Chapter Five: The Scenic Route to Naboo & The Return to Nevarro:
Din didn't know why, but the Twi'lek as a whole did not look reassured at that either. She shrugged mentally as she got her thigh armor with the sonic sink and reattached it. It wasn't really her fault, if they looked uneasy as they settled to take their naps. Din went back up to the cock-pit. Sealing it back up, she looked at the alarm. About three or so hours to go. Plenty of time to get a little nap in herself. Din was looking forward to the Hunt.
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Reviews: Thank you for the questions:
There were a couple of questions from Clare Prime of Ultra:
"It's been 16 hrs since my last comment. You promised 2 updates a week if you missed one. We got three. I'm speechless.
Will you include flashbacks of Din meeting her Buir? I mean, we all know what happened but I would love to read about your take on it."
~ About that promise, yes, I did promise two chapters if I missed a previous week. I hadn't meant to since I was having computer issues and thought it was already uploaded. Imagine my mortification when it was NOT. – Ugh - Anyway, I was inspired later on to write the extra chapter. But, please don't be speechless. I like reviews and comments. Some of the ones I read on others inspired parts of the storyline that I have come up with. So, please keep them coming!
~ If I have writer's block, those comments and reviews may help me with letting the words flow.
~ As for the questions in and of themselves: I will be including some flashbacks of Din meeting her Buir. Snippets like when Canon Din was in the forge and there will only be a couple full flashback. When those happen, well [Picture Mona Lisa's smile] that would be telling, wouldn't it? There will be other flashbacks, but not too, too many. Sometimes too many such things littering a FanFic, makes me nearly give up the reading.
Now on with the Journey: In a galaxy far, far away…
The planet was something like Nevarro with a couple of exceptions. The planet had multiple little oceans of fresh-water that was near black, they were so deep. The cliffs that lines these oceans were mottled green from moss and algae. Perched on one of these cliffs was the wanna-be Canto Bight. It wasn't anywhere near as luxurious as the real one, but it made a valiant effort. The clientele was too poor for the real Canto Bight, but they could afford this place. And it was at the outskirts, the hangar the farthest inland that Din landed the Razor Crest.
Din handed Jiljoo'ame an extra comm from her "not as secure" gun safe and told the group as a whole, "While I am out scratching that violent itch, go find a few different pawn shops. Sell the valuables there and keep the credits. When I am done, I will call. Be back on the ship by then. Clear?" They all nodded and crept quietly together coming from behind her as she descended the ramp. The mechanic that had approached them, leered at all the females – well the known ones – and bowed in over the top subservience to her. "Welcome to our humble –," Din cut him off, "Cut the sales pitch. Top off the fuel and keep your eyes to yourself." The man seemed to trip over himself and tried to hide the glare he was directing at her.
"Where are the nearest pawn shops? My attendants," a negligible gesture towards the Twi'lek behind her, "have some items I no longer care for to sell. Tell them where the addresses and directions are to these locations and I will not remove those glaring eyes from your skull." The man recoiled and bowed up and down in fear now. "For your services," Din tossed a pouch at him. It held five-thousand credits. "Keep droids away from my ship," was the parting shot as she left the hangar. She could Feel the man's greed and terror. The man was a pig, but not so much of one as to not realize, he had better do as he was paid to and keep himself to himself. The mechanic had seen some people come in here with slaves before that were very territorial over their property. He thought that a Mandalorian master would be ten times worse than those other owners. He would be right, if she actually owned slaves.
Din looked around and saw a rental place for transportation. As she approached, she saw to her satisfaction that they were renting speeders. And one caught her eye immediately. A sleek thing, it was an older model and was a dim brown. Perfect, Din approached the proprietor of the place and stated, "I will take the old dun speeder on an overland trip. How much for an all-day affair?" The clerk at the booth table – a rangy Human – glanced at the speeder in question and said "That piece of junk? You can outright buy it for a thousand." Din handed over a thousand credits and stated "Go get the deed of ownership." The idiotic clerk didn't know what she was all-but stealing now. His boss would probably be infuriated with the moron, but Din didn't care. That was the amount usually for a rental, not an outright sale in a place like this.
The clerk came back with the deed and gave it over. Nodding to signal the end of their interaction, Din went to the speeder. It was in real good condition, considering where it was. Starting it up, she zoomed out of the rental place and down the streets. She was streaking out of the city limits and toward the old Imperial factory in a matter of minutes.
It took about an hour to get to the factory and it indeed looked abandoned. She would definitely investigate. It could be there was some more scrap that the Jawas could use. Din approached on the speeder and left it hidden behind a small hill of rocks that were just two meters from a hole in the wall of the building. It looked like the attack had been at least months ago, maybe even longer. She frowned to herself. Keeping one hand on her blaster, she crept inside, through the hole.
There were no sounds here, not really. It was as silent as a tomb. She didn't let up her guard as she went through empty halls and in disarrayed assembly lines. It looked like the factory had been primarily used in the making of AT-STs. This place was a mystery now. Abandoned, maybe. Attacked, definitely. But by whom? The hole in the wall was definitely caused by an external explosion, she could see the evidence of that, but again by whom? Other Imperials didn't make sense and Rebels would have blown this thing to smithereens. That was when she heard it. A ship!
There was a ship approaching the factory. As she passed through what from the look of it was the loading platforms and hangars for carrying the AT-STs onto ships, she climbed and leaped into a hiding space where she was hidden by shadows and a partially blaster-burned wall. What felt like an eternity later, the ship had landed just inside the hangar. She peeked out to see what was going on. Those were not Imperials, but they weren't much better in her opinion. Smugglers at the very least and it must be for something really big for there to be such secrecy and an out of the way place. Most smugglers wouldn't want to hang out in some semi-demolished scrap pile like this place. She heard what sounded like another pair of ships approach. Was it a fleet landing or a meeting?
She watched with narrow eyes as the next two ships landed. The crew came out. It seemed that they were here for a meeting. They all were making preparations for camp and relaxing. It was a mixed bag of Humans and mostly Human-Hybrids aliens. So, the meeting wasn't fully attended yet. Who were they waiting on? What had she stumbled across now, in her quest to wipe out the Imperial remnant for good? She got her answer partially some twenty minutes later. The sound of a speeder approaching made her frown deepen. Who would be meeting out here from the wanna-be Canto Bight? The answer to that was a lean and greying Human with a humorless smile, dressed like a Core-born. When she began to listen, her frown became a scowl of anger.
The Core-born Human complaining about a few people who were being a nuisance. In particular, some old Rebels. The names he mentioned didn't mean anything to her, but the tone just made her want to shoot the little shit. Finally, he seemed to run out of hot air venting his spleen and got down to business. He wanted to hire this small fleet of mercenaries to help him with a few errands in the name of the First Order. If they did the jobs well, he would see to it that they were paid handsomely.
Well, the jobs he talked about seemed more along the lines of what bounty hunters usually did, so why didn't the bastard just put out bounty pucks on his enemies? There were some hunters who wouldn't care what bounty they picked. They would ask no questions. But there were some jobs that got her attention. One of the jobs was to take select children from their families and bring them somewhere. The location had yet to be determined.
The mercenaries, seemingly more intelligent than the Core-born asked questions. The answers interested Din as well. She would send this information to another one of her New Republican contacts, this one an old retired Rebel himself that still commanded respect at the Hub he lived by. He could get it to the proper places without anyone knowing who had dug up the information in the first place. The conversation was continuing, but she no longer cared.
The mercenaries were going to die and the Core-born bastard would too. After he answered her questions. Din eyed the group. They seemed to wish to spend at least a day here and would lift off to start the jobs. There was – now that she could see all of them and there were no life forms registering to be there in the ships, some forty mercs. She started to move out of her hiding spot. She could kill them all, but Din didn't want to get injured. Din would be still be sharing the Razor Crest with strangers after all.
She looked around to see if she could use anything around. That was when she noticed the Control Room. Din made her way over to it. There she found the first corpses. Two rotting, bloated things that resembled men. It looked like they had been shot multiple times. 'Can't exactly blame whoever did,' she thought, looking down at the dead Imps. Because even though the clothes were just as bad as the bodies, she could make out the Imperial insignias on the shoulders. Didn't matter.
Din turned her eyes to the controls. Most were damaged beyond use, but the emergency lock down procedures seemed to be in working condition. She checked to see if it had power. It did. Smiling with her bloodlust rising, she initiated Lock Down. The huge doors that had let the mercenaries land shut with a resounding boom.
The shouts of confusion and other sounds of chaos coming from her prey was enough to make her realize that these mercs were in their own way, near as stupid as their prospective client. They were getting flashlights and glowing rods and turning them on; spinning around looking for their enemies. Those lights were targets and made the mercs even bigger targets.
That was when she noticed that some of them had brains, they had guns trained on the shadows and were seeming to be making their way to her location. They would be looking for the enemies – not knowing there was only one – and for the control booth to reopen the doors. 'Them, first,' she thought. Taking her rifle off her back, she didn't use the disruptor feature, instead turning on the blaster setting. Shifting her helmet's vision to infrared, she began to aim. Her rifle could shoot at a fairly decent clip, the smart team – all five – were gunned down before they knew what was happening. The screams that were coming from the others, didn't help her bloodlust levels.
Her next targets were the lights, shooting them and sending all but her into mottled darkness. It wasn't complete darkness, for there were holes everywhere. The mercs could escape those ways, but she doubted they had the brains to. Merc companies like these were a credit a dozen and stupid to boot. The next target was the Core-bastard, she used a stunning blast from her hip blaster on him. It worked like a charm. He went down and stayed down. The mercs that were still alive numbered at thirty-five now.
She picked them off one by one; going first for those running for the ships. She didn't want to damage those too badly. Din wanted to see what the Jawas could make of them. The blasters that the mercs had were shooting everywhere around her, but they couldn't manage to see her. After all, they were blinded by the darkness and she had her infrared vision.
When all were down and dead – with the exception of the Core-bastard – she used her grapple rope for getting down from her perch faster. With that she went straight to the now moaning prey. A couple of seconds found him with his hands cuffed behind his back. Using the grapple again, she disengaged it from her vambrace and used it as a leash/noose. When he woke up all the way, he wouldn't be going anywhere. And just for good measure she stunned him again, this time with a little more power behind it. Now, Din could continue looking around at her leisure.
First thing first, she went back to the control booth and turned off the Lock Down initiative. That reopened the doors, letting in more light. Din tried to look for any kind of schematics, but they had been destroyed with blasters. She shrugged to herself, it wasn't that she had any interest in the factory itself, except the mystery of who had gotten here first.
Din walked around to the booth's entrance and found a section of pipes that seemed to cover power lines just inside the wall. If she followed them, perhaps she could find records, maybe a shipping manifest or two. It took her a few minutes of following the cables to find what looked like a section of rooms. Most looked like they had held generators. That is until whomever got in and took a few explosives to the things.
It took nearly an hour of search the entire factory, before she found the records. The power was still there, just enough for her to turn on one console. A few other consoles sparked and arced with power. So, Din decided to be as quick as she could be. Scanning through what she could, she only found the last records. The factory had actually lasted until two months after the Fall, before – and this was the only incomplete file in the system she had access to – there was a registered attack. The attackers were unidentified, either because they were truly unknown or they had left none alive to report a description.
'Well, this was a near waste of time,' Din thought to herself as she made her way back to the loading area, where that Core-bastard should be awake by now. And probably sore as well.
When she had arrived, she ignored the Core-bastard who was yelling profanities at the world, so wrapped up in his own emotions, he didn't see her walking up one of the ship's ramps. In the ship, she made her way to the cockpit. It was a newer model – almost off the assembly lines new – that had communications system that would help her contact the Jawas. As she started up the communications to do so, Din wondered if the Jawas wanted her to wait to question the Core-bastard when they could watch. They sometimes did.
The Jawas didn't answer her hail exactly. Instead Din heard the babbling of Jawas outside. They must have landed earlier and snuck closer to wait for her. She stopped trying to hail them from the communications on the ship and went back out to meet them. A small group – maybe ten or so of them were poking the Core-bastard with long sticks, the soon to be dead man shrieking and trying to get away from.
"[Greetings,]" she said. The Jawas turned to her and chittered greetings back. The Core-bastard turned to see what the Jawas were looking at and saw her. She tilted her head to the side a little. This was the first time she had literally made someone pale that fast and – from the new smell that made the Jawas back away from him complaining – shit themselves. She ignored that for now, instead continuing her greetings, "[What was the delay for? Anything I should worry about?]" She wanted to know if something unfortunate had occurred. "[No, no, no! There was just too much work to do for three tribes to do in a few days. We managed to get everything stripped down. The only things left were the dead meat and some parts of the buildings. Another problem was there was too much!]" The Jawa who was the spokesperson for today went on to explain that the Jawa Collective had actually settled for a couple more days than planned on the moon with the storage facility to strip it of all the things that they had wanted and that the refueling station had been remodeled for the Jawa's use. They had left one regular part of the refueling station for her use, since she had a contract with them.
Din was almost touched by the Jawa's actions, but she squelched the feeling down. She glanced at the soon-to-be corpse who was trying to get the grapple rope off his neck, no doubt so he could run for the speeder. After the Jawa's finished explaining what had delayed them, she said, "[We will talk of the exchange of services after a while. If you wish, you may have whatever in this factory you want. I will be questioning this Dead Meat-to be in the meantime.]" The Jawas as a group laughed and all but one ran off into the depths of the factory. The one that remained, found a blanket from the former mercenaries' supplies and used it as a seat. Din turned to the Core-bastard at last.
"You will answer every question I ask you, truthfully and completely. If you don't, I will have to punish you." He tried to look brave and haughty, but that was kind of difficult for a man to pull off when he smells like shit. "First question," Din began as she hit the recording button on her vambrace that connected to her helmet, "What is your name?" The Core-bastard seemed to want to refuse, but thought the better of it, "Seno Tupid" he replied. "What is your business with the First Order?" Here, the now named Seno went silent for a moment too long for Din's liking.
One of her throwing knives made its way from sheath, to hand to Tupid's left shoulder. He screamed and fell to his knees. Where he was located at the time, made the noose tighten to the point that he couldn't breathe. She went over to the struggling man and dragged him to his feet – at arm's length of course. She didn't feel all that bad about this, but she wanted more details than what was offered to the mercs. Din tossed him directly under the rope, so that even if he fell, he wouldn't suffocate. The knife buried itself deeper into his shoulder. The puny Tupid was crying and mewling pathetically. "Answer the question," she said even colder.
She knew what the effect on outsiders was to the voice modulator. It would sound like a winter-gale was cutting through the soul while a wampa was close enough to reach out and devour them. Tupid babbled. Apparently, he had no pain tolerance. He babbled everything he knew about the First Order and their plans, which wasn't much. Boiled down, he knew they existed, had been approached and only knew that they wanted specific children to pressure other people into following them for the fear and love of their children.
It took about fifteen minutes to get through it all and in the end, she got annoyed enough to take her knife out of his shoulder and let it pulse as she tried to get her anger at the sorry excuse of a being in front of her under control. That was also, about the time that the comm went off. Jiljoo'ame was hailing her to tell her that all the selling of the items was completed and they were on the ship as ordered. She had purposefully left the Ground Security Protocols off, so that they could reenter the ship without her. Din returned the hail with an order to hold on to something, and then summoned the Razor Crest. The ship would take enough time to get her business done with the Jawas and finish with Tupido.
Tupido was simply dispatched with a blaster shot to the head. The grapple rope she had used to keep him from leaving was reclaimed. She contemplated rifling the body, but decided not to. Instead she turned to the now-pack of Jawas who were waiting for her to be finished. They had already gone over the mercs and their ships, by the way they were chattering away. She cleared her throat and took a seat in front of them on the blanket cushion they had set out for her.
Nodding her thanks and getting a nod from the group, she began, "[I would like to have the Razor Crest enlarged by forty percent, a way to add a secondary defense in the forms of stealth shield and a camouflaging cover for the hull, while maintaining the efficiency of the hyperdrive as it is. I would also like some assistance with getting materials on Nevarro. For some personal projects.]" The Jawas debated this among themselves in whispers. She waited patiently, a couple of minutes later the Jawas said "[It will take a long time to do this project. Many weeks, much material.]" She nodded and stated "[I know. But it is a fair trade is it not? A refueling station, a storage facility, a mostly intact factory and three almost-brand new ships to scrap; for such a project.]"
They knew as well as she did, if not better, that they were getting the better part of this particular deal. They whispered among themselves and seemed to make a decision. The Jawas agreed to it, but demanded that it would take at least a year to get everything together and about six months' worth of work to get everything in place properly on her ship. Din agreed almost instantly and they all agreed that the project would be best to do on Tatooine, the Jawas' home planet. It may be a hot and inhospitable planet with even more inhospitable locals, but it had privacy for the most part and no one would really ask questions. Business was concluded.
They went their separate ways – the Jawas to scrap what they wanted from the factory and Din to get her new speeder. She could have asked the Jawas to modify the thing, but she wanted to do that herself. Din got to the bike and began to rev the thing up. She would head back towards town until she saw the Crest. She'd wait for it to come down then. Din wanted to give the Jawas some privacy and the Twi'lek didn't need to see what was in said-factory.
Din was about two kilometers away from the factory when she saw the Crest. There she stopped and allowed the ship to land about fifteen feet away from her. She made quick work of loading the speeder into the compartment that held her old speeder, before that moron triggered the self-destructing trap on it. The hatch came down and she walked up it as calmly as if she didn't notice all four Twi'lek were holding on to the ladder and each other with death-grips. It was almost amusing. The four let go of the ladder as the hatch closed and she approached.
"Make yourself comfortable, we are on our way to Naboo," she said as she climbed the ladder. "It is about two hours away, so not too comfortable." She made it into the cockpit. Taking off planet, Din decided it would probably be the last time for a long time that she would have people on her ship. She didn't like it. But, hey, in two hours the quartet would be off her ship.
[Two Hours Later] {AN: I skipped the lift off and journey because it doesn't add anything but additional words to the story}
As the Razor Crest landed on Naboo, Din thought, 'The Twi'lek will be treated well here and I can hand off the information I got from that Tupido-bastard. Might even be able to split off that account here and take a portion with me. I have the feeling that I'll need it.' The hailing from the Ground Control was generic and asked her to land in Hangar Nine. She sent back a message confirming that she was heading for Hangar Nine and added a request to see Captain Ruvula. When she landed the Crest, she shut down the engines and descended the ladder to the lower deck.
The Twi'lek were there of course, looking torn between hopeful joy – probably about a new life to start on the beautiful planet – and mind-blank terror – probably for the same reason. She gestured to them. They silently gathered their things and followed her to the hatch. They had folded and put away the things that made the teenagers their bed and the dishes. She knew that they hadn't taken anything that was not theirs, for there was no deceit in their presence at all.
The Twi'lek actually preceded her off the ramp and were being greeted by Captain Ruvula politely yet warmly. She made her way off the ramp, only to hear a shout and a report of a blaster. Din felt the edge of the blast as she tried to dodge. Din fell off the ramp with a muffled curse as she rolled to her feet, feeling the pulsing burn on her left bicep and part of her torso, where the beskar wasn't situated. She hadn't been expecting that. This was supposed to be a secure Hangar for vetted personnel only.
The Twi'lek were shrieking and Captain Ruvula was shouting at someone to cease fire. She had drawn her own blaster as she rolled to her feet. Din heard a struggle occurring and someone shouting about Captain Ruvula being a traitor and he was working with an Imp. Oh and if that didn't make Din want to shoot the shouter somewhere painful, she didn't know what would make her want to.
Captain Ruvula looked fit to be tied as well he should. He had been part of the Rebellion after all, just as she had been. "This Mandalorian," Captain Ruvula said with venom near spewing from his mouth along with his words, "is an old ally of the Rebellion who helped save more lives, than anyone cares to admit. And has shown more honor than you. How dare you fire on someone like him!?" He gestured to a group of men, who looked somewhat sympathetic to the man that they were restraining. "Get him out of here and into a secured cell. Queen Sosha Soruna will hear of this!"
The restrained man who was being put into cuffs, demanded "Why would the Queen care about a filthy Mando? One of the Empire's main stooges – "That was when Din shot the grapple rope out and let it wrap around his legs. She pulled hard and strong, jerking the man out from his restrainers' grips and yanking him towards her. She was near enraged to the point of remonstrating with the little bastard. To dare shoot at her and then to accuse her of being an Imperial?!
Din didn't stop winding, until the bastard was right in front of her. Stomping on his sternum with her left boot, she felt something crack. The brat let out a shriek of pain. Captain Ruvula approached her, his hands spread wide, slowly as if he were approaching a feral animal. Her helmet glared at him as her blaster was centered right between the eyes of the little brat. "I know he crossed several lines there," he soothed, "but please don't kill him. He is not worth it. He not only insulted you, but he has cast a shadow of dishonor upon Naboo and her Queen. He will be punished severely for this."
Din near shot the bastard anyway, just not between the eyes. She was contemplating his crotch, when she heard a whimper. The Twi'lek were looking at her with near-fear in their eyes. They knew she was a killer; they had seen her disintegrate their former owner. She had to be better than that, so while her helmet never seemed to have left her pinned foe, she stated with the rage in her voice making the air charged with malice, "You swear?" Captain Ruvula nodded fervently, "I swear."
She nodded and holstered the blaster. Jerking the grapple rope from the brat, she let it wind back into her vambrace as she picked the piece of spoiled shit off the floor by the throat. She growled right in his sweating face, "You had better be damn grateful that the Captain swore you would be punished for that slight upon Mandalorian honor, or you would be wishing for death," with that she hurled the worthless wretch at the former restrainers. They caught him, barely and carried him from the hangar.
Captain Ruvula sighed and tried to apologize to her. She held up a hand forestalling him. Taking the holodisk about what Tupido had confessed and the interactions between the mercs and him, as well as the mercs' fates, she flatly said "You are going to want this," nodding at the Twi'lek she directed the next part to them, "Captain Ruvula was the one I told you about. Talk with him and he will help. Good luck." With that she turned back up the ramp. Right now, she was in no mood to be on Naboo any longer than she had to be. If she did, she'd be tempted to track that little bastard down and show him a taste of what she wanted to do to the real Imps.
As she was half-way up the ramp, Ruvula called, "Good Hunting!" Din didn't turn back. She just closed the hatch and went up into the cock-pit. She had enough fuel to last her to Nevarro and a little extra. Din was taking off and leaving the planet's atmosphere just as quickly as the last two exits. Maybe the next time she visited Naboo, she could see her old comrades, but right now she was too pissed off.
Din set the calculations for Nevarro and noticed it would take her almost another week to get there. Again, the time was fine by her. With the whirling of hyperspace once more surrounding her, she went to the medical bunk and pulled out a jar of bacta. Din wanted to keep up her practice and it wouldn't do if she couldn't move certain muscles. Taking off the top half of armor was more difficult than it was dragging that brat halfway across a hangar. The adrenaline had worn off, if not the anger at the slight and dishonorable conduct. The top under layers were removed to see a red line on both her inner left bicep and on the adjacent part of her ribs.
The bacta was lightly painted on and held there by a couple of patches. Too fed up with everything today, with the only real bright side to the whole fiasco on Naboo, being that the Twi'lek were off her ship, along with the information on whatever the hell the First Order was. She didn't feel like cooking anything so just gnawed on a ration bar. Taking off the rest of her armor, she once again curled under the blanket on the medical bunk. It hadn't been the longest wake cycle she had had recently, but she didn't feel like doing anything right now. The one thought that crossed her mind before she sank in the habit of meditation before True Sleep claimed her was that she was going to have to do laundry the next day.
And so, the week passed, with the same small routine that would happen every time she went into Hyperspace for an extended period of time. She approached Nevarro with a feeling somewhat like relief. Now, she could go get another bounty and get Qin's ugly frozen mug off her ship. If she saw his face again in all eternity, it would be too soon.