Chapter Two- The Job
"Have I ever steered you wrong?"
"In the five months, I've known you? Countlessly.", You and Peli were at the cantina a block away from the shop. Usually, the two of you would switch off who made dinner every night, but sometimes after long work weeks or if the chef of the night had an irritable customer, the two of you would forgo dinner at home and settle for some so-bad-its-good bar food before going to bed.
"Listen-" Peli said as if she wasn't the one talking the majority of the time.
"I know this guy- for real though. I've met him a couple of times before. He's a good one. Real quiet, responsible type. He'll pay you good and you get to go off-world. It's a win-win." she tried to sell to you while taking her own silverware out of her utility belt and pushing the bar's complementary set towards you. You didn't know why she never used the silverware that was offered to her whenever the two of you went out. You had asked the first time you went out to dinner together, but the cantina was so loud and you were so tired from chasing down a bill jumper that whatever explanation she gave didn't take root in your mind. The woman was chocked full of idiosyncrasies that you just ran with because asking her about them always led to an hour-long explanation full of tangents and stories about "a guy she once knew".
"Yeah… except for the fact that the whole reason I'm working for you is to get my steller mechanic's license." You told her as a waiter came and placed your respective meals, a 12inch sandwich with fries and a bantha hind stew, in front of you. You held off on the stew, wanting to seriously get into why your trade master was pawning you off to some offworlder but Peli immediately went at the food, never one to take her time with anything. You sat there, unmoving with your eyebrows raised, for about two minutes until she noticed you weren't eating.
"Listen, kid…" Peli took a second to bite into the sandwich, chew, swig some spotchka, and swallow before giving you her full attention.
"I know you want to be an engineer and that you've been working to get into a proper school for a while." she started, taking a more serious tone.
"But places like that, especially ones off-world, they're expensive and scholarships can only get you so far. Now if you get some experience under your belt, and some extra credits in your pocket, you'll get a lot farther a lot faster." she explains to you before promptly going back to her sandwich. You sat back in the seat and sighed, before finally taking a spoonful of your bantha hind stew. You hated how much she was right. Experience was worth more than beskar when trying to apply to stellar mech universities, and while Peli's shop was rich with practical knowledge, being able to say you worked as crew on a pre-empire YT-1000 would put you higher on the list than most applicants.
"So… this isn't just you trying to pawn me off to some offworlder for the extra credits?" You asked as you brought a spoonful of the stew to your mouth, trying to seem casual about the next question you asked.
"Or because you can't pay me my stipend?", Tatooine was a chaotic place the majority of the time but that didn't mean there weren't some laws that were being enforced. Trade masters had to pay their apprentices either a reduced version of a regular employee's salary or a monthly stipend equivalent to three weeks' reduced pay. Failure to do so would result in the trade master getting their license suspended and in more extreme cases revoked. Tatooine might be one of the shittiest most chaotic of planets in the galaxy, but the one thing that people who live there can agree on globally is that you don't fuck with a paycheck.
"Maker, that's a stupid question." Peli chastised before you rolled your eyes at her.
"Don't you have eyes? Business is going great, projects get done three times faster and to be honest, I'm making double what I used to because I can take in more customers without worrying about the droids overheating." She explained through bites.
"No, I want you to go because this is a good opportunity. All stellar-mechs and engineers should have experience being on a space crew before they get their license or, maker forbid it, their first ship.", You remember letting out a sigh that you hadn't realized you were holding. It was relieving to hear that you weren't being fired or that Peli didn't want you as an apprentice for any monetary reasons. Rather that it was just her doing her job and being an unsurprisingly good teacher.
"…Plus I think he's lonely." Peli told you after a couple of moments of silence. You remember that part very well because it wasn't often that Peli was quiet enough for you to have a couple of moments to think in between conversations. It was less often when she spoke with genuine empathy in her voice.
"Why'd you say that?" You asked her, genuinely curious as to why your trade master cared. Peli finished her sandwich, then wiped her mouth with the grease-stained handkerchief that she kept on her at all times.
"Last few times he was here, he had a lil guy with him. Thing was so ugly it was adorable." She began, looking to be deep in thought. About what, you couldn't say now or then.
"I remember that he asked me if I knew of any creatures like it, or seen them come through my shop. I told him that if I did that I would have remembered them, especially if they were that small… This time no Lil guy. I think he found out where he belonged."
"Lil guy? Like a pet" You repeated, not quite understanding. Peli nodded her head no solemnly as she looked back out at the crowd, probably searching for the waiter.
"More like a baby. Thing was intelligent, could laugh and cry, the whole works.", now that got your attention. At the time the image of the stoic and curt man with a pulse rifle on his back and a tiny baby in his arms made you want to laugh a little bit. The Mandalorian had looked about as parental as well… as a bounty hunter. A gunslinger who attracted violence at every turn and tracked down the galaxy's shittiest residence would have been a rough parent to have, and you would know a thing or two about rough parenting or lack thereof.
But then again, you thought you had heard something like that a while ago about Mandalorian culture. Or maybe you read it on your datapad one night while mindlessly searching through the information in its system. That some clans of Mandalorians were notorious for adopting lost or orphaned children because of the creed they took. It wouldn't be until much, much, later after having spent some time with the man that you would learn how normal it was for Mandalorians to adopt "foundlings" into their clans.
"Regardless, I think you should take it. Jobs like this come far and few, and people like you are the ones who deserve them most." Peli told you after you had eaten a fair share of your stew.
"People like me?" you had asked, lifting your head from your meal. Your trade master shrugged and leaned back into her seat before picking up her mug.
"Yeah, people with enough drive to make it out there." She took a sip of her drink, now satiated enough that she was able to enjoy the spotchka in her mug without inhaling it, but you had fully stopped eating and were looking at her with wide eyes and a bit of a grin.
"Holy shit. Was that… a genuine compliment from Peli Moto?" You asked her, poking fun at the steller mechanic who you'd gotten to know so well after the past five months. The said mechanic finished her drink quickly and waved her hand at you like she was swatting a bug away.
"Don't get used to them, kid. I just call it how I see it. So… you gonna take the job or not?" Peli pressed as you finished up your meal.
"I… I don't know." you told her with a confused sigh. In your defense, she did put that life-altering decision on you last minute. However, it wasn't like you didn't want to go off-world. That had been the plan since day one of you meeting her. Longer than that, even. The entire reason you wanted to be a steller engineer was to explore other worlds and to maybe… At that moment you had looked down at the datapad that was attached to your satchel. The name Atticus etched into the back of its sturdy case, sturdy enough to protect its contents for the better part of 20 years. It was then you were reminded of your father and how this was the only thing you had left of him and that maybe… maybe there was more out there. More about you and where you came from. More than what was there in the blistering heat of Tatooine, where rain never fell.
"Well, whatever you choose it's no skin off my back." Peli told you, and you were silently glad that she was there to get you out of your head.
"Stay, leave, it's all fine to me. But if I were you I'd make a decision quickly." her eyes scanned the crowd until they landed on a waiter and she began flagging them down.
"Why?" You asked.
"Because Tin-Man just walked through the front door and it looks like he's heading our way.", You probably shouldn't have, but after hearing that he was in the cantina you straightened up in your seat then turned to look at the front doors and sure as shit there he was. Six feet of metal from helmet to beskar toed boot, sticking out like a sore thumb in that drop bar cantina and walking over to the two of you with purpose in his step.
That same uneasy nervousness hit you then like it had hit you when you were on the ship alone with him. The hairs on your arms raised and even in the heat of the afternoon, you felt a chill go down your body as you knew that he was coming for you. At the last moment you turned your head back to look at Peli for any type of advice or sign, but it didn't matter because when you did he was already standing at your table.
"Are you ready to leave?" His modulated voice asked, black visor locked onto you.
"I don't have all day.", it was downright criminal how you couldn't get a read from either his face or his voice, things you already had trouble deciphering sans helmet. The way he said that phrase could of meant that he was pissed, bored, late, hell he could've been joking. But at that time you had absolutely no idea, and not knowing only made you more nervous.
"Oh um- sorry. I just-" You floundered for a bit as you tried to give the Mandalorian an answer. For some reason, you started to stack your empty dishes and made them into a neat little pile for whatever busboy would clean up after you left.
"I needed to eat so we left, I-" You looked at Peli, who had been too occupied with trying to call down the waiter on the other end of the bar to give you the light of day, before looking back up at the black visor staring down at you.
"-yes… Yeah. Yeah, I just need to get my things from my room and the garage and then…" for the last time in that interaction you looked back at Peli, who had successfully flagged down the waiter and was speaking to him in a language that you didn't understand, then realized that you were fully on your own with the decision you had made.
"-and then we can head off."
It didn't take as long as you thought it would to pack all of your things. Especially since a good portion of your personal gear had been spent on the ship you left Tatooine on. Any heavy machinery you used before belonged to Peli. All of your mechanic's tech was in your tool belt or your satchel, and you didn't own many clothes when you left the planet. The majority of your old wardrobe you thrifted for credits when you first left your uncle's. Aside from some loungewear, underwear, and a couple of sentimental t-shirts all you really owned in the way of clothing were the three olive green jumpsuits Peli had given to you at the beginning of your apprenticeship. When all was said and done, all of your belongings had fit into two duffel bags and a satchel. It took you just under an hour to pack it all.
You wish you could say your departure from Tatooine was heartfelt and full of nostalgia or love for the place you grew up but… it wasn't. Aside from the truly heartfelt goodbye, you gave to Peli, and her reassuring you that if it were to ever break bad out there she would take you back in a heartbeat, leaving Tatooine was the easiest decision you had ever made. You didn't even look back when the loading dock closed behind you, or when the ship fled the atmosphere.
But the reason it was so easy to not look back or to not have a heartfelt goodbye for the planet, even now months later, was because ever since you were a child you knew that Tatooine wasn't your home. Saying that you were one day going to leave the planet, was the same as saying that there were two suns in the sky. An irrefutable fact. You didn't know how it would happen or when, but you'd been ready for it for years. You think… You think you were ready to leave the second you put your hands on a screwdriver and began working on your first speeder bike.
Leaving was the easy part, what came next well… You remember having looked over at the Mandalorian sitting in the adjacent pilot's seat. You knew better than most that many of the people who came through your shop, came through Tatooine, were very "act fast, explain later" in their personality and their actions but you still lacked a full explanation of what your job even was. You suspected that he needed a co-pilot, definitely an engineer, and probably someone who could help with general upkeep. All things you could do more or less, but the lack of instruction really made you uncomfortable. That on top of the man's heavy silence.
There wasn't much time to marvel at the stars or to react excitedly to leaving the planet, because as soon as the two of you were far enough away from Tatooine's atmosphere Mando wordlessly put his next destination into the coordinates and pulled the two of you into hyperspace with a jump.
"I have to rest." he spoke after a few moments of, to you, unnerving silence.
"Okay." You responded, maybe a bit too quickly. However the Mandalorian next to you didn't seem to care.
"It's on autopilot but the calibration system is old so sometimes it overshoots the destination. Do you think you can keep an eye on our location for a couple hours?", Without looking back at him you nodded your head.
"Yeah, I can do that." Immediately you pulled up to the console and began doing a routine check of systems. As you did so, you waited for a "thanks" or some type of signal that the conversation was over but the only response you got was the shuffle of metal standing and the sound of heavy boot steps exiting the cockpit.
You waited maybe a solid eight seconds before looking back at the exit to check that he was gone. A gentle sigh of relief leaving you once you realized that you were alone. Putting in your earbuds and pulling out your datapad, you tapped the side button twice to awaken the device and, like all the thousands of times you've done this before, the screen turned light blue and a masculine but gentle voice greeted you.
"Good Evening. The date is Month 2 Day 12 of the Galactic Standard Calendar. On Tatooine, the time is 17:01."
"Hey, Atticus…." you greeted the datapad.
"Tell me how to fix this consul."
