man who spent all his time wrapped head-to-toe in armor (which you had noticed was also layered on top of a padded flight suit) really not have a way to get clean on his own ship? Silently you hoped you would never get close enough to him to experience the consequences of that choice.
Just as you were starting to contemplate the humiliating eventuality of needing to use that exposed ship head, the sound of footsteps could be heard echoing off the deck plating above you. A distant hiss sounded, like the sliding of a blast door, and in the next moment, the Mandalorian was climbing back down the ladder.
“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” you said, feeling your eyebrows raise as you looked up at him.
At first, he didn’t respond. Instead, he gave you a once-over when he reached the bottom, clearly assessing whether you had attempted to escape. Finding you precisely where he had left you seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded once in your direction before making his way back over to the cooler locker he had opened earlier. Opening it, he retrieved the remaining meat skewers from the street vendor as well a couple of assorted ration bars.
For a moment, you thought he might go right back up the ladder without saying a word to you. However, once he kicked the cooler locker closed, he reached out and passed one of the ration bars into your bound hand. “Here,” he said, the voice floating through his helmet low and a touch raspy. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh.” Blatant surprise colored your tone before you were able to school your expression. “Thank you.”
His helmet tipped in acknowledgement, but he said nothing.
A beat of silence passed, almost as though he was waiting on you to say more. When you didn’t, he took a few steps back toward the ladder, readying himself to climb back up into the cockpit.
“Wait,” you blurted. You had to know – before he hid himself away again, you had to ask, “Are you taking me back? Back to Chardaan?”
The bounty hunter paused, seeming somewhat taken aback by your question. He backed away from the ladder, instead moving across from you to lean back against that large silver cabinet you had noted earlier. Cocking his head to the side, he considered you for a moment, then replied, “No.”
Your eyes widened in surprise. “No?” you echoed.
“You were the first of my bounties on this hunt. I’ll need to collect the others before I can return to my guild agent and make the exchange,” he explained. “He’ll be the one to ensure you make it back where you came from.”
A bolt of relief shot through you at this revelation. You still had time. He wasn’t taking you straight back there. Your freedom hadn’t entirely abandoned you. There is still a chance…
“How many more are you after?” you asked, struggling to keep your voice neutral.
The bounty hunter paused, seeming to mull over how much he wanted to share. After a minute, he said, “Six.”
In spite of the careful control you were trying to exert over your facial expressions, your jaw dropped at the number. You had never heard of a Bounty Hunters’ Guild member carrying more than four pucks at a time. “That feels like a lot all at once.”
He shrugged, the gesture emphasized by his shining beskar pauldrons. “I’ve been working with this agent a long time, and it’s going to be a while before I’m able to pick up more work. Plus, this lot includes a few lower-level quarries. Shouldn’t be much of a challenge.”
“‘Lower-level quarries’?” you repeated. “What, you mean like me?”
“Yes. Like you,” he replied. You could swear his modulated voice sounded smug, though perhaps you were projecting. Something about your classification as “low-level” made your hackles raise. Not just anyone could have escaped from Chardaan the way you did…
You looked away from him at that, your cheeks burning, and busied yourself instead with examining the ration bar he had placed in your hand. You weren’t familiar with the brand, though it hardly mattered, as you had seen bars like this more times than you could count. Nutrient-dense, packed with protein, vitamins, and carbohydrates. Hopelessly bland. Somehow both fudgy and crumbly at once. They were designed for deep space travel and, although efficient and sensible, you couldn’t help but feel a touch of dread looking at the one in your hand.
“That’s not poisoned, you know.”
The sound of the Mandalorian’s voice startled you out of your thoughts, and you glanced back up at him to see him watching you with something like confusion in his body language.
“If I had wanted to kill you, I would have by now. Poisoning isn’t exactly my style,” he added.
You almost chuckled at that. Perhaps this tin can had a sense of humor after all. “I don’t see you eating yours,” you retorted, staring pointedly at the bars he still held in his gloved hand. “I’m supposed to just trust that these are safe for me?”
“I don’t eat in front of others. I’ll eat when I get back to the cockpit.”
That comment did make you smile. “Ah, but you’re not the only one in the cockpit…are you?”
His posture straightened immediately. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice was back to that cool, firm tone you had become accustomed to from him.
Gotcha.
“That thing you had in your bag. I know you didn’t want me to see it, but…” you trailed off, shrugging slightly.
“That’s none of your concern,” he snapped. The response left no room for debate, but you didn’t mind. It was enough for now that he had confirmed that you weren’t, in fact, losing your mind when you saw that little green hand emerging from his satchel earlier.
“Okay, whatever you say, boss.” You were sure you would learn more about that mysterious creature eventually. After all, it looked like you were going to be stuck with the Mandalorian for a while…
“Don’t call me ‘boss,’” was his only reply. His stance was tense, irritated.
You quirked an eyebrow at him. Perhaps…perhaps you should have been playing it a bit safer. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to provoke your captor, not when he quite literally held the keys to your future freedom in his hands. But…it was more fun than it should be to push his buttons.
“Well, what should I call you, then?” you asked. “I don’t exactly know your name.”
A somewhat exasperated sigh buzzed through his vocoder. “People call me Mando.”
You snorted at that. “Mando? What, like short for ‘Mandalorian’?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not really your name, is it?” It couldn’t be. There was no way.
“It’s what people call me,” he reiterated tersely.
That is not what I asked, you thought, rolling your eyes but unable to suppress a chuckle. This guy was like a character out of a holovid. Masked, stoic, almost comically mysterious.
“Fine. So, what’s next then, Mando? On to the next bounty?”
He shook his head. “Not quite. My carbonite unit is malfunctioning.”
You smirked, feeling that same surge of unearned victory from earlier rise in your chest. “You don’t say.”
“I can’t continue with the hunt until it is repaired,” he continued, completely ignoring your sarcasm.
“Why not? You seem to have handled me just fine without it.” You shook your arms, loudly jangling your durasteel binder against the ladder for emphasis.
“You, yes,” the bounty hunter acknowledged. “But this lot isn’t just low-level bounties. There are some that are…higher risk. Some that I’m going to need that additional insurance for.”
All of the good humor that had been building up inside you throughout this verbal sparring match evaporated at that, and a pit formed in your stomach.
Not for the first time, you took a moment to appraise your captor. He cut a powerful image – his flowing black cape, his fine armor that you would guess was worth more than your life, his purposefully anonymous face. It was also impossible to miss that he was armed to the teeth, even while in hyperspace, even while standing in the cargo hold of his own ship. The ferocity of Mandalorian warriors was legendary. He was clearly a formidable opponent. It made sense to you that this man would be someone skilled enough to bring in the…high-risk quarries.
The bounty hunter allowed you both to sit in silence for a moment as the reality of your situation settled in. This man was dangerous. This job was dangerous. And you were stuck along for the ride, at least for now, whether you liked it or not.
After a moment, he sighed and pushed away from the cabinet, once again making his way toward the ladder. “Eat your food,” he said, his tone somehow both commanding and…soft? Gentle? “I’ll be back later to start on repairs.”
He had climbed all the way up and reached the landing outside of the cockpit before you managed to call out, “Mando?”
A pause, and then, “Yes?”
You swallowed hard. “If you are able to fix it…are you going to freeze me?”
Your question echoed off the bulkheads, your heartbeat loud in your ears.
“Are you going to try to run again?” he asked.
You closed your eyes and rested your head on the nearest ladder rung. Yes, you wanted to say. Of course I am. It was on the tip of your tongue. I am going to try to run every chance you give me.
But…you didn’t reply.
He waited a moment or two, and then you heard the hissing sound of blast doors opening, the echo of his footsteps on the deck, and you knew he had disappeared back into the cockpit.