Author's Note
This week has been, simply put, a hellish week. Last chapter, I mentioned that my grandpa fell. Turns out, he fell because of symptoms due to Covid. He passed away days later.
I don't really have the gumption for much, so I'm just gonna leave this here.
Prepare for Launch Pt. 2
Mahin jerks awake to find herself lying on her side in the airduct still. She slowly uncurls her limbs feeling sore all over but doesn't move more than that. Just lays there. Breathing in the dark.
She left all she knows behind. She's a stowaway. She's got nowhere to go, no plans, and no resources to help her.
Just a Mandalorian and his foundling who don't know she's here.
Would Mando help her? Help her get settled somewhere? At the very least, she needs a ride to a planet with a decent settlement where she can start over. That Stormtrooper didn't have time to report back that he stumbled on her. They don't know she was ever there. Jabi'ri might report her as missing to New Republic authorities, but even that won't last long before he and the police move on with their lives.
It should be easy to find a fresh start again. Provided she can get to civilization without getting spaced out an airlock.
Would Mando do that?
Muffled cursing echoes down the airduct. She tilts her head, spotting a faint glow reflecting off the metal wall from around a corner.
Perhaps it's best to just stay hidden for now. Mando doesn't need to know she's here. She can hide out in the ducts, only come out to sneak to the refresher or snitch a bit of food while he sleeps, and then she can sneak off the ship at the first port he stops at. From there, she can find another ship to take her wherever she wants to go. Or maybe wherever Mando's heading will already be a nice, quiet place with little to no Imperial presence and she can just stay.
More curses, louder this time, make her turn her head again, brow furrowed in curiosity.
Yes, Mahin will stay hidden until they land. But in the meantime, she'd love to know what in the world is going on.
That's when she notices the ship's stillness. Unnaturally still. No humming or vibrations from the engines at all. It's been a while since she last flew, but they are definitely not moving.
She shifts to her hands and knees, crawling through the airducts towards the light. She turns the corner and finds a vent, bright light filtering in through the slats. Sitting in front of it, she peeks through. A crate blocks the majority of her view of what appears to be the cargo hold. Mando curses at something, a combination of Basic and a few words in Mando'a that Luca has been teaching her behind Melinda's back.
Well, was teaching her. She won't be growing her knowledge of the language anymore.
"Great, just kriffing great," Mando grumbles, something making a metallic thunk as it gets thrown violently across the room. It tumbles to a stop in sight of the vent—a wrench. "This is what we get for not asking that girl to come with us when we had a chance, huh, kid? Now we're in the middle of nowhere and I have no idea what she did to fix the other engine. Not that I can even get to where she was through the interior hatch."
Oh. The second engine went out because of the regulator, then. Figures. They could have avoided this if she had just taken care of it before going home yesterday. She doesn't know his skill in mechanics but he must have some in order to keep a ship this old flying. He could, hopefully, get them to limping so they can touch down for repairs at the nearest planet.
Wait a minute, did he say he was going to ask her to come along?
Mahin runs her thumb along her bottom lip. That…could make things interesting.
Before she can mull the implications over too much soft cooing comes from the other side of the vent. Mahin looks up to see the kid going for the wrench, picking it up in one three-fingered hand. The wrench looks huge compared to him. He tilts it vertically and it almost reaches to the top of his huge pointed ears. He coos curiously, lips smacking together like he wants to chomp down on it. Maybe he's teething?
Then his big brown eyes shift to the side slightly and land right on Mahin.
Mahin stiffens despite knowing he can't see her. He can't. The gaps in the vent slats are too narrow. He can't possibly see her from across the room.
And yet he toddles right over to her, wrench still clasped in his hand as he coos even louder.
Yeah, he definitely sees her, and he's not staying quiet about it. He drops the wrench with a light thump and then smacks both hands against the vent.
"Shh, shh!" she hushes frantically, pressing a finger to her lips. "Quiet, little one. He can't know I'm here."
The kid babbles nonsense, punctuated by a giggling shriek.
Mando sighs heavily and then the clomping of his footsteps comes closer until she can see his boots. "What is it, kid?"
The kid babbles insistently at Mando, banging on the vent cover again.
She should back up, get out of sight, but she feels frozen, breath stuck in her throat as she waits because, really, it seems hopeless to try to hide from a Mandalorian on his own ship.
And a part of her doesn't really want to hide from him anyway.
"You see something in there?" Mando crouches down, head tilting curiously, and then his hand goes for his blaster when he spots her. "Hey!"
Mahin reflexively shrinks back against the far wall at the anger in his voice, curling her legs up to make herself as small as possible.
"Come out of there," Mando orders, voice dangerously low. "Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them."
Mahin holds her hands out in front of her and gives a shaky nod, shuffling slowly forward to the vent cover. She bangs it softly a few times with the heel of her hand, trying not to startle him, but he doesn't even flinch. It pops open after the third hit and the kid coos happily as she comes into full view.
"You," Mando says, more surprised than angry now. Still, he doesn't lower the gun.
When he doesn't do anything else, she crawls forward out of the duct to stand in front of him, hands still raised. "I don't mean you any trouble," she murmurs, keeping her eyes focused on his helmet instead of the gun. Hoping she's not wrong about him and that he really won't shoot her. With shaking fingers, she takes off the Mythosaur pendant hanging around her neck to hold out to him. "The alor thought you would provide me safe passage."
Mando's gun lowers, just slightly, as he lifts the pendant in his free hand to inspect. He stares at it for a few moments, silent, contemplative, before he lets it hang from her hand again.
Huh. She half-expected him to snatch it away from her. Beskar is sacred to the Mandalorian people. For an outsider to possess even this little bit of it is practically sacrilegious. But he doesn't try to take it from her and so she puts the necklace back on.
"Them," he says simply, reholstering his blaster.
She blinks at him owlishly, slowly lowering her hands with the gun gone. "What?"
"The alor, as I was leaving. She told me to take care of 'them'. She was talking about the kid and you. She put you on my ship."
Mahin gives a jerky nod, not really knowing what else to do.
"The Stormtroopers were after you?" he asks with an accusing edge.
Her shoulders raise towards her ears. "Yes and no. I…yes, I've been running from the Empire for years and, yeah, they wanted to take me last night when they found me. But they weren't after me, I heard them say they were looking for a kid…."
Mahin trails off, eyes falling down to stare at the little one looking back and forth between them with big, innocent eyes and adorable twitching ears.
They were looking for a kid.
"They were after you," she realizes in horror. "They really were just looking for a kid. How…why would they…?"
"I don't know," Mando sighs, shoulders drooping as he looks down at the kid. The little one reaches his arms up to him and he bends down to pick him up. The kid looks so small in the arms of the Mandalorian, so much bigger than him, especially with all the armor. A baby.
Why would the Empire be after a baby?
"I never really found out why they're after the kid," Mando explains, rocking slightly side to side with the kid nestled in his arms. "Though I'm looking. From what I can tell so far, it's some kind of…experimentation."
Mahin mutters some of those curse words Luca taught her, running a hand roughly down her face. She knew the Empire was capable of horrific things. She's heard of them killing children. Even witnessed it herself a few times. But experimenting on them? It's a new level of evil.
Of dark.
Mando sighs deeply, moving back to sit down on a crate behind him. He holds the kid in one arm, his right hand bracing against the top of the crate with his fingers curling around the edge. His head tilts at her. "So, what am I going to do with you?"
Mahin looks down at her boots, trying not to let her voice quiver as she mumbles, "I'd appreciate it if you'd let me stay with you until you get to your next planet. Then we can go our separate ways and you'll never see me again. In exchange, I can do the work on your ship that I promised yesterday, plus upgrades with the tools and materials you have on hand so your ship runs better than ever."
Though, really, she'll do that anyway if she wants to get anywhere anytime soon. They won't reach the nearest planet in days at best with the way things stand now.
Mando stays silent for a long time. Mahin doesn't have the courage to look up at him. Not that it would do her any good anyway. She can't see his face, can't tell what he's thinking at all. He might as well be a statue.
"The alor wanted me to look after you," Mando finally says, voice giving nothing away. "I promised her that I would."
"You didn't know I was here at the time," she tells him, knowing it's not helping her any but feeling obligated to give him an out if he wants one.
He tilts his head with a casual shrug of his shoulder. "True. But the promise was made. A Mandalorian never breaks a promise. This is the Way."
Mahin's eyes fly up to his, jaw set stubbornly. "I don't want your help unless you actually want to help me. I'm not some obligation. I can take care of myself. All I really need from you is a ride."
"And I'm willing to offer you a job."
Mahin opens and closes her mouth several times, fingers curling into the sides of her coveralls to bunch the material in her hands. "You what?"
"I was already thinking about doing it." He looks down at the little one, propping him on one leg and then bouncing his knee. The kid giggles in delight. "You're good with kids and you're good with ships. I could use someone like you on my crew. You take care of the ship, and the kid when I go out on bounties. I'd pay you a third of what I make. I was going to talk to you about it in the morning."
"And then the Stormtroopers showed up," she says dumbly.
He nods. "And then the Stormtroopers showed up and I had to get the kid out of there."
He really did want her to come with him. A chance to see the stars. Travel the galaxy. She would have had to leave the covert behind. Something she's not sure she would have been able to do. But now the decision has been taken away from her.
And now his decision is a lot more complicated than he thought it was.
"And now?" she asks, biting on the inside of her cheek.
"Now what?"
"Now you know I'm wanted by the Empire." Her mouth twists in a grimace. "Whatever's left of it anyway."
"What about it?" he asks, sounding so kriffing casual about it.
She huffs in frustration. "Does it change anything about your job offer?"
"We all have our secrets," he says softly, something about him seeming far away for a moment before he gets up, setting the kid down in his place. The little one fusses a bit but then Mando pulls a silver ball out of his pocket, putting it in the kid's hands and instantly making him happy again. "And I'm not going to ask you yours. The Imps are after you? Fine. That's all I need to know. You can tell me more when you're ready. And, really, what's one more fugitive of the Empire on this ship?"
Mahin licks her lips, fingers finally unclenching as she tries to ignore the bubble of excitement building in her stomach. "The Imps aren't actively searching for me, you know," she points out. "They had no idea I was there. It was just bad luck that guy recognized me from a holo that's ten years old."
"All the better. So what do you say?" He holds out his hand. "Want to stick it out with us for a while?"
A fresh start, a chance to see more of the galaxy than she ever thought possible, and a chance to get to know these two more? She's lost everything, again, but she could keep this little something. A small connection to the Mandalorians she knew.
A slow smile spreads across her lips and she steps forward. "Yeah, let's do it."
"Just one more thing." He pulls his hand back a little before she can take it, voice dropping with seriousness. "You need to think about this real hard. As you said, the Imps aren't actively looking for you. But they are looking for the kid. They've sent people after him. Stormtroopers. Bounty hunters. Staying with us won't be easy, or necessarily safe."
She looks up at his helmet, finding it surprisingly easy to feel like she meets his gaze through the visor. "Can you promise to keep me safe?"
"I promise to try my best," he concedes. "But you need to know, the safety of the child will always come first."
That settles the decision for her, really. It clicks into place and pulses with rightness, her instincts screaming at her in a way they haven't in years. She looks at the little one around Mando, sitting on that crate with a silver ball half stuffed in his mouth. So young. So innocent. Filled with so much…light. She doesn't know how the two came together, but the kid needs Mando's protection and she's so glad he has it. And he needs her protection, too. She can feel it. Whatever brought her to this moment, this is where she needs to be.
The kid comes first.
She wouldn't have it any other way.
Resolve set, she takes his hand and shakes. "This is the Way."
"This is the Way."
Author's Note
In the hopes of making myself feel a little bit better, I'm going to post another chapter today. It'll be up in a few.
