The Lone Mandalorian

by FeeNox1992

What if the Mandalorian Din Djarrin was female? What if she had a grudge the size of the parsec for the Empire? What if she never found the covert? What if she was alone? What if Din could use the Force? ***Rated M for reasons later in the chapters.***

8. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Gangs & In the Hoth System:

It took about twenty minutes to land in the hangar that belonged to the gang that had hired her services. When she did, Din climbed down the ladder and made sure that she took her Amban rifle with her. The pouches at her belt were fully stocked and ready before she had even left Nevarro. She was still smiling when she walked down the ramp, walking towards the welcoming party. The first job was about to begin.

~/~

Reviews: Thank you for the questions:

There were a couple of questions from Clare Prime of Ultra:

"Huh, was expecting more from the big reveal, but it was cute to read. Great, now Greef has a crush on her, I do not see those two together at all, just yuck. When she finished her work, will she meet the Covert?"

~ About that reveal, please don't call it THE big reveal. Four people know that Din is in fact female. No one else does. THE big reveal comes much, much later. As for Greef, while I can see something there [if I squint through a microscope and had been on some really good spice], that something will not be in this fic. For one thing, Greef is going to kick his libido down until he thinks Din as a good friend to have [he isn't gay, and he won't find out about her real gender until the big reveal]. Last thing, Din has a mighty big chip on her shoulder that only a Jedi or a fellow Mandalorian can get through to her. I'm in a bit of a toss-up. Between Paz Vizla, Luke Skywalker, or for there to be a complete left-fielder to stun everyone.

Now on with the Journey: In a galaxy far, far away…

The welcoming party included was comprised of seven minions. All carrying big blasters. Din Djarrin wasn't impressed, not by them nor their firepower. The smile that she had on her face dimmed. There had better be something better than this. The leader of the minions – she wouldn't say this was the big boss – swaggered up to her and drawled, "So, you're the Mando? Gotta say, I am not impressed. Heard we were getting a little muscle to help beef up the ranks. Didn't know it would be so literally true."

They all laughed at the joke. Din's smile vanished completely from behind her helmet. Great, it was one of those jobs. Where the locals think they are the biggest loth-wolves in the galaxy. She was kind of tempted to show the impudent idiot just how small a pup he was, but she throttled down the urge. Instead, Din said, "There wasn't a lot of details for the job on the puck. So, do yourself a favor and fill in the blanks left or lead me to the person who does know what's going on."

The minion just sneered at her and said, "Talk to the boss, if you think you can pull off the job. But we're here for the rent for the hangar, not to be your tour guide." He held up his hand to her and made a gesture – as if this arrogant moof-milker wanted her to pay for the privilege of the job. Her hand shot up from her side and grabbed the bastard by the outstretched limb. Twisting it, she ignored his yell of pain and pinned it up his back, near dislocating his arm.

The other six minions had their blasters up and aiming at her. She pushed the buttons to engage Ground Security Protocols for the Razor Crest. Pulling her regular blaster with the other hand she shot all six minions before they knew what was happening. They honestly hadn't known how to hold those big blasters properly. Jamming the blaster into the point of the neck where it meets the skull and spoke, icy warning in her voice, "I suggest you play tour guide for a while. If you are good enough at it, I won't splatter your brain all over the street."

The idiot looked horrified and like he was about to puke at the sight of the other six shot down before they knew it. He snapped out of his thoughts to gulp and nod, when Din pressed the blaster's hot barrel into his skull just a little too firmly. It took a few minutes to walk by a bar that had been mentioned on the puck. The door opened with a hiss when they approached. The bar – which had been lively with talk and laughter – suddenly got quiet. All eyes were turned to the door where she stood with her unwilling tour guide.

"Well, I be," a voice drawled from a shadowed corner, "Here I thought I would have to tell you what I had actually hired you for and you go and do it for me unknowing." As Din faced the corner, a form rose and walked towards the pair at the door. It was a heavily built male with a braid of black hair. He came towards the pair with a big malevolent grin. "Mando," he said with great satisfaction, "Please pull the trigger on this bastard." Said-bastard was probably staring at the male, she couldn't tell.

"Who are you?" she demanded. The man laughed heartily and said, "I'm the one who hired you, I gave a passphrase in the puck. It's always nice," his smile turned darker, "to have an enemy put on ice." Din nodded at the code. It was how she was to find the client in the bar. The welcoming committee had been a slight surprise and for a moment, she had thought that something had come up. Now that she knew what was going on a little better, she took the blaster away from the man's skull.

The client seemed to start a protest, before the shot fired from the blaster echoed, almost eclipsed by the shriek that came from the man. After all, she had just shot him in the back of the kneecap. Din turned her face to look at the client. The Client had a look of near lust on his face. "Thank you," he purred, "this is even better than you shooting him in the head and giving him a quick death. This way, I can make a true example out of him." He tossed a pouch at her. She caught it. She could read the man's mind slightly. He wasn't truly frightened of her, but he hadn't shorted her either. In fact, there was a nice tip in there. This pouch hadn't been intended for her pay as he had already paid a fifth of it as a down-payment, but the client hated the unwilling tour guide that much. This would allow him to take control of both gangs. "That'll be all, Mando," the client drawled, "May you have a better hunt in the future."

Job finished way quicker than she thought it would be, she pocketed the pouch and holstered her blaster. Turning to head out the door, Din tossed over her shoulder, "And may you have pleasure in your pastime." The laughter the client gave could be heard from outside the bar as she walked back to the Razor Crest. No mechanic had come to see to her needs, but then they had probably been scared off by the corpses.

She rifled the bodies. Most Mandalorians would think her dishonorable for taking things off a corpse, but she believed in not wasting anything she could get any use out of. Just a fact of life, when you're a lone wolf. It didn't take too long. A couple of emaciated pouches of credits from the lot. She left the blasters though. They were too much junk for her taste. Half an hour later, Din was on to the next job.

'It that wasn't the shortest job I have ever been on; I can't remember it.' Din thought to herself as she put in the calculations for the Hoth system. The bail-jumpers would be her next target. It was about a six hour jump away. Fine by her, it would allow her to study up on the information she had on the Imperial targets that she would hit after the bail-jumpers and the next job she wanted done. It was another refueling station, this one was supposed to also manned by droids. There wasn't as much information on this station, but it was enough. It was going to be the first target. The next two were old shipyards, where they were located, they had probably been part of a fleet exploring the Wild Spaces just beyond the Outer Rim. The one after that was another refueling station. This one was different. It apparently showed activity from actual personnel. It was also located next to four other targets: a storage compound, another factory – for what, wasn't stated – and two "Academies". That made her frown for a moment in thought. "Academies" were supposed to be places of learning, but with Imperials, that could mean anything from actual academies to prison for people who needed "reeducation". Din decided that she would play those two targets by ear. See what was going on and then see if she wanted to blast them into space flotsam.

The next job Din would take was the idiot that pissed off a Hutt. He was on the other side of the galaxy' it would take a few weeks – maybe two months' worth – of time to get there, including the pit stops. That would work for her, since the creep was apparently entrenched on a moon that was a week or so from Canto Bight. He'd no doubt be prepared for bounty hunters and assassins gunning for his head. She would make sure that they never saw her coming. Glancing at the alarm, she saw she still had about four hours left. 'A ration bar and a nap should do the trick, with a good hot stew to put on to cook for when I come back.'

Devouring a ration bar and getting the cooker started while she chewed, Din's thoughts returned to the past. She thought of the other Mandalorians, hoping that her reputation would reach them. And not the other way around. She was alone, she had no mate and no children. Din would rather be tracked herself, than let someone else be tracked back to a kid.

She shook her thoughts away, grumbling to herself. Placing the cooker into the hatch for it, Din went up the ladder to her personal quarters for that nap. The nap rejuvenated her slightly, when the alarm went off with an hour warning. Taking a stretch, she got out of the chest for where she kept the extra-warm clothing for when she was going to be somewhere as freezing as Hoth. Donning the clothing under and over her armor – to help protect the circuitry – Din made sure to fully stretch; double checking that she could actually move.

Walking over to the cockpit, she started the landing process going for planet Hoth. 'Ancestors,' Din thought, as the Razor Crest got closer to the ice-block, 'I never thought that I'd be on this planet ever again.' She knew it was a silly hope to avoid it for the rest of her natural lifespan, but that didn't mean that she didn't have hopes.

There had been a major Rebellion base there, during the last years of the Empire. She had only been there after the cell she had been working with, were ordered to salvage what they could and make sure the bodies received burials. She had been about sixteen then, just starting to get move on with her life after her Buir had died. The others in the cell were new to her and distrusted her. The memory of it shot through her head as she remembered that awful week.

{Flashback Commencing}

The Razor Crest and four other Rebellion ships landed in the damaged hangar, two days after the Imperials had attacked. Din had turned her engines off and exited the Crest. She was mostly here for security from surprises; so, she didn't wait up for the others to come out of their ships. Din was already walking cautiously, hand on her blaster, down the tunnels that would hopefully lead to the main computer room. It would be her first target.

It took about an hour to clear away rubble and carefully move a few supports into place, but eventually, she got to the main computer room. It was severely damaged, but by her reckoning, there was some things that were salvageable. Din double checked to make sure that there was no threat of a cave-in, even from the blasted hole in the wall. 'Looks like the Imps couldn't get through the door, so they made themselves one,' she thought, grimly amused. Din had been trying to do right by her Buir's teachings more than ever. The pain of his death still pulsed in her heart like a bleeding wound.

As she returned to the others, she told the captain of the cell about what she had and hadn't found. "Either the Imps didn't think that the Rebellion would come back to Hoth and thus left no traps; or they were looking for personnel – maybe a specific one." The captain nodded and gave a strained smile. "Good work, Mando. Did you check all the tunnels?" Din shook her head, "I only had time to scout the tunnel leading to the main computer room," she stated, "Would like me to continue searching the tunnels or scout outside while the air is clear?" The captain thought and nodded his head, "Please scout outside. I want to put the troops that died here to rest quickly. Storms will make it impassable out there later. We can work on the caves then."

Din nodded and went to do as the captain asked. She was out there almost the entire day cycle, when she came back to the hangar; near frozen. She had no spare energy to do anything other than report to the captain that there were no traps untriggered, three big Imperial Walkers that were in various states of destroyed and that the corpses farther out were now just inside the hangar. She turned away when the Captain acknowledged her report; and walked up the ramp of the Crest and closed it up after her. She didn't have the energy to even eat a ration bar, only to fall down into the medical cot and pull a blanket over herself. She was still shivering when she fell asleep.

So, it went on like that for the next two days, when a storm blew up and the group had to shut the hangar doors. She had been grateful that they had found a land-speeder that was okay to use outside; it had made bringing the bodies back to the hangar that much faster. For a whole day, the group of Rebels – including Din – scouted and took everything that was salvageable and filled up all the other ships, but the Razor Crest. It was a tense time for Din, because the others made it quite clear that they didn't trust her – a bounty hunter and worse yet, a Mandalorian bounty hunter – and would shut her out socially. Going silent and unsubtly moving away from her when she would go over to the fire that they were rest at. Din honestly thought they were acting like spoiled core-children, not fighters.

The Captain would look apologetic, but he didn't try really hard to reign the others in. He trusted her only a little, because a fellow Captain had recommended that if he was going to go out with only some technicians, that he had better take at least one soldier for security. And if it was only to be one, it might as well be one as capable as a Mandalorian. So, she had been asked to go along.

The tension came to a head on the sixth day. She had come in from patrolling another section of the former battlefield, only to find six of the techs on her ship, pulling out some of her Buir's tools that had been on the temporary shrine of remembrance she had made for him. Along with his helmet. Needless to say, she near lost her mind and they near lost their lives. She had tossed them all from her ship calling them all kinds of foul names, including desecrators and carrion eaters.

When most of the group came over, the techs babbled about her being an insane bloodthirsty creature who should never have been trusted, let alone brought. They said that they had wanted to borrow some of the tools that they had seen her working with earlier and when they had gone to get them – thinking she wouldn't mind them being taken, if she was really one of them, they were all Rebels after all – and had found some spare armor of hers and the tools. They had taken the tools off the rack and were 'only looking' at the helmet; when the Mando came out of nowhere and proceeded to beat them and abuse them with both fist and voice.

She had heard all of this as she straightened the shrine up, positively smoking with rage and indignation. If Din had been thinking coolly and logically, she would have remembered that aruetiise wouldn't know what the symbols meant. Instead, she could only see her Buir's last helmet, the one he had died in, being mishandled and fondled by a bunch of aruetiise with entitlement issues.

Din finished fixing the shrine as they winded down from their whining. The last thing she needed to put back was her Buir's helmet. She picked it up and held it between her hands; tears falling silently down her face. They were hidden from view, but that didn't mean her heart wasn't still screaming. 'They had to realize,' she thought, 'They have to know exactly what they have done.'

She stalked down the ramp and cradling the helmet, Din snarled at them. "How dare you?" Din came closer. The Captain came between them and barked out, "Stand down, Mando! That is an order." Din looked at him and hissed indignantly. The Captain continued, "I know that Mandos are territorial bastards that don't like outsiders, but that ship," he pointed to the Razor Crest, "is a Rebellion ship, not Mandalorian. It can be accessed by anyone in the Rebel Alliance – "

Din interrupted, "No it is not Rebellion property and shouldn't be accessed by anyone without express permission from the owner, that being me," the Captain was turning purple, Din continued, "Another thing, if you truly are going to listen to only one side of this mess, then you had best be ready to deal with whatever mess happens your way; for I will get off this rock and leave you di'kut for the wampas." The Captain blinked and said, in a tone of voice that seemed to signal that he was about to lose his temper, "I will not put down in records just how much insubordination you just did, but I will also not tolerate such disrespect for the lives of your fellow beings." Then with a sneer of disgust, "But then, you are a Mandalorian. I should have known that you wouldn't care about honor. Only credits."

Din almost rocked back on her heels, shocked. Then the almost-logical sadness and hate well of emotions overflowed and swelled under her chest. There must have been some warning that the group – including the Captain – had crossed some line. They had backed away from her by about five meters. Quite a few had their hands on their blasters. She had to leave, go out for a moment – maybe an entire day – because the inferno in her chest would spill out and what would happen would ruin her reputation among the Rebel Alliance.

So, she said nothing; only holding the helmet tenderly. Turning, she walked to the ramp of the Razor Crest and solemnly placed the helmet in the proper place. Saying prayers of remembrance, she didn't leave for a few hours; completing the entire ritual would have taken days. Days she couldn't afford right now. Silently, she apologized to her father for this further indignity, but she felt he would understand. Taking a few deep breaths, she left to continue patrol. There was a little group of about eight techs that would be working on the last bits of the shield generators that had been targeted during the Imperial attack.

The group that had been in the hangar watched her go, looks of contempt and disgust on some of their faces. The Captain had just been blank. She didn't give them anything, only walked out to check up on the group outside.

She had been about five minutes away, when the first screams started; loudly echoing on the frozen landscape. Din sprinted, using a little of the Force to help her move faster over the frozen ground. She was there in time to see a wampa bringing a screaming tech to its mouth to bite. The blaster was in her hand and firing. The first blast went straight into the creature's foot. When the monster screamed and dropped the tech, the second and third blast went straight into its mouth. It dropped dead to the ground. That was when a roar was heard. Two other wampas, both coming up on her from either side!

Din swore foully as she tried to dodge and still shoot. She killed one with a blaster bolt through the eye, as it tossed her into the air. Something felt like it cracked. That was painful and made her slow. The last one was charging her and snagged her. Its claws raked across her leg rather then near bisecting her from the head down. That wampa got the flamethrower to the face and three bolts in its head.

When she was sure that there were no other monsters about to jump out and try to eat her and the techs, she looked over at them. All eight were accounted for and only one was injured. All were shaking in shock, staring from the wampas to her. Din started to walk over to them, but she swayed as she did; so, she stopped. Looking down, she saw that damn thing had gotten her leg pretty good. Two really nasty gashes were going diagonally across the front of her shin. She could see bone. 'That,' she thought to herself, as the techs snapped out of the shock to rush up to her, 'is going to hurt when it's not numb from the cold.'

The techs had come to support her, gently when they heard her gasp of pain. They helped her to the salvaged land-speeder that had been mostly loaded with parts. Along with the injured technician, they were held by two men, bracing and shielding them partially from the wind.

The group had made it back into the hangar at the speeder's fastest time. When they got there, the techs shouted for the rest as they hauled the injured tech and Din out of the speeder, just about two meters from the ramp to the Crest. Din grunted and shook them off gently. She wouldn't willingly accept help from those who were now rushing up to the nine of them, some paling at the sight of her leg and the tech's chest.

She ignored the inquires, knowing the techs would tell the others what happened. Din headed for the Razor Crest, using enough of the Force to make it easier to walk on her wounded leg. She had just enough bacta to cover her ribs on board; she would have to stitch her leg up and hope she didn't get a fever or infection. Din was walking up the ramp when someone rushed up to her and seized her round the arms and ribs. Her choked cry of pain was near drowned out by the protests coming from the group she had rescued.

Din headbutted the idiot and stomped on his instep with her wounded leg at the same time. Her vision near whited out, but she managed to shove the person off her and off the ramp. She braced herself by the control panel and engaged Ground Security Protocols. She didn't want their help.

~ POV Change ~ [The Captain's]

Captain Bowa Radnam grimaced in pain and near anger as the Mando closed the hatch that led into their ship. 'Mandalorians,' he thought in near-disgust as he got to his feet. He winced and lessened the weight on the foot that the Mando had just stomped on. Bowa looked back at the rest of the team. Most were gathered around the injured tech and putting a bacta wrap around his torso.

It took near an hour for everything and everyone to settle down again. The eight techs that had been out there had to tell the story to the entire group around the fire. Even the injured one did. Though they all insisted that someone should check up on the Mandalorian. When they were told that the techs couldn't get through the doors to get to the Mando, some of them started to cry.

Comforted by their friends and told that they must tell everyone what happened, including a recorder from one of the ships, they all looked at one another and it was the injured one who started.

"It went like this," he started, breathing haphazardly, "we were by the old shield generators, trying to salvage anything we could. The Mando had already scouted it a couple a days ago, so we had thought, no worries, right? There is nothing there." He started coughing. That was when the oldest of the group laid a hand on the man's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He picked up the story, "There was nothing there to start with. No signs we could see. We had near finished up – there wasn't much to salvage," here he looked a little disappointed, "the Imps sure blew it to bits. But anyway, we didn't hear anything nor see anything. When all of a sudden, the first wampa showed up and I swear," he looked a little embarrassed, "I don't think a single one of us didn't let out a shriek. Those things are kriffing massive. Like a giant Wookie with a really bad attitude!"

Here all the techs from the group shuddered and nodded fervently. The tech with blonde hair with a streak of blue in it – he said it matched his eyes – picked up the story, "It grabbed Beany over there," here he gestured at the injured tech – whose response was a rude hand gesture – "and looked like it was about to bite him, head first; when the blaster started sounding off. The thing dropped Beany and then dropped itself. I don't know how many times that thing got hit, but when I – we – turned to look, that Mando was there. Blaster out and pointing at the monster." He gestured to the still-shut Razor Crest. The look he shot towards it was a mix of gratefulness and shame. "I tell you," he said, "When I saw him standing there, I took back every bad thing I ever said about Mandos in my head."

Captain Bowa Radnam shot them a look, "Was that all?" he inquired. The group emphatically shook their heads in negation. "There were two more," a voice whispered hoarsely. The group – the ones who hadn't been there – turned in stunned shock to look at the smallest. A young woman who still looked a little pale and sick. She repeated, "There were two more."

'Two more?' Bowa thought incredulously, 'That arrogant Mando took down three of those monsters? By himself?' He jerked his thoughts back to the debrief. The eldest of the speakers started back up, "Yep, there were two more right enough," he said darkly, "they came at him from either side; flanking him. He got smacked about ten meters I'd say by the second one he killed and just when I thought the last one was going to cut him from head to toe, that crazy Mando dodged!" here, he looked a little sad, "well, mostly dodged. The damn over-grown Wookie managed to claw up his leg as it's paw came down, but in the end, the Mando got that one too."

The young woman said, "It happened so fast, I honestly didn't know what was happening, until I saw the Mando standing there with a bloody leg and three dead monsters surrounding the group." Two men who had been shivering close by the fire nodded silently, as did the two ladies huddled together, sharing a blanket.

The injured man finished up the tale, "Those that could, loaded both of us hurt ones into the speeder and all high-tailed it back here. You know the rest." "Actually," one of the men spoke up, "The Mando might also have some cracked ribs. He gasped both times we near touched a part of his torso."

A heavy silence followed that revelation. Bowa swallowed, guiltily thinking back to where he had grabbed the Mando and had heard a sound that sounded like a cry of pain. 'He may be an arrogant son of a womp rat,' he thought, 'but he did save this team.' He straightened; the group did the same. "You," he gestured to the group that had gone out, "you lot stay here and get some rest. The rest of you," he looked around the rest of the group, "get that door open. That Mando is getting medical treatment, whether he wants it or not."

The group as a whole, nodded; even the six that had gotten their asses kicked by the Mando just hours before, simply for going onto the Crest to get some tools. The small group of eight techs, stayed by the fire; while the rest of them tried to break the doors onto the Razor Crest. They were actually kind of worried. It had been about an hour or so, since the Mandalorian had gone up the ramp and closed it. And in the end, the time had gone up to the two-hour mark, when they managed to open the door without raising an alarm. They had just prayed that the Mando was still alive in there as the group rushed up the ramp, the Captain in the lead.

~ POV Change ~ {Din Djarrin}

The first thing she had done, when she engaged the Ground Security Protocols, so she wouldn't be bothered, she headed straight to the medical unit and taken out a special powder. When she sprinkled it on her injured leg, the bleeding – still slow from it being so damn numb – stopped. Din knew it wouldn't last for too long.

Then, she had put the last bacta wrap she had on board on and had added extra bandaging for cushioning her tender ribs and the bruises from that damn wampa's hit. She had to get a special shirt from the storage by the bed; she couldn't put the one she had been wearing on – it was a pull-on and she didn't want to strain her ribs anymore than they had. This new shirt was open in the front, with an attached series of belts for closing it.

That had taken way more time than it should have, but she wasn't going to complain about it. She had finished cauterizing the shallower gash and was a-quarter of the way stitching up the deeper gash – the one that went down to the bone – when the hatch door opened. With her hands busy with needle and thread and her back to the door, Din was grateful that her helmet was still in place. The next thought was she was going to have to figure out a way to make it so no one could hack their way into her ship.

Din didn't voice that. Instead, she snarled over her shoulder, "What the fecking hell do you think you're doing?" The group, Captain included, slowed, but didn't stop – judging by their footsteps. The Captain and the four burliest men – judging by footsteps, approached with her. Din snarled a warning and dropped the needle and thread; reaching instead for her blaster.

One of the men leaped for it and seized her wrist just as she got her hand on it. Grabbing her shoulder as another man seized her other shoulder. Together, they pulled her out of the medical hatch and out where the others could get her. She struggled for a moment before someone grabbed her injured leg. That made her near scream with pain. The needle had gone from just being on her skin to being jammed into her bone. Someone cursed and the hand adjusted. At this point, Din was near too far gone to feel additional pain. She was barely holding on to consciousness.

~ POV Change ~ {Captain Bowa Radnam}

The Captain hadn't known how young the Mando was, until he saw the bare skin of his hands and his injured leg. Then he felt a little stunned. He had thought that the Mando that his fellow Captain had recommended was an older fellow. Bowa mentally shook himself. 'Wonder about that later,' he chided himself, 'Right now, this lad needs help.'

The group that had help break into the Razor Crest had left so that there would be a clear path to the hatch. The four men holding each of the Mando's limbs now became two men, one holding him up by his bent knees while the other supported the Mando's head and shoulders on the opposite side. They all quickly left the Razor Crest and instead put him by the fire with the eight techs he had rescued. There the Captain got a good look at the leg that he had seen the Mando actually walk on while still injured and was near sick with nausea.

The Mando had used some kind of powder on the wounds – probably to help stop the bleeding – and had actually cauterized the smaller gash and was stitching up the deeper one with needle and thread. The needle was actually standing erect somehow. The Captain glanced at the helmeted head. He wanted to take it off, to see the lad's face, but he had been warned extensively about that point by the Captain who had recommended the Mando be part of the mission. 'Don't ever try to remove the helmet. Not even when you suspect there's a head injury. The Mando will kill you for doing it.'

The tech who had the most experience as a medic had approached from where he had been gathering medical supplies and a lantern. The lantern was placed beside the leg, only for everyone who could see the leg and the details, gag. The needle had been erect, because it was actually embedded into the bone. The tech-medic looked at it and got out a pair of gloves. "Someone hold his legs, someone else keep his torso as still as possible while allowing him to breathe," he said brusquely, "I'm going to be removing this and putting a bacta wrap on it. It is going to be painful and I don't want him fighting."

The two men from before – that had carried him down the hatch and put him as gently as they could by the fire – did the requested task. The Mando gasped and swore – still conscious then – and actually remained still throughout the process. He did start to protest a few times, before the man holding him down at the waist and shoulders snapped at him. "Listen," he barked, "I don't know what your problem is, but Doc here is going to put a bacta-wrap on your leg so you should be fine in a matter of days. Swallow that pride of yours and allow us to help you."

The Mandalorian trembled with some kind of suppressed emotion. Captain Bowa didn't want to speculate what was going on inside that bucket. He was sure it involved many violent deaths for everyone here, starting with the men holding him down. It took about fifteen minutes for the needle and stitches to be removed and the bacta wrap put on. Then, while the men were still pinning him down, the now-nicknamed "Doc" put a hand on the lad's uninjured leg and bare wrist. Whatever he noticed made the "Doc" scowl, "You," he growled down at the Mandalorian, "should be resting. You look human under that armor and have a temperature that is too high for your species. How long have you been ill?"

Bowa started, as did most of the others in the group, the Mando had been sick? For how long? Said-Mando growled and somehow managed to get from under the two men. Even as injured as he was, he still managed to get across the fire and moving closer to the Razor Crest, before anyone could grab him. Bowa sprang after him, as did the two men who had been holding him down, with a yell. That's when the blaster came out and was unflinchingly pointed straight at the man who had snapped at the Mando.

Everyone froze. A blaster was no joke and in the hands of an injured sick Mandalorian – who had no love for them – there was no telling what might set the lad off. The lad backed away; clearly favoring the injured leg, keeping the blaster pointed at the man. The Mando kept it like that all the way up the ramp of the Razor Crest. Then he disappeared inside.

The entire group shuddered, only to see the Mando come back out. He was securing some sort of covering over his body. The Captain recognized it: it was the covering that the Mando had been wearing to go out on patrols! He couldn't let him go out like that!

He approached the Mando, but he didn't get far when that blaster came out and an almost feral growl was heard echoing off the hangar. "If you are going to try to go out like that, you have another thing coming," he started. The Mando snarled again and said in a voice that reminded him of earlier, when he had apparently crossed a line he shouldn't have, "I am taking the speeder to get the Wampa corpses. I will be back later. If there is anything else that can possibly be salvaged, I will bring that back too."

With that, the Mando hopped onto the speeder and sped out of the hangar. The entire group was struck speechless. Most of them had seen the damage done to the Mando's leg and wondered how the hell he could do those stunts, even with the bacta-wrap on. "Doc" just looked irritated.

"Well, when he comes back," he snapped as he got to his feet, "someone do me a favor, and somehow sedate him. He shouldn't be out there at all, let alone for hours on end patrolling." Captain Bowa Radnam nodded grimly and then asked "There wasn't anything else that could be salvaged here?" He got the answer, a general no and additional information about there being no more burials to do. He nodded again, then paused. Turning he asked "Doc", "Do you think that fever you said he had, maybe affecting his judgement?"

Doc looked over at him, probably thinking about that incident earlier, and nodded slowly. Then he gave the Captain a stern look, "You may want to find out what his side of the incident was," he raised a hand at the protests coming from the six who had been pummeled, "I am not saying you either did or didn't deserve the thrashing you got, but something set him off. My guess is, it was the helmet mostly." Everyone looked at the Doc, who shrugged. "I didn't get briefed as much on the care of Mandalorians as anyone who deals with them should, but I do know some things about their culture. They do not, under any circumstances, willingly take their helmets off. Helmets have a special meaning to every Mando," the Doc walked back over to the fire and started packing up the materials he had used on the Mando, "it could be you touched something that was sacred. Or sacred to the Mando."

Captain Bowa looked at the Doc, then at the hangar door that showed a chilly midafternoon. He hoped the Mandalorian would return soon. He would ask – just as a distraction from someone aiming to sedate him – the Mando what he considered his side of the incident.

It was actually two hours later when the Mandalorian returned. He pulled in just as the sun was starting to set. The hangar doors were closed and barred any other nasty surprises from coming their way. The Mando got up from the pilot's seat and limped heavily to off-load something; about a meter from the Crest's ramp. Some of the technicians came over to help, when the Mando tossed three somethings over his shoulder and a very big wad of something white over the other. all the approaching team recoiled. There were three heads – all the size of an R2-unit if not bigger. How the hell, the Mando managed to carry that they could not guess.

The Mando glanced over at them and then at the fire. He seemed to sigh and walked up the Crest's ramp instead and dropping the heads and – what everyone seeing them came to realize were the wampa's pelts – and heading deeper into the ship. When someone peered inside, they saw that the Mando was grabbing a couple of ration bars. Turning to them, he growled. They wisely left the Mando alone.

Sick and injured as he was, he probably would kill them, if they tried to sneak up on him while he was trying to eat in peace. It was sometime later that they saw the Mando come back down the hatch, with a satchel on his shoulder. He had picked up the mess of heads and pelts and trudged over to the fire. He dumped them there and went to walk back to the speeder.

Doc seized his shoulder and said sharply, "Stop it Mando!" The Mando went to seize Doc's wrist, only for two others to snag his arms and hold on. Doc continued, "You are going to sit by the fire and warm up, before your chill yourself even further and cause that fever of yours to rise even higher! Others can unload the speeder, so sit down."

The Mandalorian, who had been struggling with the two men, seemed to sag with defeat; the fight leaving him. Not entirely though. He managed to jerk out from all three holds and said "I am getting my harvesting kit. It is still in the speeder." A couple of techs had already unloaded a portion of parts that the Mando had managed to find and it was one of them who brought another satchel – this one black-dyed leather with red embroideries that resembled a skull of some kind – to the fire beside the Mando.

The Mando looked at them and nodded curtly. Taking his satchel from the tech who had brought it, he sat down beside his trophies. It was rather fascinating to watch actually – if quite disturbing too. The Mandalorian was cutting out the teeth and the tusks of each of the heads. After he did that, he would toss the head aside.

Captain Bowa cleared his throat and sat down on the opposite side of the fire from him. "Mando," he began. The Mando paused for a moment, then continued his work; now putting the teeth into a bowl that was packed with snow. 'Where'd he get the bowl?' the captain wondered. The Mando got to feet and put said bowl just in the fire, pushing it a little further in with a nudge from a foot. Bowa gathered his thoughts again and started again, "Mando, what happened today?"

The Mando paused and this time looked up at him from where he was now taking some kind of rag to the tusks. The tone under the modulator was a kind of tired irritability, "Which time?" Bowa flushed, "Earlier, here." The Mando straightened completely, removing all attention from the task of cleaning the tusks and seemed to look directly at him. Bowa tried to suppress a shudder. That blank black visor truly was an intimidating sight and he would bet that the glare from under that visor was somehow even worse. "That," the Mandalorian growled, "That was six morons desecrating a memorial shrine for my recently deceased father and you taking their side; without even listening to me. And," the growl was even deeper and more feral sounding than before, "you yourself, Captain, crossing a line by implying such things about Mandalorians and our Honor."

The entire group were stunned and most probably felt like Captain Bowa himself felt about now. 'I didn't know,' he thought feeling guilt, 'I didn't even think that that might be the case.' A small voice whispered inside his head, 'You didn't ask, you never really trusted the Mandalorian.' He might have started to say something, only for the Mando to continue, in a less feral and more tired voice, "I guess, I should have expected it. After all," disgust was coloring his tone now, "the Empire sure did a number on our reputation with their propaganda and slander." That cut everyone. The six that had gotten beaten by the Mando looked particularly miserable.

Now, the Mandalorian was taking the pelts and spraying them with something from his bag. He got up and laid the pelts out flat and sprayed them again. Then left them alone to get back to the task of cleaning the tusks. This was when the blue-streaked blonde spoke up, "I'm sorry, Mando."

The Mando looked over at him, hands continuing to clean. The blonde continued, "I'm sorry for your loss and whatever I said about Mandos. I wasn't here for whatever happened earlier, but I know how you feel about your father – ""No," the Mando interrupted, "You don't." The blonde looked offended and looked about to speak when the Mando continued, "You don't. You think you do, because you came from Alderaan, but you don't. You and those like you were fighting the Empire and are still fighting against the government that committed that horrific atrocity. You also have sympathy from others. You might not like the pity, but it gives you some leeway with otherwise hard-asses."

The Mando still had not looked away from the blonde, who was now looking a little stunned. None of the others had known that the Mandalorian knew anything about their backgrounds, since he never asked after them. He continued, his voice softer, but venom was creeping back into his voice, "Mandalore was persecuted long before the Empire came into the power. The so-called Golden Republic and their attack dogs, the Jedi Order also persecuted Mandalore. Our planet wasn't made into a desert worse than Tatooine by our wars among each other. The Republic and the Jedi did that. Just a decade or so before the Empire was formed, our people were left for the most part to starve, even when the Duchess and the other leaders of Mandalore tried to work with the Republic, because the Republic placed an embargo upon the entirety of the Mandalore system. Our warriors were exiled, banished from their homes, to conform with the Republic's demands. So, when the Separatists attacked, the civilians had no protection."

The technicians were horrified, struck dumb by what was pouring out from the Mandalorian's mouth. Captain Bowa was just as horrified. He had never heard of these things. The Mandalorian wasn't finished though, "My biological parents were murdered by soulless machines. And it wasn't the Republic or the Jedi who saved me, when the droid started to fire at me. It was Mandalorians. The Mandalorian who saved me, also adopted me. If they had left me for the Republic, no doubt I would have died within a month, starved."

The Rebels wanted to protest this, but they couldn't find the words from where they to have died in their throats. The man was continuing. "Brought into and raised in the fighting corps, I was trained to be a Mandalorian. For three years, I had stability and a much bigger family than I had ever hoped to have. That was when the Great Purge happened," the voice which had seemed nostalgic when it talked of the Mandalorians and his time there, suddenly turned dark and full of hate, "The Empire attacked. With Alderaan, it was over in one fell swoop. Destroyed with one blast. Mandalore wasn't so fortunate. The Empire laid waste to all on the surface, massacred all the warriors and older recruits that they could find. The warriors put up a fight, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. My adopted father was among them. The only reason he survived was because he had been blown away by a shell and buried under rubble. He was knocked unconscious." The Mando looked away from the group as he told them this horrifying story, he seemed to be looking at something beyond the dim firelight, in the shadows from the tunnels, before looking down at his work. The group was listening, wondering where the story was going.

The Mandalorian was done cleaning the all tusks. He had been cleaning them this whole time. They gleamed. Mando put the clothe that he had been using away as he continued to talk. It was the most any of them had ever heard a Mando speak before. "Those of us who were too young to put on a helmet, they wanted to capture us. Those that they could catch alive, they would drag out. They didn't catch me of course. Of all the group of recruits, I saw them take away only seven. Seven of my comrades taken. I was only a child myself; I didn't know what to do in a situation like this. So, I did what came naturally. I snuck about and tried to find others and the resources we would need to leave. It was a few days before my father found me, crippled and near dead. He had lost one leg and the other was broken in so many places that it was doomed to set crooked and cripple him even further. The Imps had left after that Night, but we followed them to the camp they had made some kilometers away after father had regained enough strength for the journey and the fight ahead. We were determined to get our fellows back."

The group was wrapped around the story and its teller, feeling frozen and hopeful for the children they had never met, hopeful that the Mandalorian who was now dead would find a way to save them from whatever the Imps had planned for them. "While I had waited for father to regain enough strength to be able to fight, he told me where to find things. I managed to find two cybernetic legs for him and even a cache of knowledge from our archives and two other warriors. I brought both back to the place where my father was. While I was sneaking about, getting rations, I found the Razor Crest; hidden and docked in a secret hangar. I rushed back to tell the three elders, only to find my father near dead again – this time from blood loss. He had cut off the remains of his own legs and attached the two cybernetic ones I had found. And that the other two were replacing an arm on one of them."

Everyone flinched and quite a few gagged. They couldn't imagine the kind of pain tolerance and mental fortitude it would have taken to do that kind of thing. The Mando wasn't done – not by a long shot. "It took another day or so, before we were ready to go and look for the others. When we did, we saw only horrors. Many of the Mandalorian warriors who had died, had been stripped of their beskar. Some had been defiled in other ways, from being urinated on to other more horrific things. But we continued on. The corpses we left behind were just corpses now, the comrades gone. We swore we would find the others and the beskar and make the Imps camped here, regret that they have ever existed."

All were trembling now, even Bowa. This story wasn't going to end well. They could tell. The tone didn't lighten, only darkened. "When we found the camp, we found Hell. The ground troops that had been on the ground had been taking their ease on the order of the officer. The officer in question had ordered the troops to bring him children of a certain age range, not for training; but for sport. The things that demagolka did," here the Mando shuddered and took a deep breath, "let's just say it involved torture, droids and things no one let alone a child should have to go through."

The implications of that near made everyone's stomachs drop. They didn't want to hear more. They wanted to flee, run away from what the Mando was telling them. Imparting a tale of such horror. The Mando's voice seemed to growl, "You have never seen and maybe never heard of what happens when a Mandalorian loses their mind. The people that witness it, well most don't survive the encounter in one piece, let alone alive. My father and the other two tore through the camp like an ion storm. The Imps weren't ready for the three of them, nor for me. I was too busy destroying the cages where my comrades were held in, in the middle of the camp. The Imps may have numbered in the thousands when they first landed, but when they set up that camp, they were barely a hundred. And that hundred didn't last for much longer than it took me to get that cage open."

The Mando was now pulling the bowl of now-boiling water out of the fire, with a discarded bit of metal pole. He let the water cool while he continued, "I could have saved my effort in being careful when opening the cage. My comrades, children all, had been so tortured that they were too far gone to be saved. Even with a bacta tank right there, ready for use; they would have died. And in the end the other two warriors that I had found gave the mercy stroke to them while I was held by my father. Everyone was broken that day. Our home, our culture, our families, our children. Gone. Some we hoped were still alive somewhere, scattered among the stars, but that span of time is forever burned into our memories."

The technicians wondered through their horror and shock, eyes swimming with tears, why? Why was the Mandalorian telling them this? The Mandalorian hadn't finished, "The two warriors that had given the mercy strokes, never mentally recovered. We – my father and I – found their armor, all but their helmets the morning after and found those with the rest of them in what had been a fire. All the beskar we could find, we brought back with us, when we returned to the little hideaway in Sundari. It took another day or so, for my father and I to leave Mandalore. We became bounty hunters."

"When we heard about the Rebel alliance, my father joined as a consulting hunter. Someone who could be depended on when they had the job. My father wouldn't work for free, he had to look after me of course, but he did work at a heavy discount. The beskar and the cache of knowledge we had managed to take with us; we made sure to put in a secure and secret location. We didn't want to lose it, because we got boarded by the wrong person at the wrong time. And in the meantime, he taught me all that he could."

"For seven years, he fought with crippled legs, old wounds that would give him such fevers as to think his blood had become magma and with the distrust of the Rebel Alliance." Here all the group flinched and looked down in shame. Hadn't they been treating this Mandalorian with disgusted contempt and distrust. The Mandalorian was winding down as he cleaned the teeth. "Not even a standard year ago, a group of Rebels got in trouble and were arrested. My father broke them out. It was there that he received the shot that would kill him. He died a warrior's death, one that wouldn't have happened without the Rebels messing up and getting captured. The group at least had the decency to bring him back to the base where I waited for him to come back."

Here the Mando seemed to complete cleaning of the teeth and were sorting them out; keeping some and others were being tossed into the fire. He spoke once more, "My father, who had saved me, taught me and cared for me; died because of the Rebels with him, who didn't bother to look out for him until the last minute, when he died. I didn't leave the Rebellion Alliance after that for only one reason: my father's honor. His sworn word that we would fight with the Rebellion – not join it, but work with it – until the Emperor was dead at least."

The teeth – now gleaming like the tusks – were put in the satchel that the Mando had had around his body this entire time. The tusks were also put in the same satchel. The Mandalorian got up from where he was sitting, pulling something else out of the black satchel – cords by the look of them. He went over to the pelts and studied them. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, he began to roll them up and tie them into neat bundles with the cords he had brought. The group of technicians were silent, feeling shell shocked by what had come flooding out of the Mando. The silence lasted until the Mando straightened from rolling up the pelts. He looked over at the group and said, "You are no doubt wondering why I told you that sorry tale. A tale that spanned across so many horrors and such tragedy. It is for you to understand."

The group roused a little, looking over at the Mandalorian, he continued, "You need to understand that there are lines you should never cross. You – as a whole – crossed many in the last week; most especially today. Since the salvaging and burials are done, there is no need for us to remain on this planet. Since there is no need, I shall be departing soon for my next mission. I would recommend that you do the same. I don't think that I shall have speech with any of you again." The group was sitting, still frozen around the fire that still crackled merrily in the center.

"And remember," as he turned to walk to his ship, he threw over his shoulder "if ever you should meet another Mandalorian, know that they will take slights against their honor even worse than I do. After all, you're protected by my father's sworn word; not theirs." The hatch closed up behind him.

It took the technicians, including Captain Bowa, a long time to get over the fact that the Mandalorian had just left them there at the fire and had gone back into his ship. It took them a slightly shorter time to realize what the Mando had been implying. It only took about half an hour to pack up what they had set out during the week. Many of them taking furtive glances at the Razor Crest.

Captain Bowa opened the hangar doors to a clear night sky, full of stars. Beckoning to him. He went over to the ship he had been on and ordered the small fleet to set out for the coordinates for the rendezvous with the rest of the fleet. The Razor Crest was the last to leave.

{Flashback Ending} Present Time

Din shook her head. So much memory in the time it took to land in the old Rebellion's smallest hangar – one dedicated for local planet flyers mostly. She really would have to get her head into the Hunt and stay off trails that led to the past. Din had some bail-jumpers to catch.

She took out all eight tracking fobs and found that they all beeped faster in one single direction; further into the compound. Din sighed as she went through the compound's tunnels. It took her about ten minutes of slinking down the tunnels to get to where her targets were. They weren't alone.

Five people, who looked to be hostages or prisoners, were loading great slabs of what looked like ice onto the freighter that was parked in the hangar – the one where she had imparted that tale of misery to the Rebels that were there. She eyed the scene. The hostages were cowed and looked to be shivering. One looked familiar though. Seven of the eight bounties were arguing over some piece of equipment that was sitting on the top of the ship. The eighth was overseeing the loading of the cargo.

Perfect. The Amban rifle was taken from her back and set for a wide-spread stun. She aimed and fired twice, once at the big group of jumpers, the next at the eighth and the hostages. They would all be alright, but she didn't have time for hysterics. She again wanted to get off this planet fast.

As she approached the group quickly, she took one of the carts that hadn't been loaded with the ice slabs and Force lifted the stunned bastards onto it. Securing them with cuffs from her pouch where she kept such things, she looked over at the ice more carefully. What she found made her stumped for a moment.

She was looking at a load of pure ice. Deep-blue Ice with swirling white flecks in them. They looked almost manufactured – they were too perfect for nature to create. Or at least, for nature to create and then sentient beings being lucky enough to find it and in such quantities. The stunned were now moaning; she waited for them to awaken. The hostages were an unknown. If it was something like a hostage of innocents, she'd leave them the ship. Though as a precaution, she stunned the bail jumpers on the cart. They would probably wake up with headaches, just before she put them in carbonite.

The hostages groaned and got unsteadily to their feet. When the one that looked familiar turned to look around, she – the hostage – did a double take and then nodded deeply in her direction. "Mandalorian," her voice was soft spoken and made memory flare again. Din couldn't put a name on it, but it was something from before. She mentally shook herself. A nod and then she turned away. She Felt no true malice coming from the woman and she wanted to get these bail-jumpers secured.

The woman tried to stagger towards her with a plea of "Wait!". Din turned and held out a hand in a universal gesture of 'wait a moment,' and went back to the Crest. She could have called it to her, but the autopilot didn't work so well for underground maneuvers. About five minutes – half the time it took before because she didn't have to be quiet anymore and could actually jog all the way back to her ship – she had started loading the bail-jumpers into carbonite. It took a few minutes with each one. She waited patiently as the slabs set. The last two jumpers were put in awake; the double-stunning had worn off by then.

When all was finished, she went back to the hostages. They were all awake and the woman who had seemed familiar seemed to also be in charge. As she approached, the woman was tucking a blanket more firmly around another's shivering shoulders. About a meter away, Din cleared her throat. All five beings jumped; two giving little shrieks of surprise. The woman whirled around; hand pressed over her heart. "Mando," she snapped, "for the sake of my old heart, don't do that to me!"

Din just looked at her. The woman shook her head in near-exasperation, "You haven't changed a bit, have you?" she asked rhetorically. Din just continued to look at her. With another shake of her head, the woman sat down by a heat generator that they had all been gathered around.

Din said, "I have the bounties, you may have the ship and its cargo. There is only one question that I have." The hostages looked up, and the woman asked "What?"

"Where did you find those slabs of ice?" The woman looked at the slabs and scoffed. "They were found about five kilometers north. We should know, since they are part of our project." Din tilted her head, and the woman continued, "We are scientists for the New Republic," gesturing to the group at large, "We were assigned a mission to this system and told about an old Rebel compound here that could be used as a base for us. Our purpose was to gather pure permafrost ice and see if it could be used for making anything other than good-looking ice statues. We had just finished doing the harvesting when those womp rats showed up and blew our ship to kingdom come."

The grimace that was on her face was filled with angry bitterness. "All our research went up in the blast, as did most of our supplies and communication systems. The womp rats told us to start loading the ice onto their ship instead. They also wanted more, so we had to go and get some. Greedy pigs." Din looked at her as the woman flushed purple. She answered the woman, "The bounties are now in carbonite and you now have another ship. I suggest you use it, to get back to the Core. Thank you for answering the question." And with that, Din turned and walked away. There was something about that bit about the ice that she wanted to investigate.

As she was taking out the speeder bike from the hatch for it, Din continued to think of where she had seen that woman before. 'It is of no concern now,' she thought to herself, 'either I will or I will not remember where I have seen her. It doesn't matter now.' And with that, she was off; speeding towards the place that the woman had claimed to have gotten the permafrost ice from. Minutes later, she found the spot and was surprised.

For there were indeed signs that there had been extensive quarrying done in the permafrost. The thing that surprised her the most wasn't that, but the location. It was on a mountain side and just about a kilometer above was the peak and on that peak was a formation that reminder her of something. A Feeling. She sometimes really, really hated those Feelings. They always led to something big happening. But she was a Mandalorian, it went against her training to run from trouble. She hunted it. So, she took the speeder up that kilometer. It was kind of surprising that her speeder could do that. Usually, they couldn't go over steep terrain very well. She would definitely be checking out what the modifications were on this thing the next time she was on-planet – well, the next time she was on-planet that wasn't a freaking floating ice-ball and had no targets on them for her to hunt down, she would do it then.

She got off the bike and saw just what was giving off the Feeling and the light. It was a formation alright. A formation of mixed crystals that had a blaze mix of white clearness and icy pale blue. It was about two feet tall and seemed to cap the mountain. Din knew then that she had to take some with her. The wind was buffeting her where she stood and it made her grateful that she had parked the bike in a semi-sheltered spot of ice and rock.

As she had no tools that could cut the crystal, so she decided to try it with using the Force. Simply lifting the crystals away from the rock bed, it was situated in. The formation flared and she instinctively covered her eyes. That had been too fast for the visor's functions to compensate for suddenness. When she uncovered her eyes, she gasped in startlement. The crystals had split into various sized pieces and were hovering before her in a strange way. With her startlement, the crystals seemed to shake in the air. She willed them to lower to the ground in a neat pile.

As they did, she took a deep breath and let it out. The Feeling hadn't vanished, but there was something saying something. It was too tinny, too far away to make out what it was saying, but she wasn't about to wait around to find out either. Taking her hidden sack from her back, she began to just shove pieces of the crystals into it. Stuffing it full, then she added the remaining crystal into her other pouches. These were worth carrying. She didn't know why yet but she would find out.

It took about half an hour to get down the mountain again, only to see that the former smugglers' ship hadn't left yet. It had parked outside the hangar where she had landed the Razor Crest. The woman was standing beside her ship looking up at it, but had turned on hearing the speeder bike approach. Din started at the woman. 'What was her issue?' She thought, slightly vexed. She dismounted from the bike and started to pack it away in the hatch for it. She could see the other four staring from the cockpit's windows.

That was when the woman blurted out, "I wanted to ask you something." Din rolled her eyes, 'Hear we go.' "Were you on this planet before?" was the question that came out of her mouth. Din turned a little to look over her shoulder at the woman and went back to putting away the bike, seeming to ignore her. The woman continued, "My uncle has been. He knew a Mandalorian. He said if I ever got the chance to meet a Mandalorian, I should ask after his leg." That comment made Din stop securing the hatch and turn to look at her again. This time she didn't turn away.

The woman gulped and said, "He – my uncle – was the one that was called Beany. He had wanted to thank the Mandalorian that was here. He and his wife were both on the team that had been attacked by a trio of wampas, when the Mando saved them. I," she swallowed harshly, "I also want to thank that Mando. He saved my favorite uncle and my aunt. Because of him, I now have three cousins. And he also wanted me to ask after the Mando's story."

Din closed her eyes with sheer exasperation at her younger self. If she hadn't been so pissed off, sick with fever and grief, injured and tired of everything; she wouldn't have been so free with knowledge of herself. She didn't owe this woman anything, she didn't owe her uncle anything either, but she Felt that the woman would follow her, now that she knew about her existence until she got the answer to her question. She would be all too tempted to shoot the other ship out of the sky if that was attempted.

Din closed the hatch the rest of the way and locked it. Now, she turned and looked at the woman. Her face was red from cold and embarrassment. A moment, Din spoke, "Your uncle never did like that nickname while we were on the same mission. You may tell him that the leg is fine and that story is still going, just with less tragedy on my end." The woman looked startled for a moment then seemed to beam at her. She looked torn between bowing and hugging her. Din wasn't about to let her though; she nodded a farewell and opened the hatch.

The woman – Beany's niece apparently – Felt like she was going to follow her for a moment, only to be drawn up short by the sight of the carbonite slabs, just in sight of from the ramp. Fine with her, if she could just go. This whole trip on-planet had taken half a day already, not counting the trip through hyperspace and getting in and out of the atmosphere. She really didn't like Hoth and she wanted off.

Later, she got her wish. Both ships had left Hoth. One heading for the Core of the New Galactic Republic, and her Razor Crest shooting towards that Imperial refueling station. If she got to just destroy it and maybe some droids, Din felt like she would perk up.