Suggested Listening:
Bonding in Jail - Randy Edelman (from Shanghai Noon) | ...back in the desert
The Shooting Lesson - Joel McNeely (from A Million Ways to Die in the West) | ...target practice and a smooth ride


"Time to get up."

I lifted my head and blinked, groggily. Mando was standing at my feet, peering through the door to the sleeping rack, holding the kid in one arm.

"What time is it?" I asked, blearily. I had been in a deep, deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in what felt like forever. Mando had seen me drifting off in my seat and had insisted that I take the rack while he drove, so after a few futile protests I had clambered down there and crawled into the tiny space, certain that it wouldn't be comfortable — and then promptly fallen into a borderline-comatose state.

I furrowed my brow, feeling the heavy satisfaction of sleep slipping away as my body woke itself.

"Time to get up," he repeated. I sighed and obliged, hopping down from the rack heavily.

"Okay," I muttered. "I'm up."

"Great. Follow me."

I stared after him, marveling at his energetic gait. Heaving a weary sigh, I headed down the ramp after him.

I swear to all things mighty, there must have been some sort of cosmic force that kept boomeranging me back to this dusty, sweaty, stupid planet. We were in Peli's hangar on Tatooine once again, and while I was happy to see her, I felt frustrated to be back in the place I kept trying — and failing — to flee.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," came Peli's loud, brassy voice. "But didn't I just fix this for you?"

"We ran into some trouble," said Mando.

"Oh," said Peli with surprise when she saw me emerging from the shadow of the ship. "Hi again! Kala, right?"

"Kyra" said Mando and I in unison. I looked at him in surprise.

"I thought you were just hitching a ride," said Peli.

"I was," I began to reply, but Mando interjected.

"She's joining my crew. Helping out with the kid."

Peli looked pleased to hear it. I wondered if she worried about him traveling alone so much.

"Well lucky you!" She cooed to the kid, who wriggled happily in Mando's arms Then she looked up at Mando with a straight face. "You, however, are less lucky."

"What is it now?" Asked Mando wearily.

"This," she pointed at the Razor Crest. "Is a big job. And due to some recent financial movements, I, uh… I gotta call in your tab, Mando."

"That wasn't part of the deal."

"I know, I know," she held up her hands, helplessly. "I wish I could give you 'til the next equinox like we agreed — verbally agreed—" she turned to me with a shrug. "There was no written contract." She returned her attention to Mando, apologetically. "I'm sorry, Mando, but especially with everything your ship needs this time around, I'm gonna need the cash."

Mando sighed and shifted his weight.

"Peli, I haven't done a bounty in a while, I've been busy trying to figure things out for the kid."

I cleared my throat.

"I don't have much," I said, pulling my coin-purse off of my belt. "But I have some credits, I'd be happy to—"

"Keep it," Mando insisted, holding up a firm hand. "It's my ship, it's my debt."

"Luckily, I always come through with a solution! Right? Right!" Peli clapped her hands together enthusiastically. "I have a contact for you — a job, very discreet. One of the bigwig gamblers in Mos Espa made a drunken bet with his buddies that he could secure a piece of Dakka Rock by the next big race."

"Dakka Rock?" Asked Mando, incredulously.

"Isn't that the wet, sparkly stuff in the caves?" I asked. "The kids in Mos Pelgo used to dare each other to go get it, but none of them actually did—"

"— because those caves are full of parasites and acid lizards, and it's not worth it," finished Mando. "Why the hell would he make that bet?"

"Because he's a moron whose sense of self is entirely tied to wagering stupid things so that his friends, who he hates, will like him," replied Peli.

"You have a way with words, Peli," I said. She looked pleased with herself.

"What does any of this have to do with us?" Asked Mando, dully.

"Well the words out he's looking — discreetly — for someone who can make that happen for him, so he can win that bet. My sources tell me he's offering a couple thousand credits as a reward."

"I'm guessing he bet more than a couple thousand credits," I said, raising an eyebrow.

"Bingo," she replied. "Look, Mando, your ship is in pieces, this is gonna take me and the droids a few days anyway, why not go get yourself a little income and then we'll be squared away."

He sighed, thinking.

"Fine," he conceded, eventually.

"You heard the man, hop to it!" Peli clapped and her droids began swarming the ship, assessing the damage.

I chuckled and looked at Mando, but he was looking around, distracted.

"Watch the kid for a minute, okay?" He muttered to me, and walked away, crossing the length of the hangar and walking out into the desert through a door in the wall.

"Jeez," I said to Peli. "Moody, isn't he?"

"Eh, he's okay." Peli smiled at me, and there was a twinkle of knowing in her eye, like she was conscious of something I didn't yet understand. I felt a little too seen, so I cleared my throat and looked down at the kid, who was standing on the ground waving a bent piece of pipe he'd found.

"Whatcha got there, bud?"

A few minutes later, Mando returned, striding purposefully to where the kid and I were sat, drawing pictures in the sand with pieces of pipe.

"You," he pointed at a small pit droid, who beeped in surprise. "Keep an eye on the kid for a second."

The droid beeped in discomfort as the kid turned his wide black eyes on him, giggling with excitement and throwing the pipe aside. With a squeal, he began shuffling after the droid, arms outstretched, loving the chase. The droid buzzed in fear and ran away.

"Play nice," Mando called sternly as the two began running around the circumference of the hangar. I followed him out through the door. The yellow sand of the desert stretched out before us, baking under the hot suns. Several rusty metal barrels, cans, and pieces of scrap were assembled in a line ahead of us. Mando came to a stop.

"What's all this?" I asked, arriving next to him and putting a hand on my hip.

"Target practice," He answered. I looked up at him, surprised. "If you're gonna be on my crew and responsible for protecting the kid, you're gonna need to be armed —" he pulled out his blaster and unhooked the holster, handing it out to me. "— and efficient."

I stared at him, stonily.

"Look," he said, sounding a little frustrated that I wasn't taking the holster from his outstretched hand. "You don't carry a weapon. How do you get to be on-the-run like you are without a weapon?"

"I don't like weapons."

He stared back at me, like what I'd said confused and borderline offended him.

"You don't like weapons?"

"I don't need to, you like them enough for the both of us!"

"They're a part of my religion," he said, seriously.

"I respect that, but I'm what you'd probably consider an atheist," I quipped.

"Fine." He sighed. "You're entitled to your opinion. But the point stands — if you're going to travel with me and the kid, you need to be able to protect him. And yourself."

He held the holster back out to me. I considered it for a moment. To be fair, he had a point — my mind flashed to the cockpit of the Razor Crest, the vicious horde of white spiders encroaching menacingly…

"Okay," I said finally, taking the holster and hooking it around my hips. "You're right. Thank you."

He handed me the blaster.

"Alright," He began, sounding eager to teach. "Now, you wanna be very careful, because there's a little kick-back. So we're not gonna fire right away, we're just gonna practice aiming. First—"

He broke off as I lifted the blaster, firing off six rounds and obliterating each barrel and can, one right after the other. I watched the rubble smoke for a second, then looked back up at him. He was staring back at me, and boy would I have paid money to see his expression.

"You're right," I said brightly, starting back to the hangar. "This is gonna come in handy."

"Hold on," He called behind me, after a beat. I heard him jog after me, his armor knocking. "Wait."

We stopped.

"How did you learn how to—? I thought you said you didn't—"

"I don't like weapons," I deadpanned. "That doesn't mean I don't know how to use them."

He considered me for a moment, then pointed an outstretched arm at a piece of scrap metal that lay about 30 yards away.

"Can you hit that?"

With a sigh, I examined the target and raised my weapon, aiming it carefully and slowly. I pulled the trigger and in the distance, the metal shattered into pieces. I looked back at him, expectantly.

"Who the hell taught you how to do that?"

"I grew up around weapons," I answered.

"So did I," he responded.

"Something tells me they were different kinds of upbringings," I said, spinning the blaster on my finger once and slipping it into the holster. Okay, that wasn't necessary, I thought to myself. But stunning him is too fun.

"Okay," He said, clearing his throat. "Then, uh… I guess we can just get started, then."

"Lead the way," I said, biting back a wry smile.

Ten minutes later, we were zooming into the desert on a borrowed old speeder bike, the kid strapped to my back and peeking over my shoulder, my arms wrapped tightly around the Beskar circling Mando's waist.

I tried to ignore the flutter of nerves in my chest that I felt being this close to him — It's the speed, I thought to myself, dismissively. It's just the adrenaline.

Mando seemed to be enjoying the drive — he took wide, sweeping turns with a graceful alacrity that felt like flying. As we soared deeper into the desert, the massive rocks and plateaus became more frequent, plunging out of the sand like great, ochre knives. After what felt like an hour or two, we came to a jagged village of rocks, with various openings yawning out of the stone to reveal deep, dark, narrow caves.

We dismounted and I brushed some dust off of my pant legs.

"I gotta say," I said, stretching. "You're almost winning me back to believing you can actually drive without crashing."

He just looked at me.

"Almost," I repeated, for good measure, then looked around at the cave openings. "Okay, which one do we go down?"

"'We' don't go down anywhere. I need you to stay up here with the kid, he shouldn't be in those caves."

"Well then why did you drive us all the way out here?" I asked, disappointed.

"Because these caverns are notoriously unstable," he answered, unhooking his cloak and dropping it on the ground. "And if there's a cave-in, I need you to go get help."

Adventurous, I thought to myself sarcastically, but he had a point. He took his jetpack off next, and lay it gently on top of the cloak — I realized that he was doing what he could to make himself narrower.

"Put this in your ear," he said, tossing me a small shiny thing he took out of a belt pocket. I caught it with one hand and examined it — a sleek, bean-shaped device with a bright blue light.

"It connects to my helmet," he continued. "We can keep in touch while I'm down there."

I put it in my right ear and held a finger to it, listening.

"Hello?" I tested, softly.

"Hi." Mando's voice rumbled intimately in my ear — even though he was standing five feet away from me, it made me jump slightly to hear him like that.

He wandered over to the closest opening and peered in, illuminating the cavern with a crisp beam of white light from a lamp that had appeared on his shoulder.

"You sure this is a good idea?" I asked, tentatively, as he turned around and began lowering himself into the crevasse.

"It'll be fine," he reassured. "Just keep the kid from getting in any trouble. And be careful—" He added. "—this part of the desert is full of Worrts."

With that, he vanished into the dark, leaving the kid and I standing in the dust.