Drunken laughter ceased when he walked through the automatic doors.

His handler was in his normal spot at the bar. Once he was sitting across from him the room returned to normal rowdiness. "Any more?" The Mandalorian tossed finished bounty trackers on the table and his payment was slipped across the table.

"I do have two new ones. They should be easy work for you but they don't pay much."

"I'll take them." He needed the credits. They were becoming harder and harder to come by these days.

"I'm not too sure I'll have more by the time you get back, business is slow. The Mandalorian sighed, nodded and pushed his chair out to leave.

On his way out a singular voice caused him to turn.

"Hey, hunter, I have a job for you. It might be a tad tougher than what you're used to though. Think you can handle it?" A gruff voice called out to him. "Imagine having about 1000 bounty pucks in your possession. I'll pay that much for one job." The voice came from someone sitting in a corner booth of the establishment. He had three armed and armored guards all staring at him, all shifting to a more defensive position as he looked them over.

His attention was caught.

Cautiously he stepped closer to the eccentric looking man. "Do you have a tracker?" The guards let him pass to reveal a frightened-looking, scantily clad female sitting across from him. She had a slave tracker on the base of her head.

"No, no tracker on this one. This one was …different." A faint smile appeared on his lips. It gave the Mandalorian the chills.

"I'm looking for this." A hologram of a woman appeared in his palm. "It was stolen from me almost a year ago. A rival faction raided my territory. I've hired countless bounty hunters since then, none have returned alive. And it's time my property was returned to me."

"Where would I find her?"

"The faction who stole my possession resides on Orvax IV. I have no doubt this is where you would find it." The Mandalorians' spine shivered every time he referred to the woman as a possession rather than a human being. But he had dealt with his type before.

"Understood." Credits were credits. He couldn't pick and choose how he got them.

Once settled in his spaceship he punched in the coordinates that were given to him. According to his charts, Orvax IV was almost a week away and he had enough rations for only two days. He'd have to fuel up before he started his trek across the galaxy.

Including six days of travel, it took eight and a half days to find the exact location of the faction he was looking for.

"You stupid bitch." She was shoved hard to the floor then was rewarded with a kick to the stomach before she had time to curl up and protect her soft parts. The kick hit her diaphragm and she was gasping for air when she heard blaster fire coming from the hallway.

"How many times do I have to tell you-" She didn't even know what she did wrong this time, and she wasn't about to find out either.

Two shots were fired and the two men at her side fell to the ground next to her. Sizzling holes in both of their foreheads.

Oh no.

Oh no oh no oh no.

She flopped around on the floor to get a look at their killer. He had sent a Mandalorian bounty hunter this time. He was the first one to come this far. She'd heard the stories of a dozen bounty hunters trying to enter the compound.

"Get up." It was more of a sigh than a command. He noticed her shackled wrists as she struggled to get up on her own two feet.

"Who has the key?" She motioned to one of the bodies at her feet.

He searched his pockets and found it, then noticed the key had a button on it and figured it wouldn't do anything pleasant.

"What does this do?" His thumb hovered over the button and he watched her entire button tense up and eyes squeezed shut.

"A shock?" She nodded.

"Do I need this?"

She shook her head no.

He firmly yet gently took each of her forearms to uncuff her. The shackles fall to the floor with a clang then a rattle. He didn't fail to notice that her wrists had scars on top of scars obviously from cuffs.

He gave her a small shove towards the door, "Walk in front of me, don't try to run unless you want to get shot.

His words echoed in her ears. Maybe this would be her easy way out.

She waited until they were clear of the building and was just about to bolt too, but he anticipated it, somehow, and his gloved hand shot out and grabbed her wrist and slammed her back against a wall. A hand now wrapped around her throat.

"What did I say?" To prove her point, she didn't fight back but pressed her neck against his glove. He let go in an instant.

What was wrong with this girl? He pulled her away from the wall and kept his left hand on her right elbow as they walked to his ship.

To keep an eye on her, he made her climb into the cockpit for takeoff.

She wasn't sure if he'd allow her to climb back down the ladder, so she stood up and gaged his reaction. There was none, or rather, none that she could physically see, so she climbed down quickly. Hoping to find something that would help her cause.

And she found it, He had a carbonite machine on his ship. That could be useful. She pressed a few buttons.

He had snuck up behind her like he had so many times before with other bounties. Or he thought he did, she didn't jump like everyone else. Rather started speaking when he was behind her.

"Before you freeze me in carbonite tell me who hired you?" She turned around and backed herself into the chamber.

Behind his mask, his eyebrows shot up in confusion.

"Please tell me." He didn't see any reason for him not to keep that information from her.

"He didn't give me his name, only said you had been taken from him a year ago." All the remaining color drained from her face.

"He's offering a lot of money for you."

His ship shook with the impact of a blaster.

"Shit." The ship shook again, this time it was from the lock of a tractor beam.

They got in through the top hatch. He was knocked out before he knew what was going on.

When he woke up, his ship was drifting in open space. He searched the ship, just in case, but it was of no use. They took her.

Suddenly curious, he climbed down the ladder to the main cabin to see what buttons she had pushed. He heard them being pushed when he had snuck up on her before. He pressed the settings button and he forgot to breathe for a moment.

She had set the computer to a different carbon freezing process. One that didn't preserve life.

"You'll think again about running away now bitch." They broke her ankles and then her wrists for fighting back. That was after beating the shit out of her for forcing them to go after her. Like it was even her fault. But she didn't mind.

She'd rather be stuck here than with him. At least here she was left alone for ninety percent of the time. At least here she had time to heal. It had been a few days without incident. And she had begun to believe that they wouldn't be seeing more of that bounty hunter.

That was until explosions were heard. Timed explosions, five went off one minute after the other. After the first one, no one flinched. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence. But when the second one went off, everyone paused what they were doing. Then the third one went off and everyone grabbed a blaster and headed out to investigate.

She heard the bodies drop. And the firing ceased to nothing.

The Mandalorian was back. He came through the final door that separated the two, gasping for breath, blaster raised.

His eyes saw her wrists first, then saw her feet. She wouldn't be walking out of here. He holstered his weapon.

"Please, just leave me here." He stumbled closer to her.

"I rigged this place to blow in less than five minutes."

"And your worth far too much to leave here when that happens.

Her eyes closed in resignation.

He knelt beside her, "Let me know if I'm hurting you." He carefully put her right arm around his shoulder, hooked his right arm around the backs of her knees and wrapped his left around her back and lifted with his knees. The initial jolt of being lifted caused a whimper to escape her lips.

They made it safely out of the building before the explosives were triggered. She saw the bodies littered in and outside of the building she was being held captive in.

The trek to his ship was a long one. Luckily for him he found a land speeder just outside of the compound. He placed her inside of it gently before hopping into the driver's seat and turning it around to head for his ship.

He had to land much further away this time to avoid detection. After a few moments of being in the speeder, he glanced at her. She was sitting awkwardly, unable to find any position that didn't cause her pain. Her head was tilted back, eyes closed and tears streaming down her face. He looked away quickly, finding it harder and harder to keep his original plan of taking her back to the one she feared so much. But he needed the money. With the amount he would be paid, he wouldn't have to work for years. He had to keep thinking about that part. The credits.

The credits.

The credits.

He wasn't as careful lifting her out of the landspeeder, causing a hiss to get by her teeth. He placed her in the small mess/sleeping area before climbing up to the cockpit to get his spacecraft off the retched planet as soon as possible and into space. He found a small, uninhabited moon to land on far enough away where they wouldn't be detected. He climbed back down to the mess to splint up her broken joints. He was no medic though, she would need a proper one to be sure everything was set properly to heal. But that wasn't part of his job description.

"I have to make a tomorrow for fuel and supplies. We'll reach our destination in about five days. Are you hungry?" He finally looked up to meet her eyes, her red and puffy eyes. His throat tightened. She shook her head no to the food. Even though she was skin and bone.

Just in case, he disabled the Carbonite machine on his way back up to the cockpit. He kept tabs on her the next few hours, he was dozing off in his chair when he heard a shrill scream, then quiet, desperate pleas of 'stop, please stop.' There was no way he was sleeping now. Not when he was questioning his humanity. Could he send this woman to her death? And from what he gathered, a slow torturous death.

The credits..

He locked her in the mess room. His ship was connected to the fueling station and he was gathering supplies from the traders.

She heard the door lock after he left. Then glanced down to the knife she lifted from his boot when he was splinting one of her wrists.

A few hours later he went back to his ship and put his new supplies in the cargo hold to organize later.

First, he wanted to check on her. He found her with a cloudy, almost lifeless eyes and a pool of blood beneath her. Her inner wrists both had bleeding gashes made from his own knife that was sitting on the table next to her.

"What were you thinking?"

"You're taking me to a place worse than the one you found me in. Imagine that for a second. Worse. He broke my ankles, now I can't run away. He broke my wrists, now I can't fight back, but I would have stayed there because I can handle that. The person you are taking me to, he's worse. I won't go back to him alive. I've suffered enough. You can bring me in cold. That way you'll at least get part of your credits. And you don't have to put up with me any longer."

He processed her words for a moment. Then tore a section of his cape and wrapped her bleeding wrists tightly.

"You're no bounty hunter. Bounty hunters don't go after the innocent. Please…just let me die."

"No."

"Please!" More tears rolled down her face. "You don't know what he'll do to me…again." She tried pulling off the makeshift bandages.

"Stop it!" he hauled her up and carried her over to the carbonite machine. He started turning the machine back on.

"I should have done this long ago." He made sure the settings were back to preserve life.

"No! Please!"

He pressed the button.

AN: It's been over five years since I uploaded anything for the world to read. Thoughts?