Chapter 4 – Taking Flight (Dyn's Perspective)
After all the agreements were made, the sun had sunk low on Takodana's tree filled horizon and even though he knew they should get a move on, Dyn wasn't keen on leaving until he'd had some quality sleep. He hadn't slept a full night's sleep in several weeks and was feeling distinctly worn down after all the events that had transpired after he'd gone back to Navarro to rescue the kid. Maz had left shortly after their conversation about Ter'a coming with Dyn and the kid, and left Dyn and Ter'a alone again. Before Dyn had the chance to say what was on his mind, Ter'a spoke. "I know it had to be some time since you've had a quality night's sleep Mando. Perhaps you should take a room here at the castle and sleep a full, helmetless sleep before we set out."
Dyn looked at her. She was an enigma. Even though most people knew that Mandalorians kept their helmets on in the presence of others, she spoke a common knowledge fact in a way that suggested she knew much more about his people than most. "Thanks," he said. "You're right, I think I will… I'm too exhausted to go back to the Crest tonight." In all honesty, he could have made it back there easily, but Maz's castle was a safe place, he trusted Ter'a with the kid, and no more troopers were likely to come until morning after sufficient time had passed for those who sent them to decide that the ones they'd sent were dead. "I'll meet you at the castle door at first light?"
"Sure," she said nodding, then added, "I am well-rested so I'll gather supplies tonight and load them in the ship tonight. That way, we will be ready to leave first thing."
Dyn nodded, thanked her, and left.
Maz gave him a private room on the top floor of the castle, far from the hustle and bustle of the cantina, which was, sometimes busy late into the night. Dyn closed the door behind him as he entered and locked it. The first thing he did after locking the door was remove his helmet. He'd kept it on, even in the presence of the kid for days and days at a time now, so that it had begun to feel stifling rather than comforting for the first time since he'd begun to wear the armor. As he pulled it off, his curly brown hair fell free from it and his face felt the cool air of the Takodana night, and he closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. He walked to the window that looked out on the lake and opened it the rest of the way to allow the soft breeze to enter and sat down in the chair near it. Even though he was thoroughly exhausted from the last few weeks, the day's events were swirling in his mind and he'd wanted to ponder them for a while before attempting sleep.
As he sat, he reached up to his left shoulder and began to undo his armor and eventually got down to his briefs after finally peeling off his tunic. It felt amazing to have a fresh breeze on his skin after being so long in his armor and in space. After allowing himself a few moments time to stare at the nothingness in the sky, he decided he should take a shower and clean his clothes before sleeping; he'd do his thinking in the shower and kill two shriek-hawks with one stone. After putting removing his briefs and taking all his clothes to the ion cleaner and turned it on. It wasn't quite the same as running them through the full water cycle, but it'd get them clean again and Maz's even had a scent release at the end that would make them smell fresh. He ventured into the washroom now and turned on the shower. After a moment to allow the water to heat up, he stepped into the warm water and began to wash off with some earthy smelling soap. As he scrubbed, he zoned out and began to think… The girl, Ter'a, appeared to have the same mysterious power that the kid did. She was clearly well-equipped to handle herself, though she didn't seem particularly motherly. He didn't need or particularly want her to be motherly, he just wanted and needed her to guide the kid in the right direction as a coach or a teacher. Granted, the kid might still be too young yet and may be in need of some parenting. In this case, it would be nice to have someone else to help him. He wasn't, after all, very paternal himself, he didn't know how to raise a kid, and he wasn't particularly keen to do so. He never really wanted a family, but rather, a sense of belonging. Wasn't that why he adopted the kid as his own after all? Hadn't he seen the child as a lost foundling, alone in the universe just like he, Dyn had been? So, he reasoned, he'd wanted the kid to help him in the same way the Mandalorians had helped him as a child, to save him from a premature death at the hands of the Empire or the Separatists or whoever. He'd also wanted a clan more than a family. Even the other Mandalorians on Navarro had banded together underground, but Dyn, who never stayed in one place for long, had never fit in . The kid and Ter'a were now his clan, at least for the time being and this made him feel content.
As he moved on to washing the sweat out of his hair, Dyn, satisfied that he'd come to a satisfying conclusion about his new companions and his desire to have them around, began to ponder this Force that Maz and Ter'a had talked about. He'd heard of it before from the Mandalorians of the Tribe. They'd spoken of religious zealots who used it, channeled it, and bent it to their will, but that was all he could recall. The Force was nothing he could use and he therefore set the information aside as unimportant. But now, it seemed very central and important. The kid had the power and so, it seemed, did Ter'a. He'd have to ask her to give him some history and context on the Force if both of his travelling companions were going to be using it so that he could ensure maximum efficiency of the group, but that would have to wait until tomorrow at least.
After rinsing his hair, Dyn didn't feel quite ready to exit the shower for the bed yet. He still had one more thing he wanted to think more about. Ter'a. She was a mystery, albeit a pleasant one. She'd been unafraid to approach him, she'd easily dispatched two armed stormtroopers despite having no obvious weapon, and she was intelligent. In addition, she was quite beautiful. He thought of her face. Her green eyes were brilliant, deep wells of knowledge, experience, and skill. There was something else in them too… Sadness? Loss? Lonliness perhaps…? She had suffered something in her past, that much he knew, and he found that he wanted to know what it was. To comfort her? To understand her? Both, he realized. He sniffed. This was a completely new desire for Dyn. He'd had a few rendezvous with women in his life, but he'd never particularly cared about any of them and they were all very short as he couldn't take his helmet off. Most recently, there was Cara. She was the closest he'd felt to what Ter'a had called a 'kindred spirit', but they'd shared nothing physical. Certainly, it would be difficult for him to have real relationship with a woman as the Creed dictated that if he took off his helmet for another, he couldn't out it back on. At least, not in the same way. He'd always thought that there had to have been some Mandalorians throughout the centuries that had had relationships and still put on the helmet at the end of the day and felt no sense of shame, but it had never been an issue for him to consider for himself. How would he feel about trying to put it on again, if he took it off?
He thought again of Ter'a. Her pink lips, her dark hair, her smooth skin. She was alluring to him to be sure. Although, he thought abruptly; you don't even know her. You've seen plenty of beautiful women… It was true, Ter'a wasn't the only alluring woman he'd ever run across in his travels across the galaxy. But still, there was something about her that was different.
He thought, as he turned off the water and grabbed the towel on the rack and wrapped it around his waist, that there was more about her than met the eye, and he would have to find out what it was. He was beginning to feel dazed as he pulled his clean briefs out of the ion cleaner and slipped them on; that shower had been like a tranquilizer… His last thought while sliding into the soft sheets and drifting off to sleep was that he couldn't have been more grateful to her for taking the kid tonight; he was incredibly grateful at the very least, for this night of silence and solitude.
Just as Takodana's sun was beginning to make its appearance and ascent into the sky for a new day, a hard banging at the door shook Dyn awake prematurely. He sat bolt upright in his bed and looked around for his armor, and his helmet in particular. He slipped from the bed, and looked at the door's console camera to see who was waking him up so urgently. It was Ter'a and the kid. He hit the comm and asked through the door, "What is it?"
"They're coming," came the response. "Let me in."
Sighing, he said, "Just a second." He moved back to the ion cleaner and pulled out his tunic and trousers and slipped them on, followed by his socks. Then he moved to the chair to step into his boots. He returned to the bed table and picked up his helmet and slid it onto his head just before unlocking the door. She burst in looking tired with a pink flush in her cheeks and stopped as the door hissed shut behind her. She looked him up and down, and suddenly he felt quite naked. He looked down then back up at her. Not only, he realized has it been quite some years since anyone had seen his face, but also seen him with so little on. Sure, he was technically full-dressed, but he felt naked without his armor and weapons. He hadn't even laced his boots.
"What?" he asked her self-consciously, knowing full-well what she was looking at.
"Nothing, really. I've just never seen a Mandalorian so underdressed." She laughed at him despite the urgency of the moment as she set the kid down on the bed. Dyn watched as he started to climb into Dyn's still-warm sheets.
"Well, I was asleep when you started banging on the door," he remarked as he began to finish dressing. He spared a glance at her. For her part, aside from looking quite tired now, she looked well put together. She'd obviously kept her word and stayed up all night preparing the ship and supplies, all while watching the kid.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"They just came out of hyperspace about five minutes ago. I've moved the Crest closer to the castle, so it's only about a three-minute walk now. I also finished preparing the ship and supplies a few hours ago and I've been monitoring the skies from the cockpit for the last three or four hours."
Dyn paused in his ablutions to gaze at her momentarily as she finished. He was impressed with her already. Okay, it was all obvious stuff that she'd been doing, and he knew she was smart, but he was still impressed with her preparedness nonetheless. She looked back him with her arms hanging limply at her sides. "What?" she asked.
"Nothing. I just didn't know you were actually going to finish all the prep stuff during the night."
"I told you I was. You didn't trust me? Or didn't believe me?"
"It's not that… I just… didn't know if you'd be finished, or if you got tired…or" he trailed off.
Ter'a looked at him annoyed, "I told you that I can handle myself. Did you not believe me?" She looked and sounded affronted.
Now he stopped what he was doing (fastening his cloak, which now hung precariously from his right shoulder) and walked over to her. He was considerably taller than her but that didn't faze her and she glared up at him through his helmet and into his eyes. "I never said that I didn't think you were capable, or that you couldn't handle yourself." He looked down at her, standing closer than was necessary, and saw that she looked to be analyzing his every word, looking for a lie. He took a step back, he had that feeling again. That feeling that she didn't need him to remove his helmet to see him, and once again it unsettled him. She let out a long low breath. He finished, "I just thought it was going to take you longer since you had to look after the kid, that's all. I told you he was a handful." He turned away and began to rearm himself with all his many weapons.
She waited for him to finish with his weapons before sighing and stepping close behind him and taking up his now trailing cloak in her small hands which was still only half-attached to finish fastening it to the hook on his left shoulder. He could feel her brushing against him as she stretched and struggled slightly to see where the hook was. Turning his head to the left to look down at her, he smiled to himself to see her finally struggle with something, but he bent his knees nonetheless to help her see in order to attach it. After she had hooked it on her hands lingered for a moment before trailing down his arm lightly and sending a tingling sensation down his left arm and back up and through his body. Time seemed to slow briefly as they gazed at one another so close together. But, as usually happens in life, they were shaken from their moment by the sound of a ship entering the atmosphere nearby. Dyn turned away and grabbed the kid while Ter'a opened the door and they ran out.
Dyn ran with the kid behind Ter'a down the spiral staircase of the castle and out into the daylight. They could see the trooper dropship approaching and he knew they'd be able to outmaneuver it once they got into the air. They ran together up the ramp and into the cargo area. Ter'a hit the button to close the ramp and then turned to accept the child as Dyn offered it to her so he could go up to the cockpit and get them off the planet and into hyperspace.
As he climbed the ladder, Dyn wondered vaguely, how did they know he was here? Perhaps the Moff had spies? Although he'd only just gotten to Takodana when he was waylaid… unless the spy was on Coruscant and knew where he was headed? Oh well, time was pressing now and he and Ter'a would consider that once they'd gotten a ways away. Shaking his head, Dyn had to concentrate on the moment. He had to get himself, Ter'a, and the kid somewhere safe before he could consider the next problem.
Once he reached the cockpit, he turned on the rest of the systems (Ter'a had the tracking system running already to monitor Takodana's airspace. The engines flared and lifted the Razor Crest off the ground and Dyn began the process of exiting the atmosphere. He purposefully steered the ship in the direction away from the dropship and punched it as fast as he dared while still inside of the atmosphere and so close to the castle. If he'd damaged Maz's castle with the heat and back wash of the engines, she'd never forgive him.
Just as he'd suspected, the dropship was too slow and underequipped to give chase but something new cropped up on his sensors. A dozen small craft had assembled just outside of Takodana's atmosphere. Dyn had a sinking feeling he knew what they were and why they were here… He hit the comm and called Ter'a to come up to the cockpit and strap in. As soon as she came up, she strapped herself in and held tight to the kid and moments later they entered space and found themselves the target of a dozen TIE fighters. Dyn had to use all of his flying prowess to fight them off and prepare to make the jump to light speed. He chose Coruscant as his destination for its dense population which would make it easy for them to hide, and began to prepare to make the jump while guiding the automatic weapon systems to fire on the TIE's. He felt Ter'a watching him multitask, not wanting to disrupt his concentration. The child was quiet. They took several hits to the rear and he redirected the deflector shield to the rear of the ship to prevent further damage. The weapons systems destroyed six of the ships by the time the jump calculations were ready. Dyn hoped the hits to the back of the ship hadn't damaged anything prior to their jump. Two more hits came as the stars became lines of light and they left Takodana's system.