The metal hand of the Dark Trooper squeezed harder on Din's throat. Its red eyes were the only thing Din could see as he kicked uselessly, his thoughts whirling. His darkest memories, and Grogu's, had come back to life:
A little boy, shutting his eyes against death as the droid prepared to fire, to slaughter him just as it had slaughtered his parents. …
Another little boy, exhausted and helpless, eyes wide in terror, carried away in the pitiless arms of another droid as Din could only watch in utter horror…
"I know you killed Isidore as well my father," Varro was saying.
Isidore?
The windows surrounding them clouded, grew dark, then lit up. They were surrounded now by viewscreens. They displayed the fighting on multiple levels throughout the Panopticon. The prisoners outnumbered the guards and the Imps, but they were outgunned. Smoking wreckage and bodies littered the levels. Where was Mayfeld and his group?
"Watch your friends die," said Varro. She smiled an ugly smile. "Or perhaps you would prefer another entertainment, Din Djarin?"
One by one, the monitors changed. And Din was surrounded by images of himself. There he was, bare-faced, in his cell, in the white coverall. There he was, working on the floor. There he was, showering naked with the other prisoners. And there he was in the Game Room, bloodied and savage, fighting the Warden.
"Oh, this is good!" said Merrix. "I think if we do this right this can be a whole series. I'll have to get the marketing people on this. You've heard all about Mandalorians—but aren't you curious about what's under that helmet and armor? We can stage a whole series of sessions with Dark Trooper and the Mandalorian going at each other, with this great background footage to spice it up. Stop the fighting just when this Mando's too fucked up to fight back. Heal him, sort of, then throw him back to the Dark Trooper for another round."
"We will send this throughout the Galaxy, as a premium subscription holo," Varro continued dreamily. "Yes, I think it's high time everyone saw that underneath your armor, Mandalorians are nothing special." She squinted up at one screen, the one with the shower, and grinned. "Better formed than average, I must admit, but just a human male under all that beskar."
Din roared, overwhelmed with shame and rage.
Son of Mandalore.
Where did that deep voice come from?
Do not be dismayed. The shame and dishonor here belong to your Enemy. Not to you.
Oh good. Aural hallucinations again.
Varro was drawling on. "Yes, they all think I can't see inside the Game Room. Fools." She pointed at another screen. Din writhed in agony on the Game Room floor among the slaughter. "I was off planet overseeing a new supply depot, so I couldn't stop this nonsense in time. What a shame to lose the Warden. Oh look! That's where your little animal makes its appearance." An explosion happened somewhere offscreen, wreckage raining down from the ceiling. Then Grogu was standing next to Din, laying his tiny hands on his father's bloody chest, eyes shut as he began to heal him. "Astonishing you survived. The scanner says you had a ruptured pancreas. My word, not too many people bounce back from that. I see why Isidore was so keen to get hold of that little creature." The screens flickered off. "Enough for now. Bring it to me," ordered Varro. "Unhurt."
Courage, son of Mandalore. Be strong for your son.
Why didn't we stay on Nevarro? Din wondered. Their new life as a family would end before it had even really begun. He thought with grief about the little house, the tiny spring. He thought about that day when Greef Karga, damn him, had come to them for help. How he and Grogu had played a game with darts that morning…
And then something clicked, and then he thought about Nine pointing up as he died, and then another thing clicked.
"Grogu," said Din, pushing back against his own terror and Grogu's like it was a physical thing. "Remember the dart game back home? That morning?"
A small stirring on his back as Grogu reacted to the strength in Din's voice and the warmth of the happy memory. The Dark Trooper reached for the child. Din activated the jetpack. The Dark Trooper did not release its grip but it did lose balance, lifted slightly off the floor. Grogu took advantage of the distraction. He took a mighty leap out of his carrier and away from the black grasping hand. He landed squarely on Merrix's head. His bare toe claws gripped the man's thinning hair and his hands covered his eyes.
"Hey! Get this thing off me! Ouch!"
"Get it!" barked Varro. "Cole, stop this foolishness!"
"I can't, it's—ow!"
The Dark Trooper slammed a massive fist against Din's helmet. Stunned, Din went briefly limp and the jet pack deactivated. The droid threw Din against the wall, and he slid down in a heap. He tried to get hold of himself, tried to get up, but he was too dizzy. He could only watch as the Dark Trooper advanced on Merrix. Grogu's hand came off one of Merrix's eyes to grip his ear. Merrix held up his hands in terror when he saw the killing machine bearing down on him.
"No, wait!"
The Dark Trooper hesitated. It had orders not to harm Merrix but it also had orders to get Grogu, unharmed. These orders were not necessarily in alignment with each other. It grabbed tentatively at Grogu but Merrix stepped back in panic.
Varro rolled her eyes. "Cole, will you just hold still! It won't hurt you!"
"Tell IT that!" yelled Merrix as the Dark Trooper grabbed again. One offhanded swat from its massive fist could break his neck. Merrix ducked out of the way again.
"HOLD STILL," Varro repeated.
"I—I can't!" Because now Grogu seemed to be riding Merrix as if he were a blurrg, directing his motions as if holding reins. Merrix lurched stiffly, unwillingly around the room, weaving from side to side, while the Dark Trooper followed and made tentative grabs. It would have been pretty comical if the situation weren't so dire. The remaining stormtroopers clearly had no idea what to do and watched uncertainly. Din rose to his feet.
"Get the Mandalorian," Varro ordered the stormtroopers. She looked at Grogu, addressing him directly for the first time. "Get off him. Comply or we'll kill him right here. Painfully."
"No," said Grogu.
Varro blinked. The Dark Trooper stopped chasing Merrix and turned toward Din. Its massive fist barely missed Din, crashing into a control panel with an explosion of sparks.
A hidden door jerked open, revealing a single large tank. In the tank was a man.
Everyone in the room froze as his eyes opened. Grogu's ears went back and his eyes narrowed. "No," he said again, but then he seemed to regain his equilibrium. "No," he said once more, his tone more decisive.
"Oh, Isidore," breathed Varro.
The man suspended there was quite young, not much more than a boy, but Din and Grogu still recognized Moff Gideon right away: the elegant features, the slim build, the dark eyes. But his eyes were empty, with none of the calculating malice they had seen in the man or his full-grown copies back on Mandalore.
Grogu jumped off Merrix and landed on the Dark Trooper, clinging to the back of its "helmet." All eyes turned to him. The Dark Trooper paused in evident confusion. It lifted one arm and grabbed awkwardly, but missed. Whatever else you wanted to say about Dark Troopers, they weren't very flexible.
"Kill the Mandalorian. Bring me the child," said Varro through clenched teeth. Merrix was leaning dizzily against a window, shaking his head as if trying to clear it. Din backed up against the warm tank containing the clone. He was getting very, very tired and his head hurt. The Dark Trooper followed its first order, because that's what they were designed to do. Its fist slammed into Din's helmet but as before the beskar held up. Head ringing, Din ducked away, just barely, and the second fist slammed against the tank. The glass cracked.
"NO!" screamed Varro.
Grogu leaped away from the black hand and landed on Varro's glass-topped desk. Lights on the tank began to flash and an alarm rang as liquid ran down the tank sides. The Dark Trooper picked up Din again by the neck and started to pull at one arm, hard. Din felt something pop and he screamed. It was going to pull him to pieces, he realized, tear him literally limb from limb…
Then it stopped.
It cocked its head, as if puzzled. A smell of smoke and a faint sizzling, popping sound came from somewhere deep inside the thing's head. On the desk Grogu stretched out his hand, closing his fingers gradually into a small fist as if closing around something. The head began to jerk from side to side and it released its grip on Din, who fell again to the floor. The Dark Trooper staggered, tottered, and fell with a massive crash. Grogu sat heavily on the desk, panting.
The tank now shattered completely and a wave of viscous liquid poured onto the floor. The figure suspended inside fell out onto the floor. The tubes that connected his life-support suit to the machinery surrounding the tank snapped.
"Oh, Isidore," moaned Varro.
From somewhere below a massive BOOM shook the Panopticon.
"Gallia, honey, I know, but we gotta go," said Merrix. "Ship's ready."
Varro nodded, gray-faced, and turned to go. "Kill them both," she said.
Two stormtroopers advanced on Din with blasters drawn. Din remained slumped. "Get him up," snarled one of the stormtroopers. "Take off the damned helmet and cut him to pieces. Ears, eyes, nose." Another one obliged and drew closer. Din shot out the whipcord and pulled the stormtrooper towards him. He head-butted the stormtrooper, beskar helmet shattering the white one, and grabbed his blaster. He brought down the other one with a single shots.
Two more stormtroopers advanced on Grogu, firing. The boy had the presence of mind to curl quickly into a ball, hiding his head. Blaster fire pinged off the chain mail. But he was too drained now to do much more. Din shot one in the back. The other turned to fight Din and received a hot blast with the flamethrower.
Merrix and the remaining stormtrooper turned back to fire, covering Varro's escape to the small hangar and her personal ship in a misguided show of gallantry. The glass desk underneath Grogu shattered. The boy fell to the floor, a rain of glass covering him.
Then he shrieked. The horrible sound made Din's blood freeze.
When Grogu raised his head again, Din saw that he was bleeding from a small gash on his head. The unfamiliar greenish drops rolled down his face. Grogu's ears drooped.
His son was BLEEDING.
Din took a step toward Merrix.
Merrix took a step back.
Din didn't quite remember what happened after that.
When his mind cleared, Din looked around at the wreckage of bodies. Merrix's head was still on his body, but not at the correct angle any more. Not at all. His eyes, wide open in death, seemed full of astonishment. From the hangar came the sound of engines.
Then Din picked up Grogu.
In all this time, Din had not yet seen Grogu get an injury that made him bleed, not even a scrape while playing. It reminded Din too much of the hideous machine Din the Empire had used on the child to extract his blood. But he fought to stay calm because he could see Grogu was starting to panic. His eyes narrowed, which meant he was badly frightened. The sight of his own blood was probably much worse than the pain.
"Oh buddy," he said. He wiped away the blood with his cloak and pressed down. It didn't look serious but if it was anything like a human scalp wound it would bleed a lot.
More explosions from below and noise from the tunnel. The door blew open—someone had used a grav charge. Din sheltered Grogu as he turned to meet the new threat, but to his unspeakable relief it was Mayfeld, followed by Burg and Fazzakkaar.
"The fuck!?" Mayfeld approached, wiping at his face. "What the fuck happened, Mando? Is he okay?"
"Language," said Din automatically.
"WHO DID THIS?" roared Burg. He looked around as if considering killing the dead stormtroopers all over again.
Calm yourself, growled Fazzakkaar. You're making it worse.
"It's not serious," said Din, trying to sound soothing. "But he's scared. Go after Varro."
Mayfeld looked skeptical but he and the others did as Din asked. Din held his son close.
"You're with me. I know you're scared but you're safe." He stripped off a glove and reached for a pouch on his belt. He was not feeling so great himself but pushed the pain in his head and shoulder to the background. Grogu's breath was shallow and rapid. "I have a bacta patch. Think about how scared Greef Karga was but you were calm and you helped him. And me, in the Game Room. My turn to help you." He applied the patch and muttered soothing nonsense. He was no longer a ferocious hunter with a skilled apprentice but a father with a frightened child. The pain relief kicked in quickly and the bleeding stopped. "Hey, you see? Better. Better."
"Essss," said Grogu. "Boo."
"Well, shit," said Mayfeld, coming back from the hangar followed by Burg. "She got away." He nudged Merrix's body with a toe. "But you got this guy. And how. Holy shit."
Grogu struggled a bit to get out of Din's arms. Glad that he was feeling well enough to be feisty again, Din released his grasp. The boy went to the clone on the floor. He peered at the body curiously, then put a hand on his forehead.
"Who the hell is that?" asked Mayfeld.
"A clone of Moff Gideon," said Din.
"No," said Grogu.
"Wait, what?" asked Mayfeld.
Grogu closed his eyes. "Grogu, be careful," warned Din. The boy closed his eyes for a moment.
Then the clone's chest began to rise and fall. Its—his?—eyes opened again. He blinked. Din automatically raised his blaster but Grogu held up his hand.
"No," he said again. The clone sat up very slowly and blinked. His face and eyes were vacant. Grogu gave him a pat on the arm. "Hoookey." Okay. The clone gaped at the boy, then at the world around him. Reluctantly Din lowered his blaster. What the hell were they going to do with this, uh, whoever he was? They'd have to worry about that later.
"What's going on below?" asked Din.
"We've taken most of the levels but it's hard going at the hangar. We gotta get back there."
Steps came from the tunnel to the control room. They all raised their blasters. Grogu tensed. The clone kept gaping. Four armored, helmeted soldiers entered the ruined office. Din did not recognize their armor. At first.
"Now what?" asked Burg.
"We have the hangar secured," said the officer in the lead in an extremely familiar and welcome voice. Even more relief and gratitude flooded Din. The officer took off her helmet to reveal glossy dark hair and a smirk. "Have you been taking care of that kid? What's up with the bacta patch?"
"Little scratch," said Din.
Cara Dune tossed hair away from her eyes. Grogu toddled up to her. "I thought you were being all trained and stuff, kiddo. Glad you're back with your old man." She looked at the boy suddenly in her arms with a surprised grin. "Good to see you too."
"Lady, are you a sight for sore eyes," said Mayfeld.