a/n – Special thanks to .2019 for helping encourage me with the story!
I hope you guys like this chapter. I admit that this one was a challenge for some reason…
Sorry, if you saw the chapter and then it was gone. About five minutes after I posted this, I realized that I forgot to proofread it first… oops.
Chapter 12 – The First Encounter
Dyn and Ter'a entered Torno's workshop and he said, "Over here… have a seat." The Bothan pushed out two chairs for them in front of a computer console.
"Were you able to get any info off the file?" Ter'a asked anxiously. She'd had her doubts that anything of real value was salvageable, but she was trying to stay positive.
"Some, yes," said Torno as they seated themselves opposite him. "Now, not everything that you saved was salvageable, though…" he said quickly as she light up slightly.
"What did you find?" Dyn asked impatiently.
"I got Kashyyyk. Apparently, there is something relevant on the Wookiee planet. And the age range of a species that I couldn't get the name of." Ter'a sighed disappointedly.
"Which is?" Dyn asked.
Torno looked quite impressed as he said evenly, "As many 900 years…"
Dyn sat back in his seat, but Ter'a leaned forward with her eyes wide, "Are you sure?"
Torno looked at her sharply, "Of course, I'm sure. Do you think I found incorrect information?"
"Not at all," she said quickly. "It's just that… 900 years… that's… that's a long time."
"Very," nodded the Bothan, placated.
"So," said Dyn bringing the conversation back around, "Kashyyyk and 900 years? Is that it? That's all my credits bought?"
Smugly, Torno turned to look at Dyn and said, "From the degraded data… yes."
Dyn sat forward again and said, "So. What else?"
Ter'a could tell he was beginning to get anxious.
Torno paused, relishing the moment. He had a juicy factoid that he was about to share, and he was building the tension annoyingly… But Dyn was growing impatient, "What is it!"
"The species," he began, "Is either very small in population, or rarely seen off their homeworld. But," he continued about to drop the bomb, "what is known, is that the species most well-known, prominent members were Jedi, and most were gifted in the use of the Force."
The room fell silent. Ter'a was outwardly projecting a look of mild surprise, and inwardly a thrill of fear. She knew now with all certainty that Torno had just signed his death warrant. Kashyyyk and 900 years weren't much of a lead, but they were more than nothing and would have meant very little to a backwater Bothan slicer. But with the revelation of the Jedi, he was doomed.
Ter'a looked at Dyn. He appeared unfazed by the comment, but she knew he had to be thinking along the same lines.
She thought quickly for a moment. How many people still knew about the Force anyway? Dyn hadn't and he was extremely smart and well-traveled… she thought if he didn't, many others wouldn't either. The problem with Torno was that he seemed to be acutely aware. But in an effort at nonchalance she said, "The… Force? What exactly is that?"
Dyn made a subtle motion that she only just noticed. Suddenly, everything was very tense.
"I would have thought you knew about the Force," said the Bothan smoothly. "After all, how many bounty hunters carry a lightsaber around?"
Dyn pulled out his blaster and jumped to his feet in a single, fluid motion. Ter'a stared at Torno in shock. "Wh-what?" She tried to play dumb again, but it came out more as surprise at his guess.
"Do you two think I'm a fool?" Torno looked only at Dyn now, who was holding him at gunpoint.
"How long have you known?" he asked Torno.
"Since the cantina. There are still some who know a lightsaber when they see one."
"Did you transmit the data to anyone?"
"Just one."
"Who!" Dyn yelled. Ter'a jumped. It was the first time she saw him panic.
"The honorable Moff Gideon. He sent word around the Outer Rim territories that a Mandalorian and a human woman might come looking for refuge, information, help, or some other type of aid. Said he'd pay handsomely to anyone with information."
The blaster rang loudly in the workshop and Torno fell to the floor dead.
Dyn dropped the blaster on the counter and sat down. "He knows," he said softly. "he knows about Kashyyyk. We can't go there now… it'll put us and all the Wookiees on Kashyyyk in danger."
"We have to do something," Ter'a said putting her hand on his.
He took a deep breath, and she knew he was trying to figure out a work around. He got up and went to the computer console and opened Torno's mail.
"He did it," Dyn confirmed. "Here's the mail. Gideon responded back too." He looked up at Ter'a. "He's gunna be waiting for us at the ship after the storm passes."
"We'll fight them."
Dyn tapped on the counter for a moment then said, "No… no we're going to head back to the ship now. Wait inside and as soon as the storm passes, we'll take off. We'll have a better chance in space than here… he's bound to bring a platoon… or more… like Navarro."
Dyn stood and deleted the entire contents of the Bothans computer and said, "Come on, let's get you ready."
Ter'a looked at him uncertain. "You literally told me that I can't go out there. I don't have armor like you."
"I know, we have to find some stuff around here to cover up your skin…" he looked around and quickly found a pair of mechanics googles and gloves. He stepped close to her put the googles on her and helped her slip her tender hands into the gloves. He looked her up and down to check for other exposed skin before removing his cloak again and wrapping it tightly around her head and neck.
"There. I think that's as good as we're going to get at the moment. You'll get sand all in your clothes by the time we get there, but you shouldn't get hurt now."
Still unsure about her makeshift attire compared to his armor, Ter'a nodded apprehensively and she stepped up to the door with the child's sleep pod close behind. But before he opened the door, Dyn turned to her and pulled her into his arms and said, "Whatever happens, we have to get to the ship. When we get into space, we'll make the first jump we can get coordinates for."
She nodded against his chest, "To the ship. First jump coordinates."
He released her and opened the door.
As soon as Dyn opened the door, he wanted to close it again. Everything out there was so harsh and unpleasant, while everything in here was nice and quiet. They looked out at the sand lashing furiously at everything it touched. It looked like a tan fog had settled on Mos Eisley. He would have been lying if he said he wasn't worried about Ter'a's jury-rigged sandstorm protection. If her skin became exposed, even for a second, it would cause painful, sandy, rash-like wounds. He'd keep her close to him at all times to make sure that her soft skin stayed protected and he didn't know what Jedi powers could protect her from a sandstorm. He gestured her out first and he saw her clothes whip up instantly in the high winds.
He followed her out and they made painfully slow progress up the street back towards the spaceport. They ducked in and out of every crevice they could take shelter in. Often times it was only large enough for her to stand in and so he'd stand in front of her and block as much sand as possible and they'd secure any parts of her outfit that had come loose in the wind. Once, his cloak nearly flew off and her neck was exposed for about fifteen seconds before he could cover her back up and she'd been left with what looked like a painful patch of road rash on the right side of her neck.
Finally though, after about an hour into what would normally have been a fifteen minute walk, they entered the spaceport through a side door into a passage that was clearly seldom used and for the moment, empty.
After the howling of the storm outside, the deserted spaceport seemed suspiciously quiet. They hurried through the passages to the ship and saw from the entrance that the area was quite empty. Dyn stepped out and took a few paces towards the ship and a shot rang out. Ter'a felt horrified as she watched him fall. But she realized that he'd only been grazed. The blaster bolt had skimmed across the outside of his right thigh a few inches above the knee. She winced though for the pain that he must've felt from the heat and contact of the shot. She watched as eight troopers stepped out of the seemingly empty shadows with their blasters trained on Dyn. Then a voice from behind the Crest said, "Dyn Djarin."
Moff Gideon stepped out of the shadows looking extremely pleased with himself as he looked at Dyn who had gotten rather shakily to his feet. "You know why I'm here. Give me the child, and I might let you live." He paused before adding bitterly. "Despite the damage you did on Navarro…"
"We both know you aren't letting me off this planet," said Dyn. Ter'a heard the pain in his voice.
Ter'a knew what she had to do. Gideon was definitely going to kill Dyn if she didn't intervene. She dug deep inside herself and channeled the Force. She'd need the speed and agility from the light side, and the dark side would enable her to channel the pain from the sand wound on her neck, which was bloody and full of grains of sand which scratched like shards of glass and snagged on the fabric touching it. She pulled her lightsaber off her belt, Dyn's cloak off her head, and stepped out of the shadows.
Dyn hit the ground and the pain in his leg was considerable, but not unbearable. More than anything he was trying to figure out how eight stormtroopers and the Moff had gotten here. The only way he could think of was the same way they had. On foot. They were quite as sandy as he and Ter'a were… They'd had to have landed outside the storm and walked in. If that was the case, the storm was very likely to be over soon. He if could just get to the ship with Ter'a, he could lock it down and they'd be safe inside it…
Another worry suddenly struck him. Ter'a. His eyes widened and he hoped to Mandalore that she had the sense to stay hidden. But as soon as the thought passed through his brain, the sound of her lightsaber igniting to his right made his heart sink. Now Gideon knew about her too. He looked up to see her coming out of the shadows with her blade in her hand and a look of fury on her face. As he watched her spring into action, time seemed to slow. The blue glow of her saber attracted all of their enemies to her like bugs to a lamp. He watched her raise the saber in slow motion and then all hell broke loose as she brought it down.
As she battled the troopers, sending blaster bolts back towards their owners with her saber, stopping them in midair, and jumping around so often, that she was virtually untouchable. He inched towards the ship as he was told himself to go to it, power it up, and hide the child. As Dyn watched the action, saw her full power and now he understood what she meant when she said she had to channel the dark side carefully and not to let too much out.
After only about sixty seconds, which felt like sixty minutes, all of the troopers were dead and she stood facing Gideon. He watched her with just as much interest as Dyn had. Indeed, he didn't say a word when she slaughtered the troopers. Dyn looked left at Gideon and right at Ter'a. She still had a look of fury on her face that seemed to belong to another person. Dyn edged to the Crest's ramp and hit the button to lower it and Gideon spoke to him but didn't take his eyes off Ter'a.
"Dyn. You never told me about the interesting company you keep. This young woman will make a fine specimen in my lab. If you let me take her, you'll never see me again." He paused and then finished, "I'll even let you keep the child."
Dyn scoffed. Firstly, he'd die before he let Gideon take Ter'a and use her for twisted Imperial research on Force sensitives. Secondly, he'd like to see Ter'a allow him to try and take her. Glancing at her, it was clear that she'd die before that happened. He also knew that she'd die before she let Gideon touch him or the child.
"If you think that she'll let you touch her, or that I'll let you touch her, you're dumber than I thought," said Dyn antagonizing him. "Plus, you're outnumbered two to one." He pulled out his blaster and vibroblade.
Gideon saw this caveat as well because he said, "Perhaps, we can finish this amiably on Kashyyyk?"
But before Dyn could say anything, Ter'a took a step closer to him and simply said, "No." But this was an echoing 'No'. She said a thousand words with one. With one word, she was saying that Gideon was in danger. That he was treading on thin ice. That she'd kill him if she ever saw him again. That he wouldn't touch anyone.
In the tense silence, Dyn backed up the ramp with the kid's pod, still looking back and forth. He turned and ran as fast as his injured leg would allow up the ladder and started the ship's systems. While he waited for everything to power on, he entered coordinates for a planet he knew called Savareen. He ran back down to the ramp. Gideon was talking to Ter'a. He was trying to tell her how she could help the Empire, how they would reward her. He furrowed his brow when he noticed that she'd switched her lightsaber off.
"Come with me child," Gideon said. "I can pay you far more than this simple bounty hunter. Offer you far more."
For a moment, a split second, Dyn thought he had swayed her. But when she spoke, he knew Ter'a had zero intentions of helping Gideon and that he had made a terrible enemy.
"I know the only things you will offer me is a lifetime of scientific servitude and pain," she spat. She was radiating power that was even palpable to Dyn. The dark side.
Understanding that he wouldn't sway her position, Gideon took out his own weapon. A lightsaber hilt. And ignited it. And so, Dyn saw the Darksaber for the first time. It looked amazing. A long-hilted saber with a black blade that had a white aura. He knew from Ter'a's dream that that blade had belonged to the first Mandalorian Jedi Knight, Tarre Vizla. And he knew that it belonged back with the tribe.
Ter'a took this action as a personal threat and attacked him, full of rage. It became clear to Dyn within seconds that Gideon had no strength in the Force, but that he was trained in saber combat. They battled for a few moments before Ter'a disarmed him and sent the Darksaber flying by means of slicing Gideon across the chest as his armor melted from its plasma blade. Gideon fell backward with a grunt of pain but sat up almost immediately. It seemed that she'd only wounded him. The Darksaber landed several meters away, switched off, near the hangar entrance.
Suddenly, as she moved in for a killing blow, a blaster bolt hit the wall above her head. Dyn and Ter'a spun to see what looked like a platoon of stormtroopers beginning to file into the hangar.
"Run!" Dyn yelled at her.
Her face cleared of the dark side influence and she ran, dodging bolts, stopping a few in their tracks, and deflecting still others back at whomever fired them with her saber. She ran up the ramp past Dyn and up to the cockpit as he closed the ramp and locked the ship down. She turned on the deflector shield and hit the boosters to get the ship into the air. By the time the ship broke out into the light of the twin suns Dyn had joined her in the cockpit. He was pleased and surprised to see that the sandstorm was conveniently gone. Ter'a got up and let him fly them out of Tatooine's atmosphere and into space. He maneuvered them into the hyperlane to Savareen and threw the switch to engage the hyperdrive.
Ter'a's body squished back into the copilot seat as the ship entered hyperspace. She was shaking her head, trying to clear it of any remnants of the darkness that consumed her during the fight in the spaceport. She had been so furious when Gideon had shot Dyn. She closed her eyes and began to meditate in the copilot's seat to clear her headspace and come back to herself completely. After a few minutes she felt free and clear of her rage and the dark side and slowly opened her eyes.
Dyn had turned and was watching at her, looking concerned. "Are you okay?" he asked her as soon as she looked at him.
She smiled. "I'm fine. I just had to meditate to center myself in the light again." Then she frowned, remembering that Dyn had been wounded. She unstrapped herself and slid down onto the floor to get a closer look at his wound. "Does it hurt?" she asked him, looking concerned.
He looked down at his leg. And said, "Not too bad…" But she wasn't convinced by the barely there strain in his voice.
She grabbed his hand and said, "We need to get a bandage on this," and pulled him to his feet.
Her hands were still sore, but his generous applications of bacta gel had really worked wonders. This was particularly fortunate now, since it was his turn for some medical care.
They went down the ladder and she led him to the bed and had him sit down while she retrieved the medical bag and washed her hands.
"It's really not too bad," he insisted as she kneeled on the deck in front of him. But she knew he wasn't used to having someone help him with an injury.
"I know," she began, "but it still needs to be tended to. Plus, I know you're in pain…"
He cocked his head at her in questioning. She looked at him and rolled her eyes and smiled. "I can hear it in your voice. And…" she added offhandedly, "I can feel your pain through the Force."
"Of course you can," he rolled his eyes in return. She delicately peeled the burned and melted fabric of his trousers off the edges of the wound and he hissed. "Ah, careful…"
With her face close to the wound she said, "I am. But there's melted fabric here… I have to get it out."
For about ten minutes he watched quietly with his teeth gritted as she cleaned the wound. She was pleased that he only made noises of discomfort a couple more times, and they were due to the removal of the melted fabric that had hardened and stuck to his torn skin.
After she cleaned the wound, she examined it again. "It's not too bad. But you'll have a small scar."
He shrugged, "I don't care about that."
She smiled and pulled out the tube of bacta gel that he'd used on her before and put some on her fingers and spread it gently over his wound and merely dabbed it onto the more sensitive and damaged area. He winced slightly, but she could sense his feelings of relief.
After the bacta, she placed a fresh bandage on the wound, closed the bag and made to go put it away, but Dyn grabbed her hand and said, "Wait." She turned. "What?"
He pulled her back and said, "It's your turn. I want to look at your neck." Her hand flew up to her neck and she hissed in pain. She'd forgotten about the lacerations the sandstorm had left behind there. And suddenly she was very aware that she was covered in sand. She looked down and everything she was wearing was permeated with it. The greys and blacks of her clothes were mottled with the tan of the sand. Even her movements suddenly felt gritty due to the sand that settled itself between her clothes and her skin. "Maybe I can shower first?" She requested. He took a breath and said, "It'll only take a moment. And I want to make sure it gets properly cleaned."
She nodded in consent and he motioned her to sit next to him on the bed. He took off his gloves and got up to wash his hands before returning to her. He gently tilted her head with one hand and pulled the neck of her tunic down slightly with the other so that he could see the wound properly. "It's not bad, but it's very irritated."
He tucked her tunic under itself so that it would stay out of the way and dove into the medical bag. First, he pulled out an alcohol wipe to disinfect it and try to get out most of the sand. "This is gunna burn like hell…" she nodded. Despite the warning, she still gasped and squeezed her eyes shut as the alcohol bit at her injury. After he finished with the alcohol her shoulders relaxed but her skin still stung. "Did all the sand come out?" she asked him? He leaned in to get a closer look. "Mmm… not quite. I guess you do need to shower…" She smiled sarcastically at him and got up to head to the shower. "After I come out will you put on the bandage?"
He stood and nodded. She turned and went to the head and closed the door.
His head didn't have an ion cleaner in it so there was no way for her to clean her clothes at the same time as she showered. She supposed that she could wash them out in the shower, but they'd need time to dry. So, she went back out to grab one of her three sets of spare clothes and looked around. It appeared that he had taken the child and went up to the cockpit.
She went back to the head and turned on the shower. She was glad of this time to be alone. She wanted to think about what had happened in Torno's guest room… She took off her clothes and stepped into the shower with them in her hands. The water ran over her and the clothes. It was incredibly warm and comfortable. As she held each piece of clothing up to the water and scrubbed it out with her hands and the soap, she thought about the last several hours. It seemed that every time they were planet-side together, something dangerous had to happen.
She also wasn't surprised that Torno betrayed them in the end, but she was surprised how quickly Gideon came for them. He really wanted the child. And now, he knew about her and her abilities too… He seemed quite as fascinated with watching her in action as Dyn had been. But whereas, Dyn watched her with alluring charm and admiration, Gideon, watched predatorially and with thinly veiled mania and greediness.
Still, they escaped. Dyn had been injured, but not seriously. Now they needed to hide for a brief time while they regrouped and thought about how they'd get to Kashyyyk under Gideon's radar.
There had also been their moment in the room she wanted to consider. He had been so tender with her. Rubbing the bacta gel on her hands the first time in the ship had felt so nice, and it had given her thoughts and ideas that she'd never had about a man before. Of course, she thought about these things only vaguely when she decided to purchase the sleeping mask. Mostly she'd gotten it for the purpose of wearing it so he could take his helmet off when they were doing things together like eating and sleeping in the same room. However, it came in very handy when he was rubbing the bacta on her at Torno's. She'd gotten the same feeling as before… a desire. A need… somewhere in the lower regions of her stomach. Then a light had gone off in her mind, but oh, was she nervous. Thinking back on it as she scrubbed sand and shampoo out of her scalp, she thought she was absolutely crazy to suggest it.
But he was perfectly willing. She sensed his feelings. She knew he wouldn't object. The issue was that she meant to keep her promise and not coax him into something he would regret. But she'd reasoned that he took his helmet off of his own accord when they slept together after her nightmare. That, and only that, is what gave her the courage to ask him at all.
It had felt so nice… when, after teasing her some, he had pressed his lips to hers. It felt magical. His lips against hers had sent jolts of pleasure throughout her body. Then when he took it a step further, her body began to respond to his of its own accord and she had met his energy with her own. When she broke the kiss and began to kiss and nip along his jawline, she remembered with a smile how feral he seemed to become. He'd grabbed her bodily and tossed her backward on the couch. Though violent it might have seemed, she loved it. And when he pushed up her top to freckle her skin with kisses, a distinct ache rang out from below her waistline and spread throughout her whole body like an earthquake and her eyes rolled back and she let out a gasp of air.
She blinked several times and took a deep breath. She was feeling very aroused. She wanted Dyn in here… she smiled at the thought, but this tiny shower barely fit her let alone the both of them. Still, despite herself and her desire to control her urges, her hand drifted down below her waist and she massaged herself for a few moments, and forced herself to keep quiet. Soon she had to lean against the shower wall to catch her breath and let her body relax.
After she'd calmed back down, she set about finishing her shower and making sure all the sand had been removed from her clothes.
Dyn sat in the cockpit with the kid on his lap. He'd come up here after she went to the head so that she could have some privacy. There wasn't much room in the head, so she'd need to come out in order to dress.
The kid was sitting contentedly on his lap playing with his favorite control knob. Since Ter'a had showed him the levitation trick, he spent many idle hours replicating it and it never seemed to get old for him. Even Dyn liked to see them both do Force tricks. It was fascinating to see someone move something using only their mind… he remembered his shock at seeing the mudhorn levitate back on Arvala-7. And he was still impressed that the kid had been able to do it.
Sighed he looked out the viewport. Hyperspace whirled past the ship, though it looked like they were shooting through some sort of fiberoptic tube. His eyes glazed over as they usually did when he watched hyperspace zoom by outside the ship, and his mind wandered. This time, it went back in the other direction to Tatooine. He thought idly on the events on that planet. He'd gotten shot. That hurt. And he rubbed his leg absently in response. Ter'a killed a bunch of stormtroopers and Gideon found out about her. Dyn shook his head and sighed deeply. He was troubled now that Gideon found out about Ter'a and her abilities. He frowned deeply. He knew Gideon would want to exploit her power and when he saw Gideon's reaction to it confirmed his suspicions and greatly disturbed him. He had looked at her with a great hunger… like a beast of prey who had found a particularly delicious morsel that it would not stop hunting until he had destroyed it and devoured every last crumb.
Dyn was filled with a sudden and consuming fear for Ter'a. This was followed by an equally sudden and consuming knowledge that he wouldn't let Gideon touch her. His hate for the Moff and his men had grown tenfold in a matter of seconds.
With a deep breath, he sank back in the seat. The kid stopped played for a moment and looked up at him. He reached up with his tiny tridactyl hands and grabbed the edges of Dyn's helmet. For a long moment they looked at each other. The kid knew, somehow, that Dyn was anxious and he was able, somehow, to leach it out of him. Looking down at the kid, Dyn couldn't help but feel like everything would be okay in the end and so he gazed back out of the viewport. He watched the kid climb out of his lap and struggle into his sleeper pod to take another nap.
Looking down at the console, his mind drifted to different things… His time in Torno's room with Ter'a for instance… He smiled as the thoughts and feelings that he'd felt then ghosted back across his mind and body briefly before floating away again. He liked what had happened between them and was quite keen to do it again. Perhaps after they'd both showered…?
Below decks, he heard the sound of her exiting the head. He wanted to go down there and see her, but he wanted to give her her privacy. So he waited.
Ter'a felt great. It was one of those showers that really leaves you feeling quite refreshed.
She dressed quickly and brushed and braided her hair before heading up to the cockpit.
"I feel so much better," she told him with a smile as he turned to greet her at the top of the ladder.
He nodded, "And your hands?"
She held them up happily. The bacta had worked wonders in such a short time. Her hands were no longer swollen and bruised, though they still carried a slightly yellow tinge that comes with healing bruises. The cuts on her knuckles had shrunken significantly and were scarring over slightly, and the staple he'd put in her hand was gone as she pulled it out after her shower.
He nodded his approval. "And your neck?"
She turned to let him see better. "I think I got all the sand out. And I put some bacta on it."
"Good girl," he said. And she caught a shiver from his words.
"Your turn," she smiled at him. "Go take a shower, you're even more filthy than I was."
He looked down at himself just as some sand leaked comically and unceremoniously from underneath his chest plate.
He held his hands out as though trying to figure out how he got so dirty, sighed and said, "Yeah, I guess so." He got up and headed down the ladder.
Ter'a looked at the child in his little bed. He had the control knob clutched in his tiny fist, and his eyes twitched slightly as he slept. With a chuckle, she sat herself in the captain's chair and checked the all the systems before gazing out of the viewport. For the next twenty minutes, until Dyn returned, she thought about nothing at all.