Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Trapper had a problem.

Well, a few problems.

He and his assigned inferior, Lieutenant Avix Reed, had been tasked with retrieving a chit containing Imperial clearance codes from a black market seller on what had to have been the most disreputable moon on the Outer Rim: Kethor. Apparently, Kethor was where the former Empire constructed some of its warships and starfighters, and it had now been converted into a pit stop for repairs and refuels, a backwater place where fugitives of all kinds seemed to congregate. The shipyard itself was vast enough that Trapper hadn’t worried about criminals trying anything while he and Avix carried out their mission, but the heart of the industrial town was…unsettling.

Perhaps, before he was paired with an airhead rookie, it might have admittedly seemed like a simple job to meet with the dealer and quickly scatter off-world. But even with the chit secured in his pouch and half of the operation complete, he now wondered how he and his partner would make it back to their X-wings in two whole pieces.

“I don’t like the looks we’re getting,” Avix mumbled over to the captain.

Trapper didn’t either. Grisly faces of several alien races were staring them down as they made their way to the shipyard, some even trailing after them for scare factor, some growling openly. If he had to guess, he would assume that the moon’s locals had a distaste for the New Republic, who had indirectly put most of their ship mechanics out of jobs less than two decades ago with the fall of the Empire, destabilizing every planet within the sector.

“We’re almost there, just keep your head down,” Trapper advised. He was proud to be a New Republic captain, but now was not the time to flaunt it to the adversaries that were watching them like they were supper.

Did they know what he was carrying? The exchange had been beyond swift—the black marketeer had made it clear that he didn’t want them seen entering or exiting his establishment. However, Trapper felt like everyone was ogling the chit, waiting for the opportunity to pounce.

His unease let up once they cleared the edge of town. Both of the pilots breathed the open air like it marked freedom, despite the overwhelming scent of fuel that burnt their noses and watered their eyes. Overhead, a massive ship shuddered everything beneath it as it took off, nearly knocking the pair over with the gust.

“Oh no. Oh no,” Avix blurted out once the dust had cleared. “Captain—“

That was when Trapper realized their next major predicament: their X-wings had been stolen. Gone, with only the traces of their landing gear on the ashy ground.

So, yeah. They were royally karked. Stranded on a sketchy moon, surrounded on all sides by the fiercest-looking crowd Trapper had seen since he was jailed on Mandalore, transporting precious cargo, with no way to contact backup.

“All right,” Trapper began. There was no time to waste. “First things first. We’ll split up—“

“Split up?” Avix choked.

“I’ll head back to see if there’s a public transponder where I could get out a signal to one of our outposts. You find someone with a ship who will take money—a bounty hunter or someone, anyone —and ask them to take us out of here. We’ll meet at the north end of town by those vaporators we saw.”

Avix had no choice but to agree. The sun was tapering away an inch at a time, and he didn’t want to be caught here in the dark. He gulped. “Okay.”

“Try to hurry, Lieutenant.” Trapper turned and tried to pace casually as he headed back to town.

And Avix was left scanning the options for someone who looked like the right kind of dishonorable, who would at least keep their word for as long as their credits were good.

“A bounty hunter,” he mumbled to himself. “Just gotta find a bounty hunter…”

“What’s your name?”

“G…” A frustrated snort followed.

“You got it, kid.”

A second attempt. “Gogu,” the child cooed. R’s were going to be a challenge well into the future.

“Yes! Good job,” Din praised. He shifted to sit straight on the ramp of the Razor Crest, picking the kid up and setting him on his armored thigh. “What’s my name?”

“Dada,” Grogu answered, patting at beskar with light taps and staring proudly up at the helmet watching him.

It wasn’t the response Din was looking for, but it never failed to pull on the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I know, but can you say ‘Din’?”

Grogu thought about it only for a moment before his face scrunched up into a mischievous smile. “Dada,” he repeated instead.

Din sighed, not the least bit disappointed. “It was worth a shot.”

The pump attached to the front of the ship began to hiss as it neared the end of its refuel. At the sudden noise, the pair snapped their heads in its direction.

“Well,” Din said, holding Grogu close as he stood with a grunt. “Looks like I gotta take care of that so we can get out of here. I bet you’re getting hungry.” A series of chirps confirmed his statement as he stepped inside. “Let’s grab you something to eat first.”

After getting Grogu settled in the cockpit with some leftover soup from the day prior—and pointlessly warning him not to make a mess—Din descended into the hold and grabbed a hydrospanner from his tool kit. Then he headed outside and rounded the front of the ship to begin detaching from the pump, now that it had slammed off from the fuel supply.

Din lowered down to his knee and began unclamping the pump and securing the cover back on, not a terribly grueling process but boring enough. Usually the kid liked to participate in what little ways he could, making every dull moment brighter, but Din was determined to get them off-world soon. It wasn’t particularly safe here, even at the edge of the shipyard, and he was eager to return to Mandalore after such a long reconnaissance mission. Circumstances had changed, and he had to admit that touching down on his new home world for a while was sometimes a relief from the life of travel he was accustomed to.

If only he could latch the compression valve, then maybe he could get back to Mandalore sometime this cycle.

“Dank farrik,” he swore under his breath when one of the bolts came loose and clattered to the ground. He bent over to grab it while holding the cover in place, wondering if it was a mistake to leave Grogu inside, who could be helpful when he wanted to.

When he was on his way back up, he went rigid at the sight of an approaching figure. A very misplaced character, wearing an orange flight suit that stood out in more ways than one on this old Imperial moon. Definitely not a threat, more like running away from one judging by his pace and the way he kept obviously glancing over his shoulder. So Din carried on with his minor repair and hoped that he wasn’t actually going to be hassled by this Rebel pilot. The last thing he needed was another obstacle to slow his journey.

Avix wiped his sweaty palms on his jumpsuit as he braced himself for this perilous conversation. One wrong word and he would be bantha meat to the Mandalorian. Securing a deal without gaining an enemy seemed nearly impossible, but the alternative was closer to certain death. Hey, maybe the Mandalorian was in danger in this place too, and might understand. Like, who in their right mind would strut around a skughole like this in such visibly expensive armor?

A friendly conversation. The Mandalorian didn’t even glance as he stepped closer to the old ship. Just a pleasant request that does not have to end with my head severed from my body, why would it?—

“Hey there,” Avix called. When he received no response, he walked closer than he should have dared to and loudly said, “Mandalorian.”

“There something I can help you with?” Din huffed in reply.

Avix felt like he might vomit on the side of the man’s ship. “Are you looking for work by chance?”

“I’m retired from the Guild.” The Mandalorian was finally able to tighten the last clamp and rose to his feet, walking around the front end of the ship to presumably head up the gangplank. But Avix blocked his way.

Okay, the armored warrior was a lot taller up close, made of more metal than flesh. He was straight to the point and did not appreciate his time being wasted, if the way he tilted his helmet was anything to go by. So Avix pressed, “Listen, my partner and I just have to get off-world, so if you would maybe be interested—“

This pilot was young, desperate in the way his light eyes shifted to search for even more danger beyond Din himself. He must have been reaching if he was begging strangers for a ride off the moon—although Din seemed to attract these people, and he was beginning to think it was just his luck rather than his outward appearance.

“I’m not a taxi service,” he said. Why did this need explaining?

Again, Avix stepped in his path, and Din just about decked him on the spot. But the rambling started before he could. “Clearly I’m in the wrong place with this uniform, and I’m offering good credits to get us to somewhere we won’t get scalped. I know our governments haven’t exactly gotten along in recent years, but we both hate the Empire, right?” the lieutenant said frantically. The Mandalorian didn’t visibly budge. “Look, these Imperial sympathizers are going to kill us if you don’t help.”

“And they’re going to try to kill me if I do help,” Din pointed out, sidestepping him. “Good luck.”

The life almost left Avix’s eyes, but he was determined. And one minor detail he remembered from his latest debrief was the last thing he tried to bargain with. “Wait!” he cried. “What if I told you I can pay in beskar?”

That got Din’s attention. He paused at the foot of the ramp, turned and asked, “How could you possibly have beskar stashed away?” It was still the rarest steel in the galaxy, with the vast majority split unevenly between two groups; the Mandalorians may have reclaimed much of it, but the Empire was hoarding the rest ever since the Purge. He doubted that the New Republic had any unless it happened to be from an Imperial siege, definitely not in the hands of some average pilot.

“Alright, I don’t have it with me,” Avix clarified. “But I know where it is, based on recent Imperial intel, and I will tell you if you help…”

It was weak at best. But Din had a duty to return every last ingot of beskar to its rightful owners, and his commitment to this proposed agreement was locked in before he had a chance to consider it. Even if he was able to get the general vicinity of the Imperial base it was hidden inside, then his people could take care of the rest.

“Where is it?” he asked.

Finally growing a brain, Avix scoffed. “No way am I telling you that! You could close the ship and fly away without us.”

That was fair. Din sighed, long and low, and reluctantly accepted. “Fine.”

Avix was giddy with relief. “You’ll do it?”

“If your partner is ready to go right now, then yes.”

“Yes! I’ll go get him. Thank you, Mr…”

“Mando.”

“Mando! I’ll be right back,” the pilot promised, rushing off to find his captain.

Din just shook his head, stepping inside the Razor Crest to lock everything up. The last thing he needed was a couple of Rebels poking around his ship and turning him in for each illegal weapon stashed in his armory.

The public transponders were derelict at best. For once in his life, Trapper was worried about sanitation when he clicked buttons on one of the panels he had found, covered in a thick layer of rust. The screen promptly shorted out, sparks flying, and he kicked the console with a disgruntled noise that got more attention than he would have liked.

Sudden movement in the corner of his eye of an approaching figure had him rounding to face the incoming threat. To his relief, it was only Avix, who had something assuring written in his expression.

“Well?” Trapper pushed.

“I found a bounty hunter who’s willing to take us, but we have to leave right now.”

“Then let’s go!” Trapper exclaimed. Both pilots rushed back in the direction that the lieutenant came from, still getting looks as they whirled around to the shipyard.

Very detailed looks, actually. A Weequay spy watched their every move with a scope from her perch among the dilapidated town rooftops, masked by steam rising from the wide vaporator pipes all around. Once they were too distant, she slid down to loosely follow them, scaling the side of a parked cruiser for a new view.

Trapper asked, “So how did you manage that exactly?”

Avix shrugged. “I made a bargain. The great news is that it won’t cost us anything.”

The captain didn’t like the sound of that, and his concerned questions came pouring out. “What do you mean, what did you promise him? Does he look like he’s going to kill us at the drop of a credit or—“

“Does it matter if it gets us out of here?” Avix rationalized.

Trapper supposed not. And he was sure that if the hunter wanted to kill a New Republican pilot, Avix wouldn’t be here—he was a bit of an easy target, at least on Kethor. Still, this was risky. Very risky, to just trust some stranger—

“Oh stars,” Trapper said. “No. No, absolutely not.”

Avix failed to see the issue and glanced around for an obvious threat, finding them all alone between ships. “Something wrong, Captain?”

“Lieutenant Reed, please tell me you didn’t make a deal with the owner of that ship.”

There it loomed: the elusive Razor Crest II at the edge of the dusty shipyard, in all her glory. It was arguably one of the rarest gunship models to come across in the year 20 ABY. And Trapper knew that it was just his fortune that he had crossed paths with his most notable rival.

“You said to find a bounty hunter! Mando agreed that he would transport us somewhere safe,” Avix replied in a fluster. He had done what he was asked to do, hadn’t he? What could have possibly been wrong? Then he noticed the way Trapper had locked himself in place to level an apprehensive glare at the pre-Imperial vessel, and he asked, “Do you know him or something?”

“You could say that,” Trapper answered between gritted teeth. The poor kid was blissfully unaware of just whom he had hired. “We can’t trust him.”

“We don’t exactly have a choice. I did my best. Now we might want to hurry before he leaves without us.”

The two pilots scurried over to the Razor Crest. At the bottom of the lowered ramp, Avix called, “Hey, Mando! I got him, we’re ready to head out!”

Hearing the voice echo from downstairs, Grogu climbed onto the control panel in the cockpit and pressed his hands to the window to see where the noise came from. He couldn’t get a good look at the visitors, but he caught sight of their familiar orange suits and tipped his head curiously.

The spy caught sight of the small creature inside the glass and frowned to herself, making a mental note. Her scope diverted to the interaction taking place outside the ship.

Trapper cringed to himself at the way his partner was talking, already on nickname basis. And then the Mand’alor himself emerged from the shadows, stone cold and lethal in the opening of his ship.

Din was convinced that these inconvenient run-ins only happened to him. As soon as he saw Captain Trapper Wolf attempting to board his ship, he nearly closed the ramp and abandoned the planet altogether. This lousy investigator was now on his doorstep, pleading for help? After he nearly broke his eager nose on beskar trying to barge into Din’s private life? The Mandalorian couldn’t think of a more fitting repayment of the bantha shit he put him through the year prior than to leave him to drown on Kethor.

Evidently, the pilot was displeased to see him as well. His glower deepened when it landed on his armor, dulled with the shade from the late afternoon light. The last time Trapper had seen this infuriating warrior had been many months ago in the paradise of the planet Sesid, hidden away with his strange green child. Now they met face-to-face on a much different world, grungy and precarious, with renewed tensions coming to a high boil, with two people’s lives at stake if Trapper didn’t bite his tongue. And it was already taxing to hold back insults and warnings as he stared up at his former captor and slippery fugitive; how was he going to survive this brief journey while avoiding a deadly confrontation? Even now, his fingers twitched for his blaster. There was no trust there.

For the oblivious young pilot’s sake, Din decided not to mention the ugly history that they all had just stepped into. It didn’t matter who he was transporting, so long as he was given information on the Empire’s hoard of beskar by the end of this trip. He was bound by Creed—and now by his duty as Mand’alor—to ensure that all Mandalorians and their foundlings were armored. This was the Way.

Simply shaking his head, with no other option than these pilots had, Din turned to walk back into the ship, a daunting invitation. Avix lifted his shoulder at Trapper and stepped up the ramp, and after a beat, against his better judgment, the captain followed.

Avix marveled at the interior of the antique yet decked-out ship. The ex-bounty hunter clearly lived out of here, although there weren’t any frivolous impracticalities in sight. Crates of equipment were strapped to the walls, and he whistled almost silently when he noticed the built-in carbonite chamber.

This wasn’t Trapper’s first flight on the Crest, but it looked different now that it wasn’t packed by a team of Mandalorians looming over him and conjuring up reasons not to gut him with vibroblades. It felt…spacious, with dark corners and clean edges.

“Nice ship you got here, Mando,” Avix complimented awkwardly to chip at whatever glacier there was between the two enemies.

Din ignored the remark. “Where am I taking you?” he asked flatly, pressing the button that closed the door to his sleeping quarters. He didn’t like his private space invaded any more than it had to be.

“Somewhere safe. A New Republic outpost would be great…” Avix stopped when the Mandalorian turned back around, visibly opposed to the idea.

“That’s not safe for me,” Din countered.

With his criminal record? Certainly not. Even Senator Organa couldn’t make an outpost of pilots forget his picture at the top of the Wanted Register. Trapper had to hold back a scoff.

Interested in what strangers were on the ship, Grogu peeked over the edge of the lower hull’s ceiling, balancing himself upside down to see the two pilots. Dad didn’t like the pilots, and he didn’t even need the Force to tell him so. It seemed that they avoided the people in orange flight suits everywhere they went—anyone with a badge, really. Why were these strangers on the ship?

“Uh…you do something bad that we should know about?” Avix chuckled worriedly. At his side, Trapper mentally facepalmed. His partner clearly hadn’t spent much time patrolling in the Outer Rim, and he wondered what strings he pulled to get put on this assignment.

The angle of the Mandalorian’s helmet said what he didn’t. Avix supposed he should have known based on stereotype alone, but he had only passed a few Mandalorians in his life and heard extravagant tales. Recent rumors pertaining to the Mandalorian-Imperial battles and something about a mysterious king were all he had to go off of. Not applicable to a lone traveler.

“I could ask you the same,” Din replied. Although his tone wasn’t defensive, his words opaquely said stay out of my business. “A couple of Rebel pilots stranded on Kethor with no X-wings?”

Avix received the message. They were all willing to cooperate so long as nobody pried into what wasn’t theirs. The Mandalorian was being generous enough, he guessed, and he didn’t want to irritate him out of the agreement.

A twitch of Grogu’s ear caught the lieutenant’s attention, and his puzzled face tightened to make out what exactly was staring back at him from the top of the ladder. Din caught the suppressed squint and knew Grogu was close by. It was only a matter of time before they discovered the kid, but he would have liked to keep the interactions to a minimum, especially with an adversary onboard to distinguish his weaknesses and secrets.

Not wanting the details of his covert mission-gone-wrong exposed, Trapper finally spoke up, “We’ll figure out an alternative, a middle ground. Let’s get off this hellhole first.”

It was then that Grogu accidentally revealed himself. Clumsily, he shifted off-balance and fell headfirst from the floor above with a startled shriek. With the reflexes of a gunslinger, Din’s hands shot out to catch him.

“Careful,” the Mandalorian admonished him quietly, shifting the little one to his arm.

Avix’s head was up in space as to why the Mandalorian was in possession of an oddly cute, wrinkly creature. He stared back into the wide eyes and studied the disproportionately large ears as if waiting for an answer in his squeaking noises.

On the other hand, Trapper was somewhat surprised to see the child again. Cara may have spouted off her truth of how deeply the Mand’alor cared about the decades-old toddler, but he hadn’t bought the explanation at the time; truthfully, he hadn’t expected that the new inconvenience would have been traveling with him for long. Then his sentiments had been proved wrong on Sesid, when he watched the pair from afar. And while he had felt something in that moment, hearing the sound of giggles on the glistening shore, some part of him didn’t believe that the moment was continuous.

Because honestly, would a ruler playing three roles at once take constant time for his kid? It wasn’t likely. Then again, what kind of ruler led missions on the ground? Could he predict any move the Mand’alor made?

“You weren’t followed?” Din asked.

Avix huffed nervously. “I think if we were, we’d be dead by now.”

“Then let’s hope nobody noticed your bright outfits parading onto my ship.”

Trapper rolled his eyes. He was proud to be a decorated captain in his Alliance-issued flight suit. At least he didn’t have to hide his identity behind a mask.

Din strode over to raise the gangplank. Then he paced back to the ladder, scaling it one-handed. “Come on.”

The two pilots followed the Mandalorian up to the cockpit, where one of the two passenger seats was already occupied. When Trapper turned to sit in the chair closest to him, he found the Jedi child staring up at him almost territorially and froze, uncomfortable.

After a series of clicking buttons, Din turned to address the problem. “Here, come sit with me,” he said, reaching out for the kid. Grogu growled a bothered noise until he was settled on Din’s lap. “Yeah, that’s your seat, I know.”

Sliding into their chairs, Trapper and Avix strapped themselves in and patiently watched the Mandalorian flip switches and activate engines. The gunship fired up with a rumbling hum that attested to its power, old but sturdy against time. With his claws dug into sleeve material, Grogu peered over Din’s arm to get another look at Avix, not shy but not trusting enough to speak yet.

The young pilot had never seen anything like it. “Is that like your pet or something?”

Trapper swung his leg over to kick his partner’s, inaudible over the thunder of liftoff. He really needed to fill him in before something too provoking was said. Avix mouthed, “What?” back to him, as if he hadn’t just asked the ruler of Mandalore if his son was a pet.

“He’s another passenger,” Din answered shortly. “That gonna be a problem?”

Avix scratched the back of his neck, unsure how he misstepped. “No, not at all,” he stammered.

As the Razor Crest dissolved into the stratosphere of Kethor, the ground-locked spy lowered her scope and initiated the pursuit. She sent out a signal to dispatch two mismatched starfighters to pick up the trail. Then she pulled out her holoprojector, revealing the sickly face of Moff Crobis.

“Yes?”

“Sir, I spotted the two Rebel pilots boarding a Mandalorian’s ship. The bounty hunters are after them as we speak.”

The Moff was pleased to hear this. “Good. Update me if they will be needing additional assistance, or when they have acquired the chit.” He stretched his arm out to end the holocall.

“That’s not all, sir,” the Weequay spy quickly interjected. “There was something else on that ship, something familiar. A green creature, with big ears.” Perhaps it stood out to her with its unique look, either from a long forgotten operation layout that she glanced at or from a job that came before she was contracted with the Empire. But somehow, she knew this little being was important.

Moff Crobis initially shocked expression twisted into a gaunt sneer. The missing Jedi child, having fallen off the grid for an entire decade, had made a reappearance. Yes, his predecessor had left him all kinds of intelligence on the asset, and now he was in plain sight, the Empire’s for the reaping.

“You will be well-rewarded for this information,” the Moff said, shutting off his holoprojector without further stalling.

He crossed the bridge of his light cruiser with heavy steps and rubber squeaks of his boots. The approach caused his officers to straighten up.

“Yes, sir?”

“Activate the chain code for codename ‘Asset’. Ensure that our best hunters are on it, and put me in contact with Fortress Inquisitorius.”

“Right away, Moff Crobis.”

He was going to finish Moff Gideon’s work with the Jedi after all. This time, it would be on his own terms.

Silver vambraces shifted back and forth as Din guided the Razor Crest into the blackness of space, manning several controls at once. Trapper and Avix, experienced pilots themselves, didn’t recognize many of the buttons and switches on the dashboard of the classic ship, but it was clear that the Mandalorian knew them well. They also didn’t grasp how he could pilot with the little guy in his lap making grabby hands at everything in sight, not quite touching the glowing red switches to avoid a scolding yet still distracting in his movements.

“Go ahead,” Din finally said, and Grogu excitedly reached out to contribute to the takeoff cycle by pressing the grav lock. “Ori’jate.”

Oversized ears lifted with the approval. Avix gathered from the exchange that he had been wrong; this was a child, small and uncoordinated but definitely not a pet. Why would an ex-bounty hunter, armed to the teeth, have a kid on board?

Din reached over to activate autopilot before swiveling away from the port windows and rising with the kid. On the way up, he snatched the empty soup bowl off the floor.

“I haven’t seen anyone following us on the radar, but it would still be wise to jump to lightspeed in the next few minutes.” The cockpit door whooshed open at his proximity, and the Mandalorian said over his shoulder, “I’ll give you that time to decide where we’re going. Don’t even think about trying anything with my ship.”

He didn’t hear the bickering start up as he dropped down the ladder into the hold. Looking up at his dad, Grogu asked, “Whooo?”

“Just a couple of pilots. We have to take a detour and fly them somewhere.” Din stashed the bowl away behind a panel to deal with later before setting the kid down on a crate. “I don’t think they’re…bad,” he admitted, “but I don’t trust them. Just stay by me, okay?”

It was a bit conflicting to Grogu, who had spent a decade interacting with the New Republic soldiers at the base on Yavin 4. They were always nice to him, were there to protect him and the other Padawans, so why did his father dislike these ones? He supposed it didn’t matter. He listened to him no matter what.

“‘Kay,” Grogu agreed.

There was a stain on his collar where he had spilled a bit of soup earlier. Smiling faintly, Din used the end of his cloak to dab at it; the kid squirmed away. “Hopefully it won’t take long. Then we can go home.”

Up in the cockpit, Trapper was on the verge of strangling Avix.

“First things first, keep your mouth shut,” he ordered, jabbing his finger. “You don’t know who we’re on board with; you don’t want to know. From now on, refrain from talking. For everyone’s sake.”

“Okay, okay, geez,” the lieutenant surrendered. “What’s the deal with this guy?” The Mandalorian seemed patiently impatient, not nice in the slightest but begrudgingly cordial. Other than that, he wasn’t sure what he was missing.

Trapper wasn’t in the mood to repeat embellished stories. “The less you know, the better. Now I need to know what you promised him so I can decide what percent chance there is that he’s leaning toward encasing us in carbonite over delivering us unharmed.”

As if it was no skin off his back, Avix answered, “I promised him I’d tell him about a location of a beskar cache. You know that treasury we were debriefed about? The one on Bandomeer?”

Every word out of the naive pilot’s mouth sent Trapper’s irritation into a whirlwind. “You did not.”

A huff left Avix. “What’s he gonna do with that information? Let’s say he did steal from that Imperial treasury. One, it doesn’t hurt us in any way. Two, it hurts the Empire. And three, there’s no chance of him getting in there! His one-man army? Even a Mandalorian couldn’t—“

Oh, no. The Mand’alor was fully capable of launching an attack on even a high-security base like the one on Bandomeer. And it would come back to bite the Republic because the more riches Mandalore obtained, the more powerful it became, the higher threat the warrior race was to the Alliance. A cold war had the potential to ignite again at any moment, with one simple act of aggression from either side.

Trapper didn’t consider himself an explosive person, but he could have throttled his wingman on the spot. “So you mean to tell me you bargained classified New Republic recon information with—“

“In exchange for our lives!” Avix defended, gesturing energetically. “You’re welcome!”

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” the captain exclaimed. “You just provided our own intelligence to the—“

Suddenly, a blasting explosion violently wracked the Razor Crest and sent them both slipping to the edges of their seats, even in their restraining straps. Down in the hold, Grogu slammed into Din’s chestplate with a startled shriek, and the Mandalorian was nearly knocked over with the lurch. He caught himself on a handle protruding from the wall and began clawing at every stabilizing feature of the ship within reach to fight his way back up to the cockpit.

“Two starfighters on us!” Trapper alerted from what he could see on the radar. With the Mand’alor nowhere in sight, he struggled out of his belt and grappled for the pilot’s seat to man the controls.

“What do we press? What do we do?” Avix panicked. Warning lights flashed a worrying red, and the simultaneous beeping effectively brought his brain to a halt as he scanned the dashboard for an analogous switch he might recognize. “I’ve never flown something as old as this—“

“Move,” a modulated voice barked. Trapper was shoved from the pilot’s chair by a solid force and slammed his temple against the dashboard on his way to the floor. His head spinning, he yanked himself back into the passenger’s seat with a groan.

“Hand over the chit, Rebels!” a voice crackled through the channel. “This is your first and final warning!”

Din gripped the thrusters and brought the Crest into a sharp dive that had the pilots clinging to their seats. Unpredictably, he spun to outmaneuver the two fighters, hot on their tail. Thoroughly enjoying the ride from his father’s lap, Grogu laughed at the thrill and had Avix gaping incredulously at him.

“Is that a meteor shower?” the young pilot warbled, pointing ahead. One of the very first things he had learned in the Naval Academy was do not, under any circumstance, try to outfly an asteroid field, or a meteor shower, or anything of the sort. Because the odds were that even the most skilled pilot would lose.

“Mando—“ Trapper exclaimed in disbelief when the ship accelerated toward the impossible obstacle. This massive ship had all the gracefulness of a Hutt, and the Mandalorian was going to test its limits with its unsteady drift caused by the earlier blast.

Quieting the low beeping, Din merely warned, “Hold on.”

“I’ve got him on the left!” one of the hunters communicated on the channel. Ignoring the threats, Din focused on stabilizing the ship enough—something back there was damaged—to allow him to glide through the meteor shower as safely as possible. Except nothing about this was safe.

From their previous chase on Maldo Kreis alone, Trapper knew that this man was insane. He himself was an experienced pilot, but there were some maneuvers he didn’t dare attempt, wasn’t desperate enough to. There was risky and then there was downright unhinged, and the Mandalorian was past the latter despite seeming relatively calm as he swung the ship to dodge each fiery rock.

Din’s breaths came heavy in his helmet as his left wing was nearly nicked by a blow. Shots were still sweeping past on either side, missing in between distraction. The starfighters wouldn’t be able to get a hit in as long as they flew steady.

Or so he hoped.

For navigating such a volatile field of space, the Mandalorian was impressive in Avix’s eyes. In order to encourage the superb flying that was keeping them all alive, the pilot shakily said, “Okay, okay, you’re doing great, Mando, just keep—“

“Stop it,” Din snapped, fully concentrated.

A shout and a burst of light off of an incoming floating rock let them all know that one of the hunters failed. Sure enough, only one blip remained on the radar.

Recognizing at least one of the bearers of bad news on the panel, Trapper said, “You’re going to get pulled into that planet’s orbit if you don’t get out of here soon.”

“That’s the least of my priorities right now,” Din shot back.

Trapper bursted, “It will be important when—“

“Watch out!” Avix shouted.

Din jerked the ship from in between two colliding meteors and barely skimmed the edge of one with the right wing. A very close call. Grogu sensed the stress of the atmosphere but decided that he quite enjoyed the shimmering, falling lights reflecting off the viewport.

The next couple of minutes were fearfully chaotic, when it all went wrong.

The remaining starfighter missed again and blasted a nearby meteor, and a massive chunk of the space rock broke off to strike the underside of the Razor Crest and sent everyone onboard lurching with a groan. New beeping sounded off in the cockpit, and Din knew that something very critical had been hit. Before the dense field of meteors thinned out, the pursuing starfighter made a wrong move and crashed, obliterating the last hunter.

And with a busted underwing, the Crest succumbed to gravity. The descent to the surface of the cloudy planet was rough and jarring, and Din could do nothing more than grapple for controls that would soften the crash landing.

“Someone pull that lever back!”

“Oh stars, this is going to hurt!” Avix cried out.

“Engage reverse thrusters!“ Din commanded the ship.

Okay, Grogu wasn’t finding this fun anymore. The roar of turbulence shuddering the walls had him turning and clutching Din’s flight suit in preparation for the impact.

When they fell through clouds and the ground was in clear sight, coming up fast, Din accelerated the ship forward to avoid colliding straight downward. Just as the gunship made impact in a bumpy field, he let go of the controls and threw his arms around Grogu so that he wouldn’t splatter against the viewport. Trapper had the wind knocked out of him when he slammed against his straps, and Avix banged his head against his chair.

The Crest skidded to a stop against the mound of dirt it had created and rocked once before settling to a standstill. Everyone took a collective breath.

Din was the first to recover, worrying over the kid in his arms. “You okay?” he asked apologetically, patting him all over to ensure that there were no major cuts or bruises, but his vambraces seemed to have cushioned him from the crash.

Grogu made a whimpering noise and reached out for his thumb, which he offered knowingly. The Mandalorian ran a quick diagnostic on the ship, finding that the transponder had been damaged so that no signal could possibly get out until repaired. Perfect. He got to his feet with a frustrated grunt, hurting all over.

Avix massaged his neck with a hiss while Trapper wrestled with his belt, pausing to cradle his head where it had hit the dashboard when the Mandalorian pushed him. “Nice flying,” the captain grumbled.

Discarding the comment, Din took Grogu with him out the cockpit and down the ladder. The kid fussed when he set him on the floor, but he was sternly ordered, “Stay right there.”

Din lowered the ramp as much as it could be before it was angled into the dirt. With his blaster pulled, he stepped out onto the new world, scanning the gray skies for any additional pursuers. It was almost deadly quiet, with the only action being the breeze whistling through the tall, golden bristles all around. There was a trail through the stalks where the ship had torn through, leaving broken stems buried in soil. It had only been those two hunters, then.

Once Din was satisfied that there wasn’t immediate danger, he circled the ship to where the carbon scoring marked its lower side. There was an obvious fuel leak, the thick smell hitting him before he even saw it. They weren’t going anywhere.

The helmet tipped back to the ominous sky, a long sigh escaping.

Returning inside, he found Trapper and Avix slipping down the ladder. Remembering what his father asked, Grogu toddled a little closer to Din, who noticed yet another hole that he would have to patch up.

“Dank farrik,” the Mandalorian swore.

Naturally, Grogu began to repeat it. “Dake—“

“No,” Din scolded halfheartedly, holding out a finger at him. “You don’t say that.”

“So, what’s the damage?” Avix asked carefully.

The Mandalorian flatly answered, “The fuel tank is leaking, which means we’re stranded here. And they took out the long-distance transponder, so unless you know any friends one planet over, no contact is going to do us any good.”

The pilots both shook their heads in utter disbelief at how terrible their luck was. First their own X-wings had been lifted, and now they were stuck on some unknown planet with an aggravated Mandalorian, whose ship had been just about mutilated. Once again, with no way to holo for backup.

An idea came to Trapper. “Can’t your Mando friends track you? Can’t you get a distress signal through to them?” Surely they would be worried if their ruler didn’t return on time.

“The distress signal requires the transponder. And the Crest is off the grid,” Din explained. “Even they don’t have a tracker on me.”

Great. That was smart. Way to go, Mand’alor.

“So…what now?” Avix questioned casually.

It set Din off.

”You two are going to tell me everything,” he spat. “Your lack of sense to watch your own backs almost got us all killed and has painted a target on me. Now where is the chit?”

The pilots’ blood ran frigid with panic. So he had heard what the hunters were saying over the comms. He knew that there was something of great importance in their possession. “What chit?” Trapper replied coolly.

Din held out his palm. “Hand it over. I won’t ask again,” he growled.

Increasingly distressed, Avix glanced back and forth between the two. Trapper angled his chin up and just about puffed his chest out as he defied his Mandalorian rival. He wouldn’t back down. Not this time. “I don’t have anything to give you,” he scoffed.

Escalating the situation immensely, Din pulled his blaster on the captain, who raised his right back, aiming at a weak spot between beskar. On instinct, Avix threw his hands up in surrender, watching as the child stood next to the Mandalorian’s boot rather than hiding behind it, narrowing his eyes angrily up at Trapper. Grogu knew he wasn’t supposed to use the Force in front of strangers, but he was prepared to in order to defend his dad.

“Give it to me,” Din demanded. “Tell me what’s on it.”

“Woah, this isn’t necessary…” Avix shut his mouth when the helmet tipped his way.

“It’s none of your business,” Trapper retorted. His face was beginning to go hot with wired nerves.

“You’re on my ship. We ended up here because of that thing, which someone clearly wants. That damn well makes it my business.”

Would it help if Avix projectile vomited all over the Mandalorian? He felt like he was about to either way when his finger brushed his blaster trigger. Trapper was a decent shot, but he would not win this fight. “Trapper,” he mumbled. “Maybe you should…”

“He’s not going to gun me down,” the captain challenged. “Not in front of his kid.”

Grogu squawked something unintelligible in reply. “My kid probably wants your head on a stick right now,” Din remarked.

Staring certain death in the visor, Trapper’s hands began to tremble around the hilt of his blaster. He had seen the Mand’alor fight—he knew he wouldn’t come close to winning a brawl against him—so what was he still trying to prove?

“Look,” Avix started, attempting to defuse the situation. “It’s not Mando’s fault that we’re in this mess. And we all have to cooperate if we’re going to get off this planet. We still need his ship, and he needs us in order to gather supplies to fix his ship, so we’re all stuck together in the meantime. The chit doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Din bit back, his gaze still trained on Trapper. “I need to know what we’re up against.”

Avix blew out a breath and once again went against his captain. Just trying to avoid being caught in the crossfire. “Yeah, he’s got a fair point. He should know what he’s transporting, and we can’t keep it from him any longer.”

There were a few dragging seconds of adrenaline as Trapper weighed the goal of this standoff against his overall mission.

“Captain, please.” Avix knew he wouldn’t survive long on his own if Trapper was blasted.

With his pulse in his ears, Trapper’s anger gradually dissolved. Lowering his blaster, he was satisfied to see the Mandalorian copy his action. Begrudgingly, he removed the chit from his pouch with a snap of velcro. Din took it with a harsh snatch.

“You don’t need to know what’s on it,” Trapper declared, hostility dripping in his voice. “Just that the Empire wants it.” That was the only explanation he had. Obviously the black market dealer had sold them out, either contracted by the Imperials all along or threatened into submission.

Deciding it didn’t matter what it was exactly—the beskar was better intel for the Mandalorians than whatever was on this chit—Din let it slide. “Fine,” he said. And he pocketed it.

“Wait—“ Avix denied.

“I will hold onto it until we’re up in the air, as incentive for you two not to run off at the first sight of civilization.”

Finding the explanation reasonable, since Avix and Trapper had nothing tying them down to this Mandalorian anymore if they were able to find other transport, the pilots nodded regretfully.

The kid, standing below Mando’s knee, made uppy arms at the warrior. It was odd to the Rebels how he instinctively noticed and reached down to oblige the request. But it seemed to do the trick; the tight string that was about to snap moments ago relaxed, unthreaded, as all parties simmered. It reminded Trapper of what had taken place on Hosnian Prime, and how the child had managed to spare so many a blaster fight, and possibly worse.

“Here’s the plan,” Din said. “We’re going to walk to town for supplies and enough fuel to get us to the nearest station once the ship is repaired. The Empire likely knows that we’re on this planet or at least within the sector, so we need to tread lightly because they could be combing through the area. You two will do exactly as I say,” he asserted, “if you want to make it out of this alive. Understand?”

Frantically, Avix nodded. “Yeah. Yes, sir.”

It itched in the back of Trapper’s head that he was addressing the Mand’alor this way, when Trapper was his captain here. However, he said nothing.

Din went up to the cockpit, where the navicomputer indicated that the nearest town was over a day’s walk away counting a rest at night. It seemed to be early afternoon now, so if they timed it right, then they would make it there in the late afternoon, buy fuel and hopefully a new transponder, and leave before nightfall.

He dropped into the hold to relay the plan to the two half-witted pilots. “Take whatever rations you might need,” he added. “It’s going to be a long journey.”

Finally, while they were busy raiding his ship, he turned his attention to himself and the kid.

“Bag or pram?” he asked.

One little claw came out to point at the hovering pram against the ship’s wall. Din packed some necessities into the back of it—rations, a medkit—before setting Grogu inside, nestled in a bed of blankets.

Checking over his shoulder to ensure that the pilots had ventured outside, Din took out the chit and pulled back the collar of the kid’s romper to tuck it into a pocket on the inside. Insurance. He didn’t trust the pilots, so this way, if something happened to Grogu, they were obligated to help. Their precious priority was now attached to his.

“Hold onto this for me, buddy,” he said softly, smoothing his clothes back into place over his beskar chain mail—a gift he had the Armorer craft for him not long after his return.

Evidently exhausted by all the excitement of the day, Grogu yawned. But he didn’t want rest; he wanted to gaze at the sights the planet they crash landed on had to offer. Always curious, always ready for another adventure.

It was humorous to Din to see the kid fighting sleep. He reached out to encourage the nap along, stroking along his baby cheek and watching as his eyes slipped closed. “I’ll get us out of this mess. I promise,” he murmured. And it didn’t take much longer for Grogu to give in.

Din attached his jetpack, slung his pulse rifle over his shoulder, and closed up the pram so that the kid would remain undisturbed. Once he stepped off the gangplank, he pressed at the control on his vambrace so that it raised, effectively locking the ship.

Trapper and Avix were in deep conversation that came to a jarring stop once Din was passing them, stalking into the fields, determined to get this over with. At his side, a pram floated, following him dutifully.

“This way.”

And so the New Republican pilots set off behind the Mandalorian, with no idea what they were in for.

About two hours after they had abandoned the Razor Crest, Trapper, Avix, and Din found themselves navigating a forest, dull with abundant withering trees but bright with autumn colors as the sun began to peek through the branches in the late afternoon. The Mandalorian didn’t walk fast, per se, but the pilots found that it was getting difficult to keep up with his higher stamina the further they traveled. Fortunately for them, he seemed to tread more carefully now that they were in the forest, his visor always scanning between trunks for any enemy that could be lying ready to attack.

Grogu scratched on the inside of the pram, prompting Din to raise his wrist so that he could open it with his vambrace. The kid squinted against the filtered light and raised his little arms to pull the sleep out of them. He cooed at the setting around him, liking the burnt colors.

“Hey there,” Din greeted him. “Do you wanna stretch your legs?”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still blinking himself awake as Din lifted him out of the pram.

The group slowed their trek significantly to accommodate Grogu, who waddled alongside his father, occasionally dashing ahead to something that caught his attention. Trapper and Avix lingered behind them, out of earshot so that they could talk now that the Mandalorian was distracted.

“So, how do you know the Mandalorian?” Avix finally inquired. It sounded like his captain was trying to explain the truth to him earlier, right before they were all blindsided by those starfighters. Now, he was determined to know more than he wanted to before, after seeing how heated things had become in that standoff.

Trapper chewed the inside of his cheek, debating how much to admit. He didn’t prefer to recount his failures to others. “Do you remember the Mandalorian that was put on the top of the Wanted Register about a year ago?” he said.

Avix pieced it together, his eyes bulging. “That’s  him?” he nearly exclaimed. Trapper was quick to shush him. “The one who killed Moff Gideon?”

Avix didn’t know why it surprised him so much. Staring ahead at the Mandalorian, he noted how he seemed to be more relaxed now, slinging his—probably very illegal—pulse rifle back across his back and searching for lurking threats less frequently. Mandalorian in appearance, of course it was assumed that he had gotten his hands dirty on more than one occasion. But this was quite extreme. He was notorious galaxy-wide for his crimes.

“I was assigned to investigate him, personally tasked by Senator Organa to capture and bring him in to help gather intel on Mandalore in preparation for last year’s negotiations.” Trapper swallowed. The lieutenant could see how his eyes tightened at the warrior ahead of them, the feud weighing heavy on his mind. “It was messy. My partner—Captain Carson Teva—and I handled it wrong. We didn’t…know who we were dealing with.”

It was stated so mysteriously. Avix’s eyes followed Grogu as he returned to his father to hand him a vividly red leaf. “Is that for me?” he faintly overheard Din say. “Thank you.” The Mandalorian tucked it away in his tactical belt for safekeeping.

Avix frowned. Yes, it seemed like there was more to this former fugitive than met the eye. Except Trapper made the secret sound more shocking. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t understand.”

Grasping his arm, Trapper pulled him to a stop. “He’s the ruler of Mandalore,” he whispered.

“What?!” Avix accidentally yelped. Din glanced over his shoulder at them, paying them no mind when he saw no sign of peril.

“Could you keep it down?” Trapper hissed.

“No! You didn’t think to tell me this before?” The lieutenant had made quite a few errors. Possibly life-threatening errors. Calling him nicknames like he was some mudscuffer in the market, underestimating just what he was capable of, cracking jokes about his child? Stars, the ruler of Mandalore surely could have slit his throat at any opportunity.

Sighing, Trapper began pacing again, still loitering a careful distance behind. “Well, you found out sooner than I did.”

“How was I supposed to—why didn’t you stop me—“ Not sure what his first question was, Avix gulped, wiping his now clammy hands on his flight suit. “What is the ruler of Mandalore doing out here, on his own?”

“Beats me.” Trapper shrugged. He rested a hand on his blaster; it felt better to do it when he remembered the absolute terror instilled in him when he was a prisoner on Mandalore. “I still don’t understand his motives myself.” It couldn’t all be as simple as revolving around his kid.

Kicking a branch out of his path, Avix commented, “I thought you investigated him.”

A dry laugh left Trapper. “And yet I know next to nothing.” The young pilot didn’t seem amused, perhaps very hesitant where he stepped now. Trapper didn’t want him acting abnormal to the Mand’alor, who might have sensed something was off and punished them both for exposing his life again, so he offered, “He used to be a bounty hunter.” Maybe crumbs of truth would keep Avix on track.

“Yeah, he mentioned that. A bounty hunter,” the lieutenant said. “And now, a king.”

Ahead of them, Grogu ran into a pile of leaves that smothered him from toes to ears in orange foliage. Realizing his miscalculation, he got lost in the pile and cried out in a panic, “Boo!”

Din choked back a laugh. “Come here, womp rat,” he said, spotting the tips of fuzzy green ears and fishing the kid out of the leaves. Grogu came out squirming and growling that Din found it even remotely funny.

“I’ve got you,” the Mandalorian murmured in lieu of an apology. He held him close against his pauldron, hiking on through the forest.

Intrigued, Grogu blinked at the two pilots behind them, deep in the process of deciding if they were friendly or could be traitors. The Force didn’t indicate darkness. They seemed set on their path, not capable of diverting from it. And if his dad was turning his back on them, he must not have been concerned; he didn’t feel concerned.

Unsure why the child was staring at them with his wide—and rather adorable—eyes, Avix raised his hand to wave at him. Trapper shot him an incredulous look, but unwound when the kid lifted his arm from the Mandalorian’s shoulder to wave back.

“Well, he’s frightening. Unpredictable,” Avix muttered. “But if his child likes us, then maybe we have a chance of surviving this trip.”

Trapper snorted. “That’s one way of looking out for yourself. Befriending a Mandalorian’s kid.”

Always stern with him, mocking his out-of-the-box ideas. Always uptight. Always…by the holobook. Avix wondered how his captain’s personality came to be, wondered how he had gotten so far when he seemed to be so miserable all the time on these missions; perhaps he could have taken a lesson from that, as a rookie, but it seemed counterproductive now. “Have you ever just…tried being nice, Captain? Sometimes, it does more good.”

It wasn’t meant in a disparaging manner, and fortunately, Trapper didn’t receive it that way. However, he did contemplate it with a frown, locking eyes with the baby who tilted his head to smush his ear against his father’s helmet. Curious.

The travelers decided to make camp under the slope of a jutting rock at the edge of the forest. Beyond the forest lay a great plain, flat for miles before morphing into rolling hills. There was a moon—maybe two, time would tell—that cast the tall amber grasses in a lonely glow.

Avix had disappeared not a half hour before, claiming that he would be returning with a better meal than ration bars could provide. Trapper and Din kept to themselves in the meantime, the latter looping around to surveil the area with Grogu in tow.

With a chill in the air gradually becoming noticeable, Trapper got to work to start a fire. Kindling wasn’t difficult to scrounge up, but actually getting a spark to ignite with a branch and a pathetic stick was impossible, even as dry as it was. He hadn’t had to do this since a training scenario in the Naval Academy, decades ago. With as many tips as he could recall, and as much friction as he could generate, he struggled to succeed.

A snapped branch had him jolting to point his blaster at the source of the sound. But it was only the Mandalorian who had returned from his brief scouting.

Without a word, he got back to work. A minute or so later, he gave a frustrated huff, discarding one of the sticks aside to find another. Din set his Amban pulse rifle to lean against the rock that provided half shelter, and deciding that he was bored of watching the captain struggle, he stepped over to launch his flamethrower at the kindling. Trapper staggered back out of harm’s way, and the weapon clicked off, leaving a strong fire dancing on the forest floor.

“I had it under control,” he snapped, to spare himself some dignity.

“Looked like it,” Din returned.

Avix came trampling through the leaves a couple of minutes later with two ash-rabbits dangling off his shoulder. “Well, I found us dinner.”

The Mandalorian’s helmet tipped, slightly impressed that he had managed to find anything out in these woods this late. And so quickly too. He hadn’t expected the skill from a young pilot, fresh out of flight school. “Not bad.”

The compliment caused Avix to relax. Setting the rabbits down on a flat stone nearby, he pulled out his trusty blade to get to work. “My mother taught me to hunt. Back on my home world, ever since I was little,” he told his companions.

“Where are you from?” Trapper questioned before an uncomfortable silence could ensue. Truthfully, he didn’t know much about his partner yet, as they had only flown together for several days.

“A small planet in the Mid Rim. You wouldn’t know it.” Avix made an incision into the animal carcass. “Where are you from, Captain?”

Preparing a setup of sheared branches for cooking, Trapper threw back, “The Core. Corellia.”

Another Core brat, tossed into the Outer Rim to police it. Din held back a scoff as he stepped around Grogu to set his jetpack next to his rifle. “Di’kut,” he name-called under his breath.

Grogu snorted up at him, low ears signaling displeasure with his father’s blatantly rude comment.

“Don’t give me that look,” Din said. “You know I’m right.”

To the side, Avix’s questions continued. “So you always knew you wanted to be a pilot?”

Not always. Trapper’s father was truly the one to insist on it, given how important it was on a planet that exported ships. But Trapper found that he enjoyed it anyway. Who couldn’t? Despite the pang of memories forged, his fondness for piloting had not even been dampened by his father’s betrayal.

Not keen on sharing those sentiments, Trapper simply answered, “I always knew it’s where I would end up. You?”

A shake of a head. A jerk of the knife. “Not until my uncle—he was a pilot, the best—was killed by the Imps five years ago,” Avix explained. “I enlisted the next day.”

While he didn’t respond, Trapper was moved. He didn’t have a similar heroic backstory, but he was proud of the Alliance being something people were willing to defend no matter the cost, even as war dwindled. A part of him hoped the Mand’alor was listening, if only to give him a glimpse at the Republic’s merit.

Din didn’t voice his newfound respect for the young man. He did, however, look down to see Grogu bringing his hand to his mouth, repeatedly signing, “Food.”

“We’ll get you some,” Din promised, lowering himself to a fallen trunk. “Can you be patient just a little longer?”

His bottomless stomach rumbling, Grogu made a discouraged noise and plopped himself onto Din’s boot. The fire danced before him, mesmerizing in its shifting heat, and he balled his hands when he registered that the temperature had dropped ever since the sun went down.

With practiced precision, Avix finished skinning both ash-rabbits and had them roasting over the fire in no time. Each body around the fire leaned forward unconsciously at the charred smell. If there was one thing they all had in common, it was that life was on the go, and steaming delicacies like this were few and far between.

“What about you, Mando?” Avix called across the fire. “Where are you from?”

Instead of replying to the direct question, Din deflected, “Why don’t you ask your captain? I’m sure he knows.”

Actually, he didn’t. In fact, Trapper was puzzled by Avix’s question. “Well, Mandalore, if I had to guess. Isn’t that obvious?” he remarked.

“Not all Mandalorians are from Mandalore,” Avix reminded him with a point of his blade.

Right. The foundlings. One was before them at that moment, cooing as he leaned back against cartridge cases. But Trapper couldn’t imagine the Mand’alor being from anywhere but Mandalore; it seemed like he would have no right to the throne.

“So, let’s break this down,” Avix said, knowing that he wasn’t going to receive an answer to his first question. He didn’t care about facing uncomfortable topics, would have rather forced them into the open. “You investigated Mando. And Mando, you somehow found out?”

“We arrested him on Vandor,” Trapper clarified, leaning forward to poke at the base of the flames with a stick. “He escaped. Then a few weeks later the Mandalorians arrested Carson and I, brought us back to Mandalore, and let us go after a few days.”

Avix coughed out a laugh. “You were arrested on Mandalore?”

Humiliated by the reminder of how stupidly close he and Carson got while surveilling, Trapper flushed. “We…made a mistake.”

“Or two,” Din supplied.

The captain shot him a look. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

His mouth salivating, Grogu stood and waddled closer to the cooking meal.

“What’s Mandalore like?” Avix asked, genuinely intrigued.

More advanced than people think, Trapper thought, but he didn’t want to give the Mand’alor the satisfaction.

“It’s…dry. Toxic outside Sundari and the other biodomes,” Din offered, since he didn’t see any harm in describing it to someone who seemed interested.

“Wow, you’re really selling me here, Mando.”

The kid was too close to the flames now, his hand pawing for the meat above the scorching wood, and Din caught the back of his onesie to drag him back to safety. Grogu chirped in surprise.

The interaction warmed Avix. He used to be like that as a toddler, the worst troublemaker—or so his sister told him. And the Mandalorian seemed to have endless patience for the baby’s mischief. It was sharply sweet to see; he wondered if he was meant to smile or avert his eyes.

Din expounded, “It’s like most cities. Cleaner than your Core worlds.” Overall, Mandalore had grown on him. Exponentially since the kid came back, it seemed like. Something about him chasing the bigger children around the Foundlings’ Quarters made it closer to home than he had ever felt.

“Yeah, well, Coruscant will probably always be a pit. I guess you got us there,” Avix chuckled. The Mandalorian didn’t seem that difficult to be around like Trapper tried to convince him; he had all but lost himself in the casual conversation with the ex-bounty hunter. The pilot got up once the majority of the pink had been smelted out of the skewed rabbits. “Will the child eat this?”

“He eats anything in sight,” Din informed. The kid babbled something that sounded like agreement. There were only a couple things Grogu had shown disinterest towards, and they were both types of ration packs.

Avix’s face twisted, thinking of all the strange culinary menus he had seen since beginning his tours in the Outer Rim. “Even if it moves?”

“Especially if it moves.”

The two pilots split one of the ash-rabbits for themselves, while Din and Grogu shared another. As soon as the Mandalorian had grabbed their portion, he swung his leg over the trunk so that his back was to the fire.

Avix glanced at Trapper, bewildered by the action, while the latter just shook his head.

Trying his best to scale the log to get to the other side where Din held the food, Grogu was soon lifted to sit beside his father. He reached out with greedy, excited fingers to take the chunk of meat that was offered to him. Only then did Din feed himself, lifting his helmet just high enough to take a bite before latching the seal again.

“Oh!” Avix spoke aloud once he heard the hiss. “You’re one of those Mandalorians that doesn’t take off their helmets.” He regretted it the moment it was out, slapping a hand over his talkative mouth. Somehow, he had forgotten the regal position of power this Mandalorian was in.

“No,” Din confirmed. “I don’t.”

What a foolish rule to live by. The man was dedicated to keeping his face covered but couldn’t bow down to basic laws for the common good of the New Republic. “Let me guess,” Trapper sneered mockingly. “‘This is the Way’?”

It had been for most of his life. When his entire existence took a turn upside down with the addition of a little bounty with large ears, well, many trials had challenged his beliefs into something new, a closeness reserved for his clan. Frowning, the Mand’alor gruffly said, “It’s my Way.”

Not expecting the response, Trapper opted to not press his opinion further.

The rest of the meal went on in silence, with ravenous chewing, crackling kindling, some harmless chittering up in the trees, and the periodic sealing and unsealing of Din’s helmet. He was the first to finish, and he turned back around and deposited Grogu on the ground between his legs, handing him the remainder of the carcass to gnaw on. The Rebel pilots picked their own conversation back up after a while to fill the quiet night.

“I’m going to check over that ridge one more time,” Din announced after a few minutes, leaving Grogu with an affectionate pat on the head.

The kid’s head followed his father until he disappeared out of sight between the dark trunks. He made a whimpering noise that worried the pilots—he hadn’t cried ever since they met, had actually seemed quite mellow for a little one. What if he pitched a fit, and the Mandalorian returned thinking that they caused it? That wouldn’t bode well.

But instead, Grogu turned back to Trapper and Avix, his soulful brown eyes watching their movements as he ducked into his collar.

“Hey, little guy,” Avix said, tentatively holding out what was left of his meat. “Want the rest of this?”

Well, how could he resist? Grogu debated for only a moment before waddling over around the bonfire. Avix offered a trustworthy smile as the child accepted the food from his hand. Trapper could only watch the exchange with a million questions, still trying to deduce the mysteries of this tiny being.

“Tankoo,” Grogu said. Dad always had to remind him to say it, but not this time.

Although Avix was a soldier, he was a boy at heart, and he laughed softly at the cute reply. “You’re very welcome,” he returned.

The expressive ears, the pouty mouth. Trapper wondered how something could be so simultaneously experienced and so young? Perhaps that was what accounted for his easy temper. No wonder the Mandalorian found him suitable to tote around. He seemed effortless to handle: no tantrums, not too many messes, no disruptive behavior. 

“Fastest way to your heart is food, huh, kiddo?” Avix teased.

“Meh?” came the reply as Grogu wobbled into a sit and gnawed on bone.

Maybe the Mand’alor cared for him because of his Jedi powers, or maybe he felt regretful to that day for turning him in to the Empire. It couldn’t be because he was a cute kid; even those eyes wouldn’t make a dent in Mandalorian armor.

Trapper still didn’t understand. Not the little being, not the reasons he was still around.

The Mandalorian came treading through the leaves soon after and sank down onto the log again. Grogu dropped his gift and went toddling back, burbling, “Dadada…”

Din picked him up when he was in arm’s length. “Hi,” he murmured, propping him up close.

The pilots observed as the kid briefly nuzzled against the harsh angles of his helmet before squirming to be put down. Little feet pattered around the forest floor as the companions began winding down for the night.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Din offered.

With a cringe, Trapper countered, “I think it would be better if one of us did.” He didn’t trust the Mand’alor to not put a vibroblade to his throat and tie him up to sell to the highest bidder in the night quite yet. Better to wait until he was downright fatigued if he wanted any chance at sleep.

To his credit, Din didn’t argue. “Suit yourself.” If the pilots were stupid enough to rifle around for the chit, they wouldn’t find it.

Craving attention, Grogu returned to stand between the ex-bounty hunter’s legs and stared up at him with ears high. Din held out a gentle hand and allowed a miniature one to take it. The kid seemed restless with the company around, but Din was glad to see him content with the extended journey. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if he liked being away from Mandalore more or less often. Perhaps he felt like Din did; perhaps he didn’t care where they were as long as they were together.

Intimidated by the man as they were, the pilots couldn’t deny that he had all the traits of a good father. Although, the lack of care that he showed everyone else in his path, his accustomed coldness, told a different tale: he hadn’t always harbored gentle words and gestures within.

“So, what’s the story with the kid?” Avix finally gathered the guts to ask.

It wasn’t that Din couldn’t be cordial with people, even New Republicans. And maybe he thought that Avix at least—certainly not the investigator—was a decent person not looking to do any harm. But Grogu was his son, and this was a dangerous galaxy. The less anyone knew, the better. If he wanted to receive the exaggerated tales of the Mandalorian and the Child from elsewhere, then he couldn’t stop those rumors.

Din told the young pilot, deadpan, “Bought him from a vendor and later decided that he didn’t look appetizing.”

If Grogu was paying attention, then at least he didn’t look offended.

Puzzled by the sudden secrecy again, Avix exhaled heavily at the joke and was about to press for a real explanation. Another dash back and forth by the green menace had Din realizing just how past exhaustion he was, and he swept Grogu up at the next pass to stand with a dramatic groan. “All right, time to settle down,” he said.

In order to rehearse a bedtime routine that would surely get the kid to sleep, the pair of them headed out to the tree line. A hyperactive Grogu chattered on the way, fascinated by the upcoming sea of amber grains.

“He doesn’t act like it,” Avix commented.

Uninterested, Trapper glanced at him. “Like what?”

“Like…he’s important. Confident, maybe, but not vain.” And even then, the seasoned Mandalorian seemed to intimidate only because he was capable of atrocities and wanted any potential enemies to know it. A defense mechanism.

Such talent in battle, enough to lead the Mandalorian people, yet the image was slippery to conjure when the warrior was speaking softly to his child to soothe him to rest.

“Do you know the real story?” Avix quietly asked Trapper.

The captain sighed. Couldn’t he just leave it alone? Then again, Trapper used to be in the same ship of curiosity. He couldn’t blame the kid, so he obliged. “Have you heard of the Bounty Hunter and the Child? Or the Mandalorian and the Child?”

A memory clicked into place like the cocking of a blaster. “The Bounty Hunter one, I think. I remember hearing about a hunter who was hired to track down a kid and…” With a loose jaw, Avix turned his head to where the Mandalorian stood just out in the fields, his attention angled down at his son.

“Yeah.” Trapper leaned back against a stump and crossed his legs. “It’s real. Some of it, anyway.”

“So…” Avix passed his blade back and forth in his hands, suddenly hushed. “The Mandalorian rescued him, and took him in?”

The captain heard the reverent awe in his voice and felt some of it sink into his skin, like a poison he didn’t want to be corrupted with. He worried that the more exchanges he saw between the father and son, the small makeshift family, the less committed he would be to every ideal he enlisted for. He had already bent his code on Sesid; the Mand’alor was not going to unhinge his duties ever again, no matter how deep the begrudging respect had penetrated.

Well, the current circumstances and the New Republic’s confusing history with the Mand’alor were tough to decipher if Avix didn’t have the proper background. This was a story worth repeating, if only to save Trapper’s image in light of the fact that he had failed to arrest those who threatened his allegiance.

And maybe because if he could do nothing else to atone for his mistakes, he could at least inflame the Mand’alor beneath his beskar.

“It’s complicated. But yes, the child is a foundling,” Trapper confirmed. Hesitating for only a couple cracks from the fire, he leaned forward to begin the narrative. “And because of him, the Mand’alor became the Mand’alor. It all went down in 9 ABY…”

As the pilots became invested in the Mandalorian’s secrets, the two subjects of the discussion remained out at the edge of the fields, where the tall grasses tickled Din’s knees. Grogu liked the calm that the night breeze carried, and he cooed content noises as he sank back into his father’s arm.

“That’s the Brez Constellation,” Din pointed out. Grogu’s eyes traced the pattern of the stars, forming a lizard creature between the glimmering pinpoints. “Because it looks like a brezak with that tail, huh?”

It felt nice to be able to slip back into normalcy after a headache of a day. Out of a desire to shield the kid as much as he could from the pilots—and to keep what was private, private—Din hadn’t spoken much. Not to say that he was usually talkative, but he certainly voiced things out loud more often to Grogu. Whereas all day, he had been avoiding any utterance of his name and toning down affection.

It was taxing to remain vigilant of everything he said and did in the presence of these potential spies—as if he was supposed to trust Trapper Wolf of all people around his son. But Din gradually relaxed now, muscles loosening as he carried out the nighttime ritual.

Always on the move, Grogu had never had a routine before bedtime. Only ones he had created to pacify himself in his pram with Nikto pirates chortling beyond, or Jedi initiates snoozing all around, or on lonely nights on Yavin 4. Not once had an adult carved out consistent time to care for him. Not until the Mandalorian.

Din knew that a life on the run with him wasn’t ideal. Patterns were difficult to maintain in the position they were in a decade ago, but there were inconsequential things now that he had time to improve at when hunters weren’t constantly a threat—just intergalactic relations. It might have been a few measly minutes out of his day to point out the landmarks of the night sky from whichever planet they had touched down on, but it meant the galaxy to Grogu, who had spent ten years doing this alone.

“See that?” The Mandalorian lifted a finger to draw his attention to a rather large planet blinking over the rolling hills far in the distance. “That’s where we saw all those crystals, remember?”

That adventure had been quite a while ago, one of the detours he made a habit of taking for the kid’s own experiences. However, Grogu wouldn’t ever forget the spiny turquoise terrain.  “Wistof,” he muttered, lifting a chubby hand to rub at his gradually drooping eyes.

“Christophsis, that’s right,” Din praised with a stifled chuckle. How had he even recalled that? “You’re very smart. The smartest.”

A breath of wind tugged on his cloak and stroked Grogu’s ears. The gentle rustling of the stalks and the deep hum of the Mandalorian’s voice and the familiar twinkling starlight began to work their magic on the kid. Once Din noticed, he adjusted him into more of a cradle.

There was a lengthy pause when Din was able to pick out a particular Outer Rim planet among the others. He knew the planets and star systems surrounding it; he knew its orbits at this time of year, even if it had been decades since he was reminded; he knew the serrated, isolated memories that did nothing more than form a dull ache where a dagger used to be.

Yet the name of the planet scurried back down his throat.

Where are you from, Mando? Some Rebel pilot had been asking it. These were things Din hadn’t spoken aloud to a single life form, would only ever be willing to share with one person, and yet he hadn’t thought to tell Grogu. It didn’t matter, really. Sure, the experiences of his childhood had molded him—the pain of nightly stomachaches and hot tears in the aftermath transformed into bruised knuckles and a head of steel—and made him into not just any Mandalorian but the Mand’alor.

But the experiences of before…those were from another’s life. Din had long forgotten the brush of his mother’s hand through his bangs and the rumble of his father’s voice guiding him. Sometimes a familiar smell cooking from a market would send an electric current down his spine, and he would be frozen trying to plug together the crackling static ends of recognition. Given what he had gone through as a bounty hunter, it was inevitable that those mellow flashes of red hoods and tender smiles and days in the sun weren’t going to linger.

Did it matter where he was born? Did it matter that his father used to hold his hand as they walked through the market and his mother used to sew the scraped knees of his pants? Did any of it matter when his parents’ faces were slates in his memory and he was established in a distant culture, anonymous beneath his armor?

The fingers curled around his thumb gave him an answer.

These things did matter. Because one day, Grogu would be gazing at these destinations beyond the atmosphere alone again. And Din wanted him to be able to recount his steady hands and his obliterated ration meals and his face. And maybe, just maybe, a part of him didn’t want to be the last one to remember his own parents.

Grogu followed the pointer finger to pick out the speck in the sky, practically undifferentiated from the rest. “That’s…where I’m from,” Din finally said. “Aq Vetina.”

Innocent, mystified eyes were now wide awake, looking up to search his visor. The kid was surprised into silence by the admission. Certainly his father had come from somewhere, but it was something that wasn’t spoken out loud, because this origin was something detached from him. Although he was told the truth, sometimes Grogu felt deeply that his dad had only ever been the Mandalorian.

And other times he would feel the lost acceptance settled in Din’s chest, like now, and he would be reminded that he too had once been an orphan.

“It’s…nice there. Quiet. Or it used to be,” Din corrected himself. “I wouldn’t know; it’s been decades.”

With indecisive ears, Grogu pivoted his head to glance between Din and his home world. This planet was what Coruscant was to him. A dreamt beginning that he wouldn’t have longed for until he was displaced by mayhem.

“‘Aim,” the kid almost whispered.

Somehow, knowing that the kid understood was much worse than the pain-laced nostalgia. “Yeah, it was. Yaim,” Din repeated.

He finally tore his eyes away from the glimmer that remained light years in the past to let them fall upon his brightest star.

“But now my home is Mandalore. With you.”

With a tiny coo, Grogu turned to press his hand flat against Din’s chestplate. Every emotion that had arisen in the wake of the statement was poured from his palm, and Din closed his eyes along with him to receive the surges of empathetic warmth that felt like a salve on his heart. It was a phenomenon he still couldn’t figure, would never be able to put sharing this connection into words, but it somehow made him a firm believer in the Force, in things he didn’t understand.

The link remained until it gradually retreated with Grogu’s sleep. And when the last vestiges had slipped from his head, Din returned back to the camp, carefully prying baby fingers off his armor only to hold them in his own.

The first time Trapper woke up, it was in the odd hours of the misty night when he should have been on watch duty. Alarms rang in his ears at a quick whirring sound, and his eyes blinked the thick haze of grogginess away until he could make out the child on the other side of the fire, escaping from his pod. Grogu dropped from the pram and stumbled a few inches over to his reclined father, where he climbed onto his abdomen to squeeze himself into his crossed arms. The Mandalorian—who might have or might not have been awake before, Trapper had no way of knowing with the suddenly strategically- convenient helmet—merely shifted a bit to accommodate the kid behind his vambraces.

Trapper managed to keep his eyes pried open after that, many conflicting thoughts on his mind.

The next time he woke up it was to a thump on the ground between him and Avix. While he was swift to grapple for his blaster, his younger partner was too busy squinting up at the Mandalorian in the dewy dawn to react. Once they realized there was no threat—well, as far as they knew—the pilots glanced over to see that the startling noise was just a couple of ration bars that the Mandalorian had clearly tossed to them.

“Hurry and eat. We should move soon,” was his version of good morning.

Between a yawn, Avix asked, “There’s no sign of trouble, is there?”

“I already scoped out the area. There’s nothing. That might change when we get closer to the town if the Empire found out that we crashed on the planet.”

Trapper munched on the stale excuse of a breakfast. For some reason, his gaze kept flitting over to Grogu, who was still rubbing sleep from his eyes with the end of the Mand’alor’s cloak and babbling something to contribute to the conversation.

The domestic interactions of yesterday had the Captain delving into his own conjured investigation: what was it about this child that brought the king of Mandalorians to his knees? As he had retold the tale to Avix, new inquiries sparked in his mind, like why had the Mand’alor returned for his bounty? How could beskar be molded if not by tools equally as unyielding? It was a mystery he wanted to solve thoroughly this time since his last probe had been cut short.

“When we get to the town, you’ll want to find something less obvious to change into,” Din continued.

“Good thinking. I didn’t even consider that,” Avix said between chewing.

Because he couldn’t help himself, the Mandalorian countered, “If you had, then maybe we wouldn’t be here.”

Not in the mood to be poked fun at yet again, Trapper retorted, “It wasn’t an option. It’s illegal to conduct New Republic business like that out of uniform.”

Avix tried to stay out of the latest dispute, mumbling to himself, “I should have credits for that…” He patted at his belt for the currency.

“Illegal,” Din scoffed to himself. When he turned away to retrieve his jetpack, he made sure not to trip over Grogu, who let go of his cloak begrudgingly.

“Yeah, you’re so above the law, aren’t you?” Trapper mocked, rising to brush himself off. “Why follow rules when you can make them yourself?”

As if Din enjoyed constructing policy. He glanced over at the lieutenant, figuring that he must have filled him in on the Mand’alor truth by now if he was speaking so freely. “Anyone who wants to survive in the Outer Rim doesn’t obey New Republic laws.” If Trapper hadn’t learned that lesson this time, he never would.

A few credits spilled from Avix’s pocket on accident. Appreciating the gleam of the coins, Grogu waddled over to pick one up while the others were being pocketed. He admired it for a moment before handing it over to the pilot. “Hey, thanks! Give me a high five,” he said. Although the kid was happy to comply, Avix discovered that his phrase was inaccurate when the fingers slapped his. “Or high three, I guess.”

“Spoken like a true criminal,” Trapper decided to boldly say. Avix tried not to wince and busied himself by fiddling with the equipment on his belt to ensure it was all there.

An engaging click sounded when Din latched his jetpack into place. He didn’t say anything.

It was like Trapper couldn’t stop the goading, the more he recalled of the man’s fugitive history. He couldn’t see past his blind contempt for the Mandalorian, who was a walking reminder of his failures. He swung his bag across his shoulder and taunted, “I can’t blame you, Mand’alor. You all try to justify your misdeeds in the same ways.”

Din snapped his rifle’s strap to his bandolier. “I don’t need to justify anything.”

With his track record? Trapper wondered how he slept at night. “Some of your crimes are worse than those of many Imperial warlords,” he sneered. “How do your people feel about following someone like that?” Although, he had to remind himself that these were Mandalorians he was talking about. Spilling gore was a sign of strength to them, not savagery.

Clearing his throat, Avix stamped out the fire. He noiselessly begged his captain to please stop trying to poke the sleeping rancor. At any moment he was ready for the Mand’alor to lash out.

But Din was unfazed. He picked Grogu up to deposit him in his pram, stating, “If you and your Rebel pilots spent half as many resources invading the lives of Imperial warlords that you waste on people like me, then maybe you would have made a fraction of the progress the Mandalorians have with eradicating the Empire.”

Twisting his mouth, Trapper’s eyes met the ashes where the flames still struggled for life a minute ago, refusing to watch the infuriating silver warrior step out of the tree line. He didn’t mean to rub it in, but Avix couldn’t help but shrug and offer, “He’s got a point, Captain.”

And then, they were off for the day.

There was sparse cover that only petered out the further the group traveled along the rolling fields. Din didn’t appreciate being vulnerable in the open; as tall as the grasses were, they weren’t enough to ease his mind. But he couldn’t be sure that there were trees to the east or west, and he wasn’t willing to take such a wide, timely detour to find out. So they trekked in a straight line in the direction of town, stopping to rest only a handful of times.

Eventually, Avix was convinced he was going to die of boredom. And from all that he had heard from Trapper, the Mandalorian certainly wasn’t boring. With a few hurried paces, he caught up to fall in line beside the hovering pram.

“So, Mando. I don’t mean to pry…”

“Then don’t.”

Avix scratched the back of his neck and decided to anyway. “Well, you know I have to ask. What were you doing out on Kethor?” For as much as he cared for his kid with blinding transparency, it wasn’t the safest place to bring him along planetside.

“Refueling.”

“Yeah, duh, but I mean in that parsec? It’s pretty far from Mandalore.”

The Mandalorian’s helmet tipped his way as he turned an equally intrusive question on him. “What’s on the chit?”

With a discouraged sigh, Avix stared ahead again, dragging his feet. “Got me there.”

Up to their left, a cargo ship lifted and rose toward the atmosphere. Considering they weren’t anywhere near the town, it wasn’t a sign of civilization. Sure enough, once they were closer, it looked to be a distribution center. Probably shipping out goods from the harvest, Din figured. Not a threat, though he kept his rifle out.

“Ahhh!” Grogu blathered, pointing out at the crest of a hill. Atop the slope stood a fathier-like creature, that watched the travelers vigilantly in between its grazing.

“Yeah, I see it too,” Din said.

Grogu remained transfixed on the animal for a moment, before turning to his father and signing, “I like him.”

Unconsciously, Din smiled. He kept his visor trained on the kid’s enjoyment, on his bright eyes—like Peli called him—before reaching out and brushing a fond finger across his cheek. Memories as simple as this one were as precious as coaxium, now that he knew what a life absent of such innocent happiness was like.

Noticing the hand gestures that the child used to communicate again, Avix inquired, “How many languages does he know?”

Did that Jedi mind thing count as a language? Probably not. “Three,” Din replied.

And because he would never answer more than asked, the lieutenant had to prod him onward. “Which ones?”

“Basic, of course. He understands Mando’a, but a lot of the words are too harsh for him to pronounce.” Even if the culture was beginning to thrive again, the Mandalorians still spoke much Mando’a around the foundlings and younglings, and Grogu was no exception. Din added, “He speaks most fluently in Tusken.” Basic was always inborn, but full sentences were difficult for the kid to sound out, so he often resorted to signing.

Tusken? So that’s what the hand signals were. What an interesting fact for Avix to find out.

“Wait.” Din shot to a stop and threw out an arm to halt any advancement from anyone else. “Do you hear that?”

The companions all listened intently above the whispering air. Grogu’s ears quirked up in the direction of the sound that took them all a moment longer to finally make out, and Din drew his blaster.

“Is that…beeping?” Trapper said, hushed.

With a collective glance between each other, they stealthily approached the hill they had yet to scale and laid prone upon its crest to find the source of the pinging sound. Not wanting to be left out of the mission, Grogu climbed out of his pram and sidled up next to his father to poke his head out at the empty fields.

“It’s a tracking fob,” Din confirmed, figuring the pilots wouldn’t be too familiar with the noise.

“On one of us?” Trapper asked. But how? It was near impossible to issue a bounty on a New Republic soldier these days. Perhaps it was Mando who was being hunted.

Din traded his blaster for his pulse rifle. The scope didn’t pick up any heat signatures in range, even as far out as the distribution center back to their left, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility of hunters over the parallel hill.

Avix murmured, “Only one way to find out. We have to get closer.”

“It could be a trap,” Din argued.

“But we have to know if someone is tracking us,” Trapper pointed out. “Maybe it has nothing to do with us, but we need to confirm it.”

“I’ll go,” Avix bravely volunteered, getting to his feet with his blaster, ready for action.

“Wait, stop,” Din snapped, to no avail.

The pilot was not deterred as he made his way down the slope, and the beeping didn’t change rhythm. Avix wasn’t the target. He looked back over at his fellow travelers, clearly searching for a cue or something.

Din set down his rifle and pulled his blaster again with a heated sigh. “Cover us,” he ordered Trapper. Before he made it over the hill, he sternly told Grogu, “Stay right there.”

Something was wrong about this. The Force was unsettled and hung heavy in the muted skies. “Dada,” Grogu piped up after him.

Trapper scooted closer to the child, prepared to snatch him if he dared to follow. He wasn’t that heartless.

Din hurried down the hill before lowering into a crouch, blaster raised and sweeping for enemies. Ahead of him, Avix followed his ears through the thin barrier of shoulder-height, amber weeds. Still, the tracking fob didn’t speed up.

“I see it,” Avix finally whispered over his shoulder. He pointed to the spot in the rough land where it was flashing. “It’s right there.”

Whatever was spiking cold through Grogu’s veins was not boding well. He knew beyond a doubt that there was impending peril. Before Trapper could catch him—the little guy was fast —he scampered over the hill, just out of reach of the hand.

“Boo!” Grogu called, very obviously distraught. He toddled down the slope with speedy steps.

“Kid, I said don’t move,” Din hissed back at him, his heart pounding.

About to go for Grogu, the Mandalorian glanced back just in time to watch Avix pick up the now accelerated tracking fob. As the young lieutenant shifted to stand upright, his foot landed on something that settled into the earth with a click, activating another, higher set of beeping beneath the dirt.

Avix’s eyes shot wide.

On instinct, Din whipped around to run, shouting, “Get down!—“

The thermal detonator exploded right beneath Avix, who was instantly killed on impact. Din managed to activate his jetpack just in time, or perhaps not soon enough, as he was caught by the bone-wracking blow right before slamming into Grogu. Unprepared for the boom, the kid only managed to throw up a shield for himself and not his father, who absorbed too much of the weapon’s wrath.

And Trapper, who had ducked to defend himself, peered over the hill with an open jaw and numb extremities.

Every part of Din hurt. His mind buzzed and his ears were still ringing back into sensitive coherence, but he thought he could hear himself asking the kid if he was all right while his hands searched for injuries. Grogu whimpered beneath him, covered in dirt, able to feel that his dad was in considerable pain. Guilty that he couldn’t react in time.

But Din couldn’t notice. Adrenaline pumped at high levels when he shifted with a loud groan to see several hunters sprinting out from their hiding spot behind the hill, coming to finish them off.

And Trapper was staring at the spot where Avix had been a moment ago, unmoving.

Crawling for his blaster, Din cried out when something in his chest shifted like it shouldn’t have. His lower limb was affected too, and it buckled beneath him. Unable to recover from the initial shock of the injuries, he couldn’t make it to his blaster before the attackers were upon them.

But Grogu was beside him, and Grogu was furious. These people had wounded his father—and the pilot who had become his friend in the last day—and they were not going to lay another hand on him. The Force hammered in his chest, like a wild creature ready to be unleashed as they thundered through the grass.

Once they were in sight and lifting their blaster rifles while Din was gathering one last burst of energy to defend his son, Grogu raised both hands.

Each of the five Klatoonians scuffed to a stop. Their hands moved from their weapons to their swiftly constricting throats to scramble for nooses that weren’t there. Choking sounds ensued, and Grogu’s fingers only flexed harder in response as he squinted with rage.

Panting and stunned into stone, Din had no choice but to spectate the alarming scene before him. The kid hadn’t been provoked like this ever since his time at the Jedi Academy; Din was warned about his power, had every belief in him, but somehow he couldn’t fathom what he was capable of until he saw the hunters’ faces morph into mauve, about to erupt with blood.

From his position on the hill, Trapper observed in complete disbelief. Despite extensively traveling the Outer Rim, he had never in his career witnessed such a phenomenon.

A blink later, and Din knew he had to put a stop to this.

“No, stop it!” he told the kid.

But Grogu wouldn’t let go, not until he was safe. Din took this hint when he saw each of the Klatoonians start to levitate off the ground, when he saw how his little body was strung so tight, now so strong that he didn’t even shake or tire.

No way was Din going to allow these deaths to be on his conscience.

A low drone was in Grogu’s ears, so loud that he couldn’t hear his father, nor the whistling birds that stole the lives from between his little fists, crumpling in the thickets.

They stared at each other, catching their breaths, Din relieved and Grogu too startled to worry if he was in the wrong.

Battle cries emerged from over the nearby slope, alerting the fields to the next incoming wave of attackers. It gave Din the last boost he needed to reach his blaster and stagger to his feet with a gasp, nearly pitching over with dizziness. Grogu rushed over to grasp the base of his leg in fear.

“Grogu, viini iviin’yc gar lise at ara’nov. Ni olaro mar’eyir gar,” Din breathed, in case some of the hunters were in hearing range.

The kid whined and gripped his boot tighter. His dad’s injuries thrummed like a second pulse; he couldn’t leave him, not when he was really, really not okay.

Din nudged him with his foot to get him off. “Hey, what did I say?” he barked. “Go!”

With his tiny form concealed well in the grasses, Grogu darted off in the direction of the depository like his dad demanded, breaths huffing all the way. He took a piece of Din with him, but the Mandalorian steeled himself with the resolve that this would not be his last stand.

It took the Mand’alor firing shots off to draw Trapper out of his temporary coma. As the hunters crashed through the stalks, Din took each of them down, only having his beskar skimmed once. The captain shuffled back into position and started picking off the others, yelling, “Come on, I’ll cover you!”

When Din caught on, he used the blaster fire to make an agonizing run for it back up the slope, grunting all the way. Trapper held off the crowd while the Mandalorian threw himself over the hilltop and produced his pulse rifle, and then they were really in business.

As illegal and horrifying as it was, Trapper had to admit that the Amban rifle was a great asset for them both at the moment. Each shot disintegrated any organic matter in its path, clearing both the amber weeds and the enemies the Mandalorian picked up with its thermal scope. Din was quick with it too, slamming the next bullet into the barrel with impressive dexterity—even half crippled—while Trapper was trying to get control of his shaking hands. But between the two of them, they managed to work together to clear out the field, though they were surprised at how long they were preoccupied, how long the attackers kept coming.

Once the last Klatoonian of the pack fell, Din aimed his rifle over towards the massive shipping warehouse, picking up a heat signal making a break for it. He held his breath and was able to place an accurate shot that decomposed the pursuant hunter.

“That all of them?” Trapper huffed, setting his hands on his knees. His tongue felt like sandpaper, like nothing that came out of his mouth was his.

Just as Din turned, a striker decided to give one final attempt at defeating them. He charged at Trapper from behind with a roar and an axe held high, and the Mand’alor gave one last effort to shove the tip of his rifle into his opponent’s gut, electrocuting him into submission. Trapper finished him off with a blast, gaping in incredulity at the enemy who had just saved his life.

The hills were noiseless now, aside from the dying embers that glowed where the thermal detonator had once resided. Dark smoke was gradually whisked away by a flat breeze as the two soldiers were left to themselves and their defeats in the aftermath.

Except, they were accompanied by a steady beeping.

With his eyebrows pulled taut, Din collapsed onto his knees—doing everything he could not to yell in pain—beside the fried bounty hunter and unclipped the tracking fob from his belt. So it wasn’t either of the pilots, and it wasn’t him…

He turned it in the direction Grogu had run, and the pinging increased.

“No,” he said out loud in blatant denial.

For years he had covered the kid’s tracks. He had killed Moff Gideon, hoping the interest in the Jedi perished along with him. He had worked to dismantle the Empire and wiped all data he could in the process. He had even demolished the one remaining laboratory on Delrakkin where the Jedi experiments took place. He…he thought it was over. He truly believed that there wouldn’t be such danger anymore now that the kid was home, now that they were free.

And now, there was a bounty on Grogu’s head again. Half the galaxy was already after him, and Din could barely muster the strength to stand, and all he could do was stare down at the blinking red light and quietly repeat, “No…”