6.

The Mandalorian did not sense their pending friendship. Instead, his instinct told him Zo Mara was probably going to be more trouble than she was worth. But Din Djarin had never planned on being a father and the last several months had been a hard learning curve. Having someone else on board to help manage the kid would be a relief. Especially someone that made the kid so happy.

Din unlocked the lid on the pram and was met with the kid's disgruntled face. His long ears were flattened against his head, brown eyes narrowed and he was hissing unhappily through his stubby little teeth. "You know the rules. You stay in there when things get hairy." Mando told him, rubbing his gloved thumb under the kid's trembling chin.

Zo stood beside the Bounty Hunter and smiled down at the kid. "It wasn't that exciting anyways, kiddo. But on a positive note–" She darted forward and tickled him with her now free hands. He flopped back on his pile of blankets giggling uncontrollably. Din smiled under his helmet at the happy little noises the kid was making. Even Greef Karga hadn't been able to elicit the silly laughs her tickling fingers were generating. She lifted him out of the pram and bounced him on her hip. "I need a few minutes to get some things from my room. Why don't you take him to the garden?"

"We should go before the rest of the cartel gets here."

"This is the rest of the cartel, " Zo laughed pointing at herself, "No one else is coming. Give me ten minutes and I'll meet you in the garden." She handed the baby over to him before turning to walk away. "Now that we're friends, do you have a name? Something I can call you besides Mandalorian or Bounty Hunter?" She paused looking back at him.

He sighed as the child immediately commenced trying to wriggle free of his arms, "Others call me Mando."

"Nice to meet you, Mando. I'm Zo."

The child whimpered unhappily as she disappeared further into the large house. "Relax, she'll be back." Mando told him.

He took the kid outside like she suggested and set him down on the plush purple grass. He looked up unsurely and Mando waved him forward. The baby toddled forward, little brown robe dragging along the ground as he investigated his new surroundings. Mando followed slowly after, giving him room enough to explore but not get out of sight. Every few moments he would chide the kid to 'put that down' or 'don't eat that' and the kid would inevitably ignore him. Bugs, leaves and, Din was pretty sure a rock or two disappeared down the kids gullet as they explored the garden.

Soon enough the kid found a bush full of plump berries and a meiloorun tree. He picked his way through the sweet low hanging berries then sat down at the base of the large tree with a ripe meiloorun almost as big as he was. He ate straight through the rind into the ripe purple fruit beneath, mindless of the sticky juice that dripped down his chin onto his robes. "I need to get you some spare clothes," Din muttered sitting down next to him. The child cooed around a mouthful of pulverized purple melon and held the fruit out to him. "Thanks." He took the fruit and glanced over his shoulder. They were still alone in the garden. So much for ten minutes, he thought angling his body away from the kid in order to slip his helmet up high enough to take a bite of the fruit.

Zo thought about the dank industrial building Gor operated out of when they first met as she made her way through the mansion to her room. She felt safe hidden in the darkness of his little enterprise. Helping him make deals, persuading the authorities to ignore or forget his illicit activities and growing his wealth exponentially from back alley spice dealer to one of the most powerful crime boss' on Corelia. She kept to the shadows as his gang evolved into a full-fledged cartel and he kept his word, keeping her hidden from the Empire and their Jedi hunters.

With his wealth and power Gor's greed had grown as well. The mansion used to be full of Gor's most trusted lieutenants and bodyguards. Until he ordered Zo to start thinning their numbers. "Less mouths to feed, more profits for me," he would say after giving her a name. The mansion grew quiet and Zo became more of a prisoner than an employee. Surrounded by the surly, weak minded Gamorreans on her errands. Or strapped to a chair with IT-0 after a deal fell through. She could have run as soon as the Empire fell, disappeared into the galactic upheaval. But she stayed still believing she deserved everything Gor sent her way.

Then one day the Balbab cartel consisted of only seven individuals, five of which were now dead. Gor's one eye had never been too keen on looking to the future of his business, she thought wryly as she opened the door to her room.

It was as she left it; lonely, quiet, cold. She had never been sure if Gor even knew which room was hers. She had certainly never seen him anywhere near her quarters. Tuk was always the one to escort her to Gor's presence.

Now Tuk was gone and Gor was gone and the cold little life she had was gone. Zo was filled with so much anger she wanted to watch the whole place burn and bathe in the ashes. Her lightsaber was in her hand before she realized she had called to it. Her thumb traced the activation button and she considered doing just that; setting fire to everything around her. Losing herself in her anger like she had with Bounty Hunter.

She stared at her reflection in the full length mirror next to her bed and hated what she saw. Dirty hair hanging in tangles, filthy clothes, pale skin and sunken eyes. The person staring back at her reminded her too much of someone else. Someone she had locked away in her own memories. Bricked up in the darkness of her mind when she insulated herself from the Force in order to remain hidden from those hunting her.

Then the reflection smiled at her. The air around her grew cold, the mirror swirled as some other place came into focus. The dirty clothes and messy hair changed to a black uniform and slick bun. Zo's body immediately moved into a defensive position, her lightsaber in hand, laser humming, hilt vibrating like an extension of her fear of the person in the reflection. The figure took a step closer to their side of the mirror, a red lightsaber sprang to life in their hand. "No!" she cried out, swinging the purple blade clean through the mirror as her double reached out to touch the glass. The glass shattered across the floor. Instead of one reflection she was faced with a thousand.

She walked across the shattered glass, enjoying the crunch of it under her boots. Her purple laser retracted and she rolled the hilt between her hands. The weight was comforting. Just as balanced as the day she forged it. Not having her weapon with her had been the hardest obstacle to overcome. She was an excellent shot with a blaster but fighting or killing with a gun always felt cold and uncivilized.

Master Vatari had taught her apprentices the lightsaber was an extension of their will, a weapon to be used in defense only and a reminder of the duality of the Force. Life and death, light and dark. She had given it up like the teachings of her master. Hidden it away in the ruins of an ancient temple far from Corelia. Buried under tons of rock and dirt as a final act to sever herself from the Jedi. Until Master Vatari called to her in her dreams. Urged her to return to the light, to find her path in this new galaxy.

She would have to be more careful, she decided. She knew the risk of opening herself back up to the Force and the connections it would bring. It was only a trick, a vision brought on by her anger and lack of control. That was what she told herself. Even as the chill inside her refused to dissipate.

Zo took her time in the shower knowing she was way past the ten minutes she had promised the Mandalorian anyway. Mando, what the hell kind of name is that, she thought to herself enjoying the hot water as it washed away the last of her old life.

"Are the meiloorun ripe?" she asked finding Mando and the child under the shade of the large fruit tree. The child cooed a greeting as he ate his way through his third melon.

"Almost as ripe as you were. Glad you cleaned up." Mando replied. "Don't think the air filters in my helmet could take anymore."

Zo brushed a wrinkle out of her clean shirt. "It's been a rough rotation." She held out a much smaller camtono than the one she had given to the Gungan. "Took me a minute to break into Gor's safe. It's not 50,000 but…I can get us more."

"Us?" Mando repeated as he stood and took the lite lockbox. He opened it and sighed. At least there was enough for fuel. "Do you have any idea where to find a Jedi?"

Zo shook her head, "I would say a temple. But all the ones I knew of were destroyed...why do you want to find a Jedi? "

"That's the task I was set. They are the only ones that can keep him safe."

"They couldn't keep us safe from Order 66. We can keep him safe, I can teach him what I know, you can blast anyone that gets too close–"

"You can watch him, help me around the ship and stay out of my way until we find the Jedi. Then you can go with them if they'll take you or...you can go now." He crossed his arms over his chest, the camtono clinking off his armor.

Zo looked down at the baby slowly waddling towards her. She nodded as the child stopped at her feet and pulled on her pants leg. "What's the plan then? How are you going to find a Jedi?" She asked, picking up the little green baby.

"I need to find my people. They will help us in our search for the Jedi." He said turning back towards the tree to pluck a few meiloorun for the road. The kid held out his hand for more fruit. "You've had enough for now." Mando said, shaking his finger at him.

"So your people would be other Mandalorians, right? Mandalore is only a few days from here." She said brightly as they left the garden behind and headed back to the Razor Crest.

"My people aren't on Mandalore. I've never even stepped foot on the planet's surface...flown past a few times."

Zo glanced at him as she moved the baby to her other hip and detangled his hand from her hair. He was suddenly fascinated with it now that it was soft and clean against his little fingers. " I went once as a Padawan with Master Vatari and my sister Nel and her Master. When the Jedi were still trying to broker peace with your people."

"What was it like?"

She shrugged, "Dark but beautiful in its own way. The Mandalorians frightened me…they were all so stern, scowled at us like we smelled bad or something."

"How could you tell they were scowling?"

"Because they did it everywhere we went," she replied mimicking the creased eyebrows and scrunched up noses she remembered seeing during her short stay on Mandalore. Before the negotiations had deteriorated to lightsabers and blaster fire. "They …they didn't wear their helmets all the time like you do. They showed us their faces quite often actually."

He made a disbelieving noise under his helmet. "Then you must be confused. You've never been to Mandalore."

"How would you know? You just said you've never been."

"Because I know my people."

Zo nodded and looked away from her reflection in his dark visor. There was no point to poke the rancor any further. "Perhaps you're right. It was a long time ago and I was a child."

"My people aren't on Mandalore."

"Then where are your people?" she asked quietly.

He closed the ship's ramp behind them before answering her. "I don't know. Our survival has depended on our ability to remain hidden."

Zo put the kid down and tossed her backpack and bedroll into a corner that looked like it would be out of Mando's way. "So we have to find more Mandalorians, who are in hiding who knows where, to help us find a Jedi, which have been hunted to near extinction." Mando nodded. "To reach our goal a straight line we will not follow." Zo mused with a small smile.

"The hell does that mean?" Mando asked, brushing past her on his way to the cockpit. He glanced down at the kid and watched as his clawed feet disappeared into a box of spare ship parts. The kid popped back up and started tossing wires and plugs out of the box.

"Dunno. Just remembered it from some old holovid of a Jedi master." She said sitting cross-legged in front of the kid and picking up a spark plug. "Thought it sounded wise." She floated a spark plug above her hand and the kid cooed happily.

"It would sound wiser if you had some coordinates or useful information." He grumbled climbing up the ladder.

"Try 099.4," she replied, levitating the kid out of the crate. He giggled as she turned him upside down and tickled one of his little clawed feet. Mando paused halfway up the ladder with his cold visor turned towards her. "It's a settlement on Kiribi. The boss, Crex, has tendrils all over the galaxy. He might have some intel on your people."

She heard Mando breathe out another long, annoyed sigh as he climbed into the cockpit. She set the kid down and he clapped his hands for more tricks. "Now you pick something up, youngling." The kid cocked his head and she could sense his confusion. She was curious how much of his training he remembered versus how much he operated on instinct. She knew she relied on instinct far more than she should, her connection with the Force shaky at best. But maybe spending whatever spare time she would have on this little adventure teaching and practicing with the youngling would make both of them stronger.

The kid watched as she levitated different items, his big ears twitching as she spoke to him about the Force. She tried to speak with the same calm voice Master Vatari always used. "Feel your connection to the Force. Feel how it binds us all together...me to you, you to me, us to him." She pointed between them and up into the cockpit where the Mandalorian had disappeared. "It surrounds us always. The air we breathe, the warmth of a sun, the light of a star, the space between molecules. Even when we feel alone we are never truly alone because the Force is with us always." She smiled sadly, the words somehow sounding hollow after so many years of living cut off from the very energy she spoke of.

"You've been afraid for a long time. Haven't you? Afraid to be connected…" He didn't answer as another screw tumbled out of his hands and rolled away. "Me too." She pulled the baby into her lap and kissed his wrinkled forehead. "Maybe we don't have to be afraid anymore, little one. Now that we have each other. Now that we have him." The screw rolled out of the darkness and back into her hand.

She climbed into the cockpit a few hours later after putting the child down for a nap. Mando sat in his chair staring out at the stars or sleeping; she wasn't entirely sure so she sat down quietly in the seat behind him. "Did he do any magic tricks for you?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

"The Force isn't..." She trailed off suddenly unsure why she had climbed the ladder into the cockpit in the first place. She was cold down in the main hold now that the kid was asleep and the cockpit had been warm, almost cozy with its close quarters. "Forget it." She muttered standing back up.

"I've seen him stop a full grown Mudhorn in its tracks, heal a man of a wound that should have killed him...and you– he brought you back from the dead. Sounds like magic to me." He turned his seat to face her.

Zo stopped with her hand on the doorframe and looked over her shoulder at him. "I wasn't dead...not entirely anyway. The Force can't bring people back from the dead. If it could, finding a Jedi would be a hell of a lot easier."

"This Crex, you think he can help us?" He asked before she could climb back down the ladder.

She turned around, hand still braced against the hatch. "I don't know. He's the oldest being I've ever encountered. He has connections in every corner of the universe...or at least claims to." She shivered and pulled her thin jacket tighter around herself. "What are you going to do if you can't find what you're looking for?" she asked quietly.

"My creed dictates I raise him as my own until I find his people or he comes of age." He answered and waived his hand at her vacated seat, "Sit. I'll turn the heat up." She stood unsurely for another moment before sitting back down.

Zo chewed on one ragged fingernail as the Mandalorian lapsed back into silence. His emotions were calmer, the storm that had been raging around him since they met seemed to have blown itself out. "How old is he? His memories are confusing...his time with the Jedi– it's jumbled. A few times I think I recognizd a Knight or a Master but I can't tell if I knew them or just saw them on an old training vid."

"Chaincode said he was fifty."

"Chaincode? He was a bounty?" She asked as the chill crept back down her spine. She knew the answer, knew without having to read his emotions or thoughts. Knew from the way his shoulders tensed underneath his armor. "Who hired you to find him?" She was careful with her words, keeping the influence to a minimum. It was a difficult task to retrain herself how to talk to someone just for the sake of conversation and not interrogation. He tilted his helmet and she felt his unease. "I'm not forcing you to answer. I'm trying very hard not to do that anymore... At least not to friends."

He breathed out, his shoulders relaxing a bit. "Imperials. They paid me in Beskar to find him."

His seat spun to face her again. He tilted his helmet and she dropped her hand. She hadn't said anything about not using other aspects of the Force.

"What Imperials? An Inquisitor?" she asked.

Mando shook his head, "I don't know what that is. He was just a man; took his orders from a Moff named Gideon."

"Gideon?" Zo repeated racking her memory for any significance to the name. She sat back heavily, tapping her fingers on the armrest. "I don't know Gideon…" she mumbled to herself. Maybe that was the vision she had seen, the cold she felt, the unknown shadow that seemed to chill the very air she breathed. Some threat that the Force was trying to warn her about.

"Gideon is dead."

She looked up at him wishing she could see his eyes. Master Vatari believed the eyes always told the truth. "Are you sure?" He nodded once. She went back to chewing on a thumbnail, it was a terrible habit she fell into when faced with the unknown. The Mandalorian and the kid were the very definition of the unknown. Every step she had taken since jumping out of that window on Ord Mantel was unknown. Her path never felt more clouded than it did now even as she felt her connection to the Force strengthen with her every breath.

"What's an Inquisitor?" Mando asked as she moved her attention to her index finger.

She laughed dryly under her breath. "How much do you know about the Force, Mando?"

He shrugged one armored shoulder. "I know it's not magic."

Zo laughed again giving her poor fingernails a reprieve from her nervous habit. She opened her mouth to reply but an alarm sounded on the control panel. The ship dropped out of the hyperspace lane and circled down towards Kirbis. "Maybe I'll give you a crash course later so you know what you're up against."