The cloud of despair that once hung over Nevarro seemed to have lifted since the last time he was home. Din noted the streets were cleaner, broken street lights fixed, even some of the burned-out buildings looked to be in the middle of undergoing repairs.
Zo walked a few paces behind him through the unfamiliar territory. Cricket floated beside her in his little pram cooing at all the interesting sights. She was less excited and more wary. Especially since this place was known to home Imperial sympathizers. She had been to outer rim settlements like this before, rough and desolate with an undercurrent of hope. A strange mix of cutthroat scavengers, wary elders and laughing children playing in the crowded streets. The Force flowed through her as she tried to sense potential danger. She would not be caught unaware again, nor would she give the Mandalorian any more reason to distrust her. Mando strode forward confidently but she knew he was being just as cautious as she was. Every few paces his helmet would make a slow sweep left to right as he scanned the streets.
There was no current threat that she or the Mandalorian sensed, just curiosity and caution. She heard whispers from the surprised people they passed, "The Mandalorian is back… must be looking for a bounty… "
She felt echoes of violence everywhere, it seeped up from the very ground they walked on. Something pulled at her mind, an echo louder than the rest. Fear...so much fear and anger and death. She stepped away from Mando letting the Force guide her towards the source of all that trapped misery. Cricket let out a distressed cry as Zo drifted back through the crowd. His pram followed Mando as he trudged ahead unaware she was no longer following them. Zo retraced their steps, letting the Force take her to the place she needed to find. She stepped into a shaded alley that came to a dead end. The echoes continued growing stronger as she grew colder. She wrapped her arms protectively around her middle trying to ward off the chill.
There was darkness here or at least the memory of darkness. She could hear the blasters and panicked screams as if the firefight were still taking place. She felt the pull to keep moving but there was nothing in front of her besides a solid wall. She closed her eyes and let everything drop away. She sensed something to her left, a hidden hatch that anyone else easily might have missed. She waved her hand in front of the door, sending her will through the Force to open the locks. The hatch slid back with a hiss of stale air revealing a stairway traveling down into the darkness under the settlement.
Before she took the first step down into the gloom an irritated, prickly presence made himself known at the entrance to the alley. "What the hell are you doing ?" He demanded.
"What is this place?" She called to Mando as he marched towards her. She did not need to see his face or read his mind to know his emotions. He carried them in the tilt of his helmet and the tense rise in his shoulders. Cricket poked his big green ears over the side of his crib and even he seemed a bit perturbed at her.
"How did you… How in the hell did you find this?"
Mando sighed in exasperation. He reached for her arm wanting to drag her away. His gloved fingers grasped the air as he remembered the bruises he had already left on her arm.
"It's so cold." She mumbled, taking the first step down. "Do you feel it?"
"It's a hundred degrees out here." He grabbed her hand before she descended further, "Don't. There's nothing left." His voice was tight through the vocoder. He didn not want to go back down there.
Zo looked away from the dark tunnel to where his hand grasped hers. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "This was the Covert….this was your home-"
"Enough. I told you…" He whispered trying to keep his anger under control. "The kid's hungry. Come on."
She turned back towards the darkness and took another step down. "He's always hungry. He'll be ok for a few more minutes." She wrapped her fingers around his hand and he had no choice but to pull away or follow. "Please come with me. I don't want to go down there alone."
"I don't want to go down there at all." He sighed as she led them down to the tunnels. He had already seen what Moff Gideon and his stormtroopers did to his people. The mountain of broken helmets and bloody beskar… The Armorer at her forge, refusing to leave until she salvaged it all.
"Maker...what happened?" Zo murmured, finally releasing his hand. The kid cooed sadly from the safety of his pram as she wandered away from them.
"Zo, there's nothing left. If anyone survived they wouldn't come back here."
She seemed not to hear him as she stopped in front of the cold forge. The Force memories played out in front of her: a Mandalorian woman in a gold helmet barking orders to a cluster of her warriors, a group of frightened children with faces hidden behind T-shaped visors. "There were children here. They were evacuated through a tunnel down there-" She pointed to a dark alcove.
Mando stepped forward. "Did they make it?"
Zo shut her eyes and reached out, stretching her abilities as far as she could. "I don't know but They...they didn't die here. There was a Mandalorian, big...freaking huge." She nodded, "He got them out. I don't know where."
Mando let out a deep breath. "Paz...Paz got the foundlings out. Probably took them to the salt flats, we had a few ships there. I should have been here-" Beneath his helmet, he squeezed his eyes shut. She saw his fingers twitch towards his blaster like he could shoot at the phantoms she was seeing.
"You would have died like the others." She looked down at the shadows only she could see, still unsure why she had been drawn here. "They would have taken the child."
"You don't know that."
"I do. That's why you weren't here." She said walking towards a stone wall. "You were exactly where the Force needed you to be Mando."
He scuffed his boots in the dirt muttering, "That's nonsense."
Zo tilted her head, her coppery hair falling in front of her face as she reached one pale, shaking hand towards a scorch mark in the stone. This was what she was meant to see.
And she was afraid.
The fear coiled like a snake in her belly waiting to strike. "The Force is with us always, Mando, whether you believe in it or not." She said as she touched the stone.
The Covert smelled of ozone, blood and charred plastoid. Blaster fire erupted everywhere, the singe of a flame thrower blew past her right ear, the sharp 'chinnng' of a vibroblade cutting through armor echoed near the wall on her left.
They were outnumbered and outgunned. The Foundling's safety was paramount, the best warriors were to evacuate and protect them at all cost. Those left behind would hold back the tide of stormtroopers, keeping them from entering the maze of lava tunnels.
Zo stood in the middle watching as Mandalorians and stormtroopers fell. The echoes ran past her, through her but she remained invisible. It had been a long time since she waded through a Force vision. There was no way to escape until she faced her fear.
The air tingled with a static charge, Zo felt Force energy flow past her like a river running in the wrong direction. The cold vacuum left behind engulfed her. The pressure dropped in the stone tunnel, the air grew still as if every living thing had taken a sudden inhale. Bright blue lightning crackled out of the darkened stairwell and struck the closest Mandalorian, igniting their Beskar armor with electric fire. The agonized screams of the warrior trapped inside their steel sarcophagus echoed off the tunnel walls. The lightning sparked off the first and ran in a deadly stream between his closest brethren making them jitter spastically as their muscles fried and snapped. The lightning crackled and faded leaving disorienting black spots in Zo's vision. The Mandalorians baked alive in their Beskar fell to the ground soundlessly except for the hiss of hot steam escaping their armor. The remaining stormtroopers pivoted away from their combatants and retreated up the steps. The half dozen Mandalorians still breathing warily looked at each other contemplating their chances of escape.
Zo stepped forward on shaky legs when she heard the deep hum of a weapon that should not have been there. The red glow of the laser beam seemed to draw the gloom and shadows towards it, engulfing the wielder in a thick cloak of darkness. Hollow footsteps echoed off the stone steps. She started trembling, the cold was inside her trying to drag her down to the endless darkness.
This was a vision, a memory, it could not hurt her. Yet she called to her lightsaber instinctively. It was in her hand, the weight of the hilt solid against her palm. She thumbed the activation trigger and focused on the purple light, grounding herself and remembering who she was, who she was fighting to be again.
The red glow grew closer, the cold seeped down like a living thing eradicating the last vestiges of warmth in the tunnel. The Inquisitors burst forth from the black, their red blades blinding in the darkness. A male, tall and lithe, and a woman, small and fast as the lightning she had conjured from the dark side of the Force. They moved in unison like a pair of well practiced dancers. He spun his large body gracefully, swinging his double bladed lightsaber through the necks of two Mandalorians. She darted to and fro, her blade incredibly fast as she found all the soft, Beskar free parts on the remaining four Mandalorians.
Then just like that the Covert was silent.
"Shall we follow the others, Fourth Sister?" The man asked, sheathing his double bladed lightsaber. His voice was a rough growl through his helmet's modulator.
Fourth Sister shook her head slowly as she gazed down at the dead men and women at their feet. She removed her helmet. Her dull, shoulder-length flaxen hair tumbled free as she turned on her heels, looking down the tunnel where the foundlings had escaped. "No, Seventh Brother, we came to make sure he wouldn't have a place to hide the child. He is alone now. Gideon was very specific on how he wanted us to proceed. "
"I don't see why we continue to take orders from him. We could crush him and anyone else who stands in our way." Seventh Brother growled. Zo stepped back, pressing herself against the cold stone. They couldn't see her, she wasn't really there. She had been brought here to see the truth, to know the dangers she and the child still faced.
Fourth Sister sighed, "We will, when the time is right. We will take what is ours...after we find the child." She turned her sallow face toward her companion, the crimson glow of her lightsaber lit up her cruel smile and yellow eyes.
"No, no, no." Zo whimpered. Her frightened voice echoed off the walls.
The Inquisitor turned her evil eyes on Zo and smiled wider, "There you are, Jedi."
Zo scrambled back screaming. Or maybe she had been screaming the whole time. Her throat felt raw and bloodied. She screamed while she swung her lightsaber at the approaching figure, the beams met and Zo was thrown back... The world turned upside down, the vision dissolved and she fell hard to her knees. The last thing her fear clouded mind registered was the glint of Mando's beskar helmet and a blossoming pain in her left cheek.
Murmurs woke her.
Voices crowded together, confusing, words only half intelligible in her foggy state. Maker, her face hurt.
"I think it was the heat…" Mando's voice. Deep and raspy.
Cricket laughed and she groaned, clawing her way back to consciousness. "Wh-what happened?" She sat up and her head swam, dizzy black spots danced before her eyes. Two hands helped her sit up, warm, gentle. Not the rough leather and beskar gloves of the Mandalorian.
"Welcome back." Zo opened her eyes and looked up into the face of a woman she did not know. Her hazel eyes wide with concern, gentle fingers probing the throbbing in Zo's face. "Mando says you blacked out, hit your face on the way down."
"Blacked out?" Zo mumbled surveying her new surroundings. Tables, benches, paint cans... Mando stood a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest. His helmet pointed in her direction but she was not sure if he was looking at her or the other stranger, an older man singing a children's rhyme to the green monster in his arms. "Where are we? The tunnel… what happened in the tunnel-"
"You stumbled. Hit your face…it's hot outside. We haven't had anything substantial to eat except ration bars…"
"Damn it, Mando. I told you the kid can't live off those things… no one can except you damn Mandalorians." The older man grumbled.
Mando sighed, "Alright, Greef. It's been a long week, ok?" Zo smiled at his annoyance then grimaced as her cheek panged again. "Cara, you got anything she can put on her face?"
The woman in front of her nodded. "Yeah. We've got some first aid supplies around here somewhere…" She stood up once she was sure Zo was steady.
"Where are we?" Zo repeated. "Who are you?"
"I'm Greef Karga and this is my cantina… or what used to be my cantina. Until Mando here brought the Imperial death squad down on my place of business."
"I already apologized for that, Karrga." Mando grumbled.
Cara reappeared from another part of the bar holding a small jar. "This isn't as good as bacta but it'll help with the swelling." She dabbed a bit of the cream on Zo's face and it instantly felt better.
"Thank you. Cara?" The woman nodded, tucking a strand of wavy dark auburn hair behind her ear revealing an Alederanian tear tattoo on her cheek.
"The kid's hungry… I was hoping this place would be open for business..." Mando started. "I've got some repairs to make on the Crest and then I was looking to pick up a few jobs."
Greef laughed and shook his head, "Stars Mando, you're gonna fly that old thing until the repulsors fall off."
"That's the plan."
"Jobs I can get you when you're ready." Greef told him. "As far as the cantina is concerned, it's closed for good. But I can whip up a batch of my famous lizard-monkey stew, guaranteed to cure what ails ya." The kid cooed brightly like lizard-monkey stew sounded delightful.
"No!" Mando and Cara yelled in unison. Greef's smile fell and his eyes narrowed.
"I mean… How about the new Bothan cafe? We shouldn't make the kid wait any longer for his dinner." Cara suggested sweetly. "And...what was your name?" She looked over her shoulder at Zo.
"Zo- Zo Mara."
"Zo Mara needs to eat before she blacks out again and gets a matching shiner on the other side." Cara said.
Greef nodded, "Yeah, you're probably right. The stew's a work of love, it can't be rushed."
Greef and Mando spent the next few moments arguing about keeping the kid with them at the cantina or letting Greef take him on his errand. Karga just laughed, "Mando, Nevarro is not the same as you left it. Let him get out, stretch his little legs…"
"Absolutely not. He stays with Us."
"Let him go, Mando. Karga needs this, he's missed that little monster." Cara lay a hand on his shoulder and Zo noticed he did not stiffen or pull away from her touch. "He'll be safe." She promised. Mando sighed and nodded once. Karga realizing he was victorious carried the child out of the cantina before the Mandalorian could change his mind.
Cara waited until Greef and the kid were gone before turning her eyes back to Zo. "So, Zo Mara, how did you get mixed up with Mando?"
Mando stepped back and glanced at Zo. " I hired Zo to help me watch the kid." Zo looked up at him wondering why he didn't tell her the whole truth.
"You know anything about kids?" Cara asked.
Zo nodded, "Sure, I know not to let him put anything in his ears or up his nose, no playing in the vents or near a sarlacc pit ..."
"What sort of experience do you have?" Cara asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
She shrugged a shoulder, "None really. Never been around kids at all… at least not since I was one."
Cara ' hmphed' under her breath. "How'd you meet?"
"Ord Mantell. I tried to kill him, he tried to kill me. But that's all stardust, we're friends now." Zo answered, pushing herself off the bench where she had been laying. Mando held out his hand, she tilted her head doubtfully before taking it and standing. She swayed for a moment, images from her vision suddenly rushing back. Her hand went to her hip, searching for her lightsaber. She saw it hanging once again from his gun belt.
Cara smiled slyly, "You were a bounty weren't you?" Zo looked at Mando then nodded. He sighed as Cara started laughing. She clapped him on the back as she giggled, "You're as soft as a Hutt under all that Beskar."
"Shut your exhaust port, Dune." Mando grumbled, making Cara laugh harder. Zo smiled as Mando crossed his arms petulantly. "You two look like you've been busy." He said after a moment trying to change the subject away from his soft insides.
Cara nodded as she walked behind the cracked and splintered bar. "Yeah, well this place was a dump before the Imps tried to blow it up-"
Mando waited for the other woman's back to be turned before he grabbed Zo's arm, not painful but enough to drag her closer. "What the hell was that down there?" He hissed.
"Did you hit me?" Zo asked, touching her cheek .
Mando sighed, "You were scaring the kid. Swinging your lasersword-"
"Lightsaber-"
"Whatever the hell... Yeah, I hit you. I took my glove off first." He said like that was a kindness he didn't exactly owe her. "Do I have to worry about you doing that again?"
Zo shook her head, "No… we'll talk about it later. In private."
"We sure as rancor shit will."
Cara continued talking unaware of their sidebar. "Karga's been elected mayor pro tem. He promised to clean the settlement up, no more spice, no more Imps, tidied up the Guild...kicked a whole bunch of those assholes out. He's glad your back, jobs are piling up." She turned back towards them with a bottle of bright blue spotchka in her hands. Her eyes brows rose up at the sight of Mando's hand on Zo's arm and the closeness of their bodies. She pulled the cork out with her teeth not bothering to hide her smile.
Mando let go of Zo and walked to the bar, leaning his bulk nonchalantly against the dented wood. Cara offered him the bottle of spotchka which he of course waved off. "We've been burning through credits, chasing dead ends … Had been hoping for a big payout on the last job–"
Cara smiled and took a swig of spotchka. "Instead, now you have another mouth to feed."
"I can feed myself." Zo responded as she slowly walked the perimeter of the bar. The place looked like it had been through one hell of a battle. The paint on the ceiling was scorched and bubbled up. The entire place looked to be covered in a layer of soot. She could still detect the faint smell of smoke lingering in the building. The walls were riddled with holes bigger than her fists. She kept stopping in one particular spot a few paces from the door. She looked up at the black scorch marks on the ceiling. "The kid stopped an explosion?"
Cara choked on her spotchka. "How the hell did you know that?"
Mando turned his helmet towards Zo, "It was a flamethrower, not technically an explosion more of-"
"He stopped a fireball…" She turned to face him. "Do you have any idea the power and concentration it takes to control something like that?"
"No."
Zo hummed under her breath, "Me either."
Cara raised her eyebrows at Mando inquiring for a further explanation but got none from his emotionless helmet. "You want some spotchka? I hate drinking alone and it doesn't count with him here because all he does is stare." She asked knowing she was not going to get anywhere with the Mandalorian.
"No, thank you, I can't stand the taste." Zo sidled up to the bar next to Mando. "I'll take some Yavinian whiskey though."
"Sorry, spotchka's all we got left. No point in ordering more booze…" She took another long swallow of the blue liquor and grimaced. Zo eyed the panel on the wall behind Cara. The shock trooper obviously had no idea about the panel, there was no deception in her statement about the liquor. Zo pushed herself away from the bar, brushing past Mando as she made her around to the other side where Cara stood.
"Karga's really not going to reopen the cantina?" Mando asked.
"Nope. Cantina's are nothing but hives of scum and villainy… We've got some ideas for this place but it's going to take a few more months to iron out all the details."
Zo looked at the dented panel behind Cara sensing it held secrets. Secrets that Cara was unaware of. She raised her hand, pulling the panel with the Force. The metal crumpled and fell free. Cara let out a startled yelp as a bottle of Yavinian whiskey flew into Zo's hand.
"Don't you think the walls have enough holes in them?" Mando asked dryly.
She shrugged, "One more won't hurt."
"How the hell did you do that?" Cara asked, staring at the crumpled panel.
Zo unscrewed the cap on the bottle of whiskey and took a long pull before answering. "Magic."
"Karga's gonna be pissed. We just painted that wall," Cara muttered standing on her toes to investigate the rest of the treasures hidden inside the wall. She pulled out a lockbox stuffed to the brim with credit disks, a blaster, and three galactic passports.
"Maker, give me patience we just painted that." Karga grumbled as he rejoined them, arms full of their dinner boxes. The kid toddled after him, slurping down the remainder of an ice cream treat.
"That's what I told her." Cara huffed.
Karga set the boxes down and inspected the items Zo had discovered hidden away in his former bar. "Well, I'll be a son of a bantha. I knew Tig was skimming from the register." He muttered angrily sifting through the stolen credits.
They ate dinner there in the burned out remains of the former cantina. Well everyone except Mando, he kept his food in the box Karga had delivered letting it grow cold, saving it to eat later when he had more privacy. Cara and Mando discussed the dead ends he and the kid had run into. He avoided the last few days though, leaving the stories of Gor Koresh and Crex between him, Zo and the kid. The former shock trooper did not have any new leads for him. The Mandalorians were as elusive as always. She knew even less about the Jedi than he did. Greef was of absolutely no help either, mostly because he was too distracted by the kid. "As soon as you can get that rust bucket of yours in the sky I've got a few jobs you'd be interested in. Pay's good; might help you three find your way."
Mando nodded, "I'd appreciate it."
He didn't press Zo any further to explain what had happened down in the tunnels. Instead he all but ignored her as she resumed her pacing. She circled the small space of the cantina a hundred times, replaying the vision she had been shown, taking sips from the bottle of whiskey.
Greef eyed the woman each time she walked past him. His brow furrowed in concentration. "Have we met before?" He finally asked.
Zo glanced down at him. The kid sat in his lap stacking empty paint cans then knocking them over. "Don't think so." She responded.
Greef hummed, "You look so familiar… Did you used to work for Bib Fortuna?"
"Fortuna? Never heard of him." She stopped again staring at the wall.
"Hmmm, no no I know I've seen you before. I've got a thing for faces…" Greef would not let it go. Zo stopped her pacing and stood in front of him. She felt him make the connection before he realized it. His dark hazelnut eyes sparkled with his own cleverness. "You were head of security for the Balbab cartel!" He said, snapping his fingers with excitement.
Zo cocked her head with a sigh. The wave of her first three fingers was barely perceptible as she turned her will toward Greef Karga. "We've never met. I just have one of those faces."
The clever sparkle in Greef's eyes evaporated. "No. We've never met. You just have one of those faces." She let out a relieved breath glad in this instance he was easy to manipulate. She met her reflection in Mando's cold visor before resuming her pacing. She stopped every so often and touched a part of the wall or stared off into space.
Cara finished her spotchka with a sigh. "Ok. Enough. I've seen a lot of weird shit lately. But she's the weirdest," she pointed a finger at Zo who stood unmoving, staring at a space on the ground. "What the hell is she doing?"
Mando sighed, "I don't know. Jedi shit." He leaned back, stretching his arms across the back of the booth.
"She's a Jedi?" Cara squinted at the woman, the spotchka catching up with her all at once. "She's the one you and the kid are looking for?"
"No." He shook his helmet. "She is not who we are looking for."
"Then why do you keep staring at her?" Cara murmured resting her head on the table. She passed out before Mando could reply.
Zo knelt down, touching the floor with her fingers. She looked at the grate to her left knowing it eventually led down to the lava tunnels. 'I'm not gonna make it… let me have a warrior's death... '
"Cricket's rtired. I think we should head back to the ship." Mando stood over her.
She took another sip of whiskey and looked up at him, "You almost died here."
"Did you hear me? The kid's tired."
She stood up, "You almost died here because you wouldn't remove your helmet to accept help. Are all Mandalorians as stubborn as you?"
"I'll live and die with my helmet on. This is the Way."
"The Way. Right…" She yawned. "Can I have my lightsaber back now?"
"No. Not until we talk." He walked away from her and she finished the bottle of whiskey. "Greef, thank you for dinner. But we should head back to the ship, I need to start repairs in the morning."
"You don't think you're sleeping on the ship tonight do you?" Greef asked. The baby yawned, his big brown eyes drooping with every breath. "There are plenty of open houses. Most of 'em in good shape. People ran after the Empire showed up, more left once they figured out things were going to change around here…"
Mando conceded. The thought of sleeping, even if only for a few hours on a real bed, was far more enticing than sleeping upright in his chair. They followed Greef through the settlement and eventually stopped outside a run down shanty. "Now, it ain't much but the roof doesn't leak and the water runs hot. Two rooms, kitchen and a full refresher." The former cantina owner and Guild boss took them on a tour of the little house like they were a family looking for a starter home and not a Bounty Hunter with two of his former bounties in tow.
"Thank you, Greef." Mando said. "If you can add our stay to my tab."
"Nonsense, Mando." Greef handed Zo the sleeping baby and shook the Mandalorians hand. "The kid needs a place where he can be a kid for a few days while you get your ship in order. I'll have some food and supplies delivered to you in the morning."
Greef bowed then left them in the quiet privacy of the little home. Zo rocked the baby gently in her arms while she investigated the rooms. She felt no pain or death here at least. There was love or the memory of love from the family that had lived here. Then a stark echo of fear as the Imperial Light Cruiser descended on the heavens above Nevarro. The family packed up and ran that night.
"Is this place suitable?" he asked quietly as she gently lay the sleeping baby down in the middle of one of the beds in the smaller room.
She tucked the baby's robes around him tighter. "Yes. Mando, your friends are very generous."
He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. "Greef has his own priorities. If he doesn't start catching bounties he's in danger of losing his position with the Guild."
She nodded, "And you'll be catching those bounties for him?"
"I'm the best he's got."
Zo nodded, "I figured you must be pretty good. That's the only reason you caught me."
"I caught you because you made a mistake."
She raised her eyebrows and smiled, "Oh yeah and what mistake was that?"
"You showed me mercy."
"Mercy is never a mistake, Mando." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked down at the sleeping baby. "Look what mercy gave me: a padawan, a friend, and now a home."
He pushed off from the doorway, "I'm going to get our things from the Crest. When I return we are going to talk, " he said firmly. "I want to know everything."
"Everything?" She repeated quietly to herself as he left. Where would she start? How would she explain to him what she had seen? Could she even trust herself and her shaky connection with the Force? Had she seen the truth or just her innermost fear.