Author's Note
Thank you all for all the encouraging words. They mean a lot to me. I'm slowly getting back into this fic. Having Mando and Grogu reunite in The Book of Boba Fett definitely helped. :)
Oh, and I wanted to say that I've finally watched the animated shows, Clone Wars and Rebels! I didn't have the opportunity to watch them when they first came out on TV (the hazards of older siblings and one TV), so thank you, Disney+! I learned soooo much more about the Star Wars universe, about the Force and the Jedi and Mandalorians and all these amazing characters. I hope to incorporate as much as possible into this fic going forward.
I do have one thing I want to say about this chapter, though. This is the only time I'm going to talk about this. Cara Dune is in this fic. I like Cara Dune. I like her character and she is one of Mando's very, very few best friends. It saddens me that he's lost her. Now, I'm not going to talk about Gina Carano and my opinions about her. I refuse to let any negativity about the actress cloud my feelings about the character. We are here for the characters, plain and simple. Check the real world at the door. If you don't like this and my inclusion of Cara, that's fine. But please don't rant to me about it. I'm tired of rants and you will be ignored. No offense.
Alright, go onward and enjoy!
Reunion Pt. 1
Din leans back in the pilot chair with a deep sigh after getting them up out of the atmosphere of the latest planet. They have a full cargo hold, all of the hooks for the carbonite freezer full of collected bounties frozen into slabs. Time for delivery. And payment. He reaches for the hyperdrive to punch in the coordinates for the drop-off, but hesitates when he notices the nav. Notices what sector they're currently in.
He scrolls the nav over, finding a familiar planet not too far away. Only about an hour in hyperspace.
They…can probably afford delaying delivery for a day or two.
He punches in the new coordinates and then launches them into hyperspace, turning his chair around to face Mahin. She has the kid in her lap, bouncing her knees up and down and making the kid giggle.
Yeah. A day or two to relax in a safe place might be nice. They have enough money to get by and none of the bounties had a time constraint.
"There's a place I want to take you," Din tells her, drawing Mahin's focus up from the child.
She meets his gaze through the visor curiously. He doesn't know how she does that. How she always finds his eyes and stays trained there. Like she knows right where his eyes are even though it's impossible for her to actually see him. It's uncanny and took some getting used to and is also, strangely, nice.
"Alright," she says, handing the child his makeshift rattle to keep him occupied. "Where are we going?"
"Nevarro."
Her brow furrows for a moment and then smooths out in recognition. "Oh! Is this that planet I'm supposed to fly us to if you never return from a hunt and we have to abandon you?"
"You're not abandoning me. You're taking care of yourself and the kid. There are people there who will look after you."
"Right," she says slowly, narrowing her eyes at him. "So these people fighters like you?"
"Of course. The Empire's still out there. I'm not about to leave you two unprotected."
She gives a satisfied nod, grinning widely. "Right. So I'll fly us to Nevarro, recruit their help, and then we'll come back and rescue you before your untimely demise."
He tilts his head at her in a way most quarry find intimidating. "You're not serious."
Mahin smirks, unaffected by the intimidations of a deadly bounty hunter.
The idea makes Din cringe. Cara, especially, would be all for it. It wouldn't take much convincing from Mahin at all to get Cara back onboard the Razor Crest for a rescue mission. Not even necessarily from any sense of loyalty, but because it would be fun.
Mahin shrugs unapologetically. "Serious as an engine on fire." She gets up from the copilot seat, propping the child on her hip. "I'm gonna get this little guy some breakfast. Let me know when we're close."
Din stares after her as she descends the ladder into the cargo hold, rethinking this plan.
Maybe introducing her to Greef and Cara is a bad idea.
Mahin's stomach squeezes painfully as she feels the Razor Crest settle on the ground. Never before has she felt so nervous. She's not even really sure why, but as soon as Mando said they were going to Nevarro, her stomach twisted into absolute knots.
So what if he used to live on Nevarro with the covert he grew up with? It's not like they're still there or anything. They were chased out by the Empire.
So what if these people she's about to meet are his friends? His best friends, as far as she can tell.
So what if—beside the Razor Crest—this is as close to home as Mando has left?
He's taking her home. To meet his friends. His pseudo-family.
Yeah, nothing to worry about at all.
Mahin sighs heavily, fussing over the blankets surrounding the child in his pod. She's overthinking this. Totally overthinking this. It's not like Mando actually means anything by it. Introducing her to his friends is completely necessary. Business-like. Practical. This way, she actually knows the people she will—hopefully not—need to go to for aid one day.
Yeah. Practical.
She runs her hands over her head, feeling at her hair. She was waist-deep through an access hatch just a half hour ago trying to keep herself busy with a fritzing electrical panel. The heat from the engine wasn't enough to make her feel grimy but it did make her hair a bit of a frizzy mess.
The whine of the engines begin to cycle off. Mando will be coming down any moment. Darting to her room, she snatches up her hairbrush from where she left it on her bed and quickly runs it through her hair. She then digs a hair tie out from her pocket and wrangles her hair into a braid.
She just gets it tied off when Mando jumps down the ladder and pokes his head in through her open door. "Hey, don't forget your blaster."
"Of course," she replies, kind of surprised since he knows she always brings it when leaving the ship. Still, she grabs for her blaster now for him to see, propping her foot up on her bed to strap the holster around her thigh. "But I, uh, thought this place was safe?"
"It is, mostly," he hedges, leaning against her doorframe. "But I called ahead to let Karga know we're coming. And he said he's gotten reports of new activity in the tunnels."
"The tunnels below the city? Where your covert used to live?"
Mando nods, foreboding simmering off of him in waves. "Town residents have caught glimpses of people running around down there. Nothing concrete yet since they run off as soon as they're spotted, but they're definitely living in the tunnels. There are sections closed off that weren't before, made to look like cave-ins. And Cara was tracking a thief last week only to find him in the tunnels, killed by some kind of trap with grappling wire."
"Kriff," Mahin mutters. She gives her holster one last tug and then places her foot on the floor again, slipping her blaster into place. The weight of it now a lot more comforting than usual. "You thinking the Empire?"
"Normally, I'd say yes. Especially after what happened last time I was on Nevarro. But yesterday, Cara caught a better look at one of them before they disappeared again. She swears she saw them wearing a helmet." The leather of his gloves creak as his fists open and close. "A Mandalorian helmet."
Mandalorians. That sounds a lot better than the Empire. "Maybe your covert circled back around, then? Moved back in after the Empire cleared off?"
"Or my alor never finished cleaning up the Mandalorian armor from the fallen."
Mahin's stomach drops, forgetting all about its knots. The only reason his alor wouldn't finish is because she's dead. And that would mean some lowlifes are running around in stolen beskar. "So, I guess this isn't just a pleasure visit anymore."
"No." Mando turns to open his own bunk, rummaging around in the netting above the bed until he pulls out the satchel they use for the kid. He holds it out to her. "We keep the kid close while we're here, alright?"
She nods, slipping the satchel onto her shoulder to sling across her chest, then moving to the pod to transfer the kid to the bag. He coos up at her like they're playing a game of hot potato and she gives him her brightest smile.
Hopefully, it's just Mando's covert. Or even a false alarm. Maybe his friend only thought the helmet looked Mandalorian.
Mando already lost his alor once, in a way. Hopefully he's not about to find out he's lost her for good.
Once Mando loads up on weapons and ammo, jetpack secured to his back, they open up the rear ramp of the ship to exit. Hot, arid air drifts in, scented with a tinge of sulfur from the nearby lava flows. The heat of it instantly makes sweat break out across Mahin's skin. Sunlight beats down on the tanned desert pavement, the only thing she can make out from inside the belly of the ship.
Except for two pairs of boots.
The knots return in full force. Mando leads the way down the ramp, Mahin following timidly behind him. She stays in his shadow, hoping to remain unnoticed as she watches.
"Mando," a male voice greets with an overabundance of cheer. "Long time, no see."
"Greef, Cara," Mando replies, sounding more at ease than Mahin's ever heard him outside the ship.
"You're staying out of trouble, I hope?" a woman comments next with a mischievous smile in her voice.
"I do what I can. It's easier now that I have a little help."
Mando steps to the side, somehow knowing Mahin was kind of hiding behind him even though he never looked back at her. Mahin sighs silently. Right. Meeting his friends. She can do it.
"Well, well, well," the man drawls with a devilish smirk. He's older, older than she imagines Mando to be, with dark skin and brown hair cropped close to his head and along his upper lip. "What have we here?"
"This is Mahin," Mando replies, warmth edging along the modulation of his voice. A part of her wonders—fears—it's her imagination, but her gut tells her no. "My partner."
The woman—Cara Dune, she assumes—raises her eyebrows clear to the hairline of her dark hair. It falls to just past her shoulders, braids worked into one side of her head. "A partner. Like, full time?"
Mando sighs in exasperation. "Yes, full time."
"Never thought I'd see the day."
"You aren't kidding," Greef Karga says with his own incredulity. "I tried to get him to take a partner on a few bounties before. But no. He always went after them solo, even if it looked like a suicide mission."
Mahin cocks a hip at that, shaking her head at Mando with an unimpressed eye roll. "Seriously, Mando?"
He shrugs his shoulders unapologetically. "What? I came back every time."
"Yeah, barely," Karga mumbles.
"Wow," Cara draws the word out with an amused glint to her eyes as she looks Mahin up and down. "You must be something special, then, huh?"
Mahin shifts her weight between her feet, eyes briefly darting to the side. "Oh, I don't know about that. I'm a mechanic, so I take care of the ship. And I can fight and I'm good with kids," she pats the side of the satchel where the kid rests, "so I help take care of this little guy."
Karga's eyes light up bright like a toddler presented with some wonderful delight. "Oh, there you are!" He steps forward, arms obviously reaching for the child and making Mahin instinctively shuffle backwards. She shoots Mando a glance. At his encouraging nod, she allows Karga to take the child from her, this full-grown man with a weathered, dangerous look about him going into full-on baby talk as he lifts the child up above his head in adoration.
Wow. Mahin would think the child was doing a Jedi mind trick, but no. She's pretty sure he hasn't learned how to do that yet.
The power of adorable children.
"Good for you," Cara gives Mahin a commiserating nod, "doing the baby thing."
Mahin smirks. Cara looks buffer than the average female, covered in light armor and at least five weapons that Mahin can readily see. "Kids not your forte?"
"Not particularly, no. Though maybe I'll get better at it with more of them running around here now."
Mando's head tilts to the side curiously, no doubt sneaking glances at the child as Karga continues to gush at the kid. "What do you mean?"
"This place has changed a lot since you were last here," Karga finally tunes back in, lowering the child so he sits nestled in the crook of Karga's elbow. "Come on, follow me."
Karga leads them under a stone archway into what appears to be the main thoroughfare of the city. Merchant stalls line the street, with square, stone buildings tucked behind. Narrow alleyways periodically slice between to snake further into the small town. Mahin hangs back a little, allowing the three friends to catch up as Karga and Cara bring Mando up to speed on everything that's changed since his last visit.
It only takes Mando a couple of steps into the market, though, for him to realize. As soon as he does, he slows his pace to bring him back to her side. Mahin looks down at her feet as they step over the dusty streets, using the curtain of her hair to hide her smile.
"Our new marshal here," Karga goes on, waving a hand at Cara, "has cleared off a lot of the riff raff. There's still much work to do, but I think we have a real chance at turning this into a safe place. We could bring in new families, trade, and this here I'm sure will help a lot." He stops in front of a large building, what would be a cantina if Mahin had to guess considering its place at the end of the market.
"I'm surprised to see this place is still standing," Mando muses.
Karga chuckles. "Wait until you see inside."
They step through the door to find a bustle of activity. None of it revolving around alcohol. The tables and bar have been cleared away as people of varying species work scrubbing at the remaining filth on the wooden floor. Several desks and chairs sit shoved in one clean corner, waiting to be set out in their proper places. They're small, child-sized, and when Mahin spots the female protocol droid charging off to the side she realizes what this is supposed to be. What these people are working to turn this old bar into.
"A school?" Mahin asks in wonder, trying to think back to the last time she saw a school that wasn't on a Core planet. They're so rare out here in the Rim, where people fight and claw to scrape together a little bit of existence. A task so difficult that children and their education often fall to the backburner.
It's hard to think of schooling when it's difficult enough putting food on the table, after all.
"Come on," Karga jerks his head towards a hallway that branches off of the main room. "Let's get out of their way and talk somewhere more private."
They weave around the workers and down the hallway towards the back of the building, entering a room that looks to be some kind of office with several desks and a large table covered in papers. Karga hands the child back to Mahin so he can sweep the papers aside, revealing a holotable. With the tap of his fingers, the table lights up, a map of the town projecting into the air.
Cara swipes her fingers through the hologram, highlighting several points on the map in yellow or red. "I patrol around town regularly," she informs them, studying the map intently. "The yellow areas are where residents have reported sightings of our mysterious newcomers. The red are places I've seen them myself."
Mahin hikes the child up on her hip. "It's all over the place."
"Yes," Mando agrees, "but there are more concentrated sightings around the sewer entrances. They're definitely living in the tunnels."
Cara nods. "My thoughts exactly."
"I'm thinking we should go in through here," Karga points to a sewer entrance right off the market, an area with the most concentration of dots. "The three of us can sweep through the tunnels and flush them out."
"You mean all of us." Mahin's eyes narrow defiantly. "All of us are going."
No way is she getting left behind here.
Karga shakes his head. "Where we're going is no place for a child. You should stay here with him."
"What if this is some kind of trap set by the Imps? They could have lured us in with Mandalorian armor and plan on coming for us as soon as you guys are gone."
"Then stay on the Razor Crest. If the Imps show up, just take off."
"I'm not about to leave Mando here. Either way, it's still too risky. Too many variables. Too many things that could go wrong. We'll be sitting ducks and the Imps will get us both."
"Us?" Cara parrots inquisitively, crossing her arms in front of her chest. It makes her look broader, taller, a brawler who can take down any Goliath. "The Empire after you, too, or something?"
Mahin clamps down on her lips, shuffling closer to Mando's side until their arms brush. She knows he trusts them, but she still hesitates to say much to these strangers. Her eyes dart to Karga, remembering how Mando said Karga betrayed him once. To the Empire.
They both seem ready to protect the child. But will that protection really extend to her?
Mando's hand presses to the small of her back. Steady. Reassuring. The sudden tension eases from between her shoulder blades, just a little bit. Even more so when he says firmly, "Where I go, they go. I'm not letting them out of my sight until I know what we're dealing with."
Cara arches a brow at him. "Fine. But you gonna answer the question?"
"Mahin's secrets are hers to tell, not mine."
"That's not exactly a no."
"It's fine, Mando," Mahin cuts in, placing a hand on Mando's shoulder before he can say more. It's nice, of course, that he's so ready to defend her, but she doesn't really want him fighting with his friends. "They can know. You trust them with my safety. I," she takes in a steadying breath, letting it out slowly, "I can trust them, too."
If Mando says they're good, then they're good. She...she can believe that.
Mando's hand slides down to squeeze her fingers gently. "You don't have to tell them anything you don't want to."
"I know," she smiles reassuringly. "But they your friends. And they deserve to know if I ever expect them to help me if I need it." She turns back to Karga and Cara, both of them looking at her expectantly. These two people have been through hell for Mando. She doesn't know if they'll quite do the same for her, but if it's for Mando, they'll hopefully do enough.
At the very least, they shouldn't rat her out. Hopefully.
She's willing to take a chance on Mando.
She eyes the doorway nervously, not hearing anyone else nearby, and then tells them softly, "The Empire does have a contract out on me. The holo's ten years old and they haven't put the contract out for bounty, but the Troopers come after me when they recognize me."
"So it's not like with the kid where everyone and their grandmother seem out to get him," Cara says.
"No, thankfully. I'm hoping they'll stop entirely if I stay off their radar long enough."
"Not likely," Karga says with a sympathetic smile. "If they're still after you after ten years, then they'll probably be after you for fifty more."
Well, it's been quite a bit longer than ten years. But perhaps that's a detail these two don't necessarily need to know. Mahin lets the words slide by without comment.
"So, are we ready to do this or what?" Mahin asks abruptly, ready to move on before they ask more questions.
Mando nods. "Right. We'll go in through the marketplace, like Karga said. Hopefully it won't take long to find them once we enter."
The streets begin to thin as they follow Mando towards the marketplace. The sun crawls past its apex in the sky to slowly start the descent into afternoon. People clean up stalls and bustle towards doors with the delicious smells of lunch wafting out.
Good. It means fewer curious onlookers as Mando stoops to yank out a grate in the ground of a side street.
Mando crouches on his knees to peer into the hole, head doing a slow sweep through the darkness as his helmet scans for what his eyes can't see. Once satisfied they won't get immediately pounced, he jumps down into the hole since there's no ladder. Karga goes down after him. Darkness swallows them immediately. How deep is it? They seem to make it to the bottom okay, though, because Karga calls up for her to lower the child down.
Mahin shifts the child into his pouch, using the strap to slowly lower him into the hole. She has to lay down on the ground and dangle her arm in as far as she can before the strap finally goes slack, someone at the bottom taking the child's weight from her. She lets the bag slip from her hand. Cara then nods for Mahin to go next, gun already out and ready for trouble that might find them at the rear.
Mahin sits at the edge of the hole with her legs dangling down into the gaping maw of darkness. She can't see the bottom. Not even a faint gleam of Mando's armor. It can't be that far of a drop, though. Hoping for the best, Mahin slides herself over the edge and lets herself fall.
The fall barely has time to make her stomach flip before hands catch her around the waist. They draw her in to a metal chest, breath leaving her lungs as she comes to a sudden stop.
Mahin's hands automatically go to Mando's shoulders to hold herself steady. Her feet still dangle, boots barely grazing the sewer floor as Mando holds her. He doesn't let her go. Not yet.
"You alright?" he asks, voice somehow softer than usual through the modulator.
Mahin's face burns a little, glad for the darkness. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine. T-Thanks."
Slowly, so slowly, he lets her slide down his chest until her feet touch the ground. "No problem."
A slap echoes around them, like a hand hitting metal, and then glaring light illuminates the tunnel. Mahin squints against the sudden brightness to make out Karga holding a flashlight.
He arches a questioning brow at them.
Mando lets her go, taking a quick step back.
Mahin sighs deeply. Stars above, this Mandalorian is more dangerous than anything else they may find in these sewers. Even the smell.
"So, where should we start?" Cara asks after she jumps down.
Mahin takes the child back from Karga, keeping him in the pouch and slipping the strap over her shoulder. "Your helmet picking anything up, Mando?" she asks.
He looks down one side of the tunnel, then the other. Filth covers the ground, the brick walls slimy and damp, but no obvious signs of life. "No. Nothing. No footprints, either."
"Maybe further down somewhere?"
"But which way should we try?" Karga asks.
Cara points down one side of the tunnel with her blaster. "There were more reported sightings down that way."
"I'll take point," Mando says, already taking a few steps down the tunnel. "Cara, bring up the rear. And Mahin."
"Yeah?"
He looks back at her over his shoulder. "No matter what happens, stay right behind me. Alright?"
Mahin gives a curt nod, taking up position behind Mando with one hand on the kid's back in the pouch and her other hand resting on her blaster. Karga and Cara fall in line behind her and together they head through the tunnels.
Author's Note
Honestly, I put off bringing Mahin to Nevarro probably longer than I should have. Her meeting Mando's friends is important. I hope to bring her back here more times in the future.
Sooo, any guesses as to who or what is in the tunnel? You'll have to wait until next chapter to find out for certain! I hope to have it up by week's end.
Ooooorrrrrr...I could, maybe, be convinced to put it up sooner. Maybe. If you convince me. ;)
Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!
Translations
alor - leader
