2ABY 

Mos Espa | Tatooine

Outer Rim

The twin suns of Tatoonie beat down on the white hot sand.  The tracking fob beeped steadily as I moved through the narrow alleyways out of the outskirts of the city, before I found the building I was looking for.   The cantina was mostly empty, except for a few patrons at the bar, and one woman sitting at a table in the back corner.  I approached her, standing at the edge of the table and taking her in.

Tav Moonraker. She didn’t look like much; a pretty girl in a pretty dress. She was slight, with long brown hair and big, round, green eyes.  The puck was clear: Target should be acquired alive.  Target is a prolific thief.  Target is extremely dangerous.

“A Mandalorian,” she breathed, looking up at me.  “I’m honored.  Someone must want me very badly,” she said in a husky, but pleasant, almost conversational tone.

“I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold,” I said, putting the bounty puck on the table in front of her.

“I assume cold is,” she spoke softly, pulling her finger slowly across her lower neck, in a lazy, almost seductive way, then she tilted her head to one side, pantomiming death.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to let her casual attitude rattle me.  I wasn’t used to bounties behaving so calmly, and it made me wonder what she was up to. “So, will you come quietly, or does this have to get messy?”

“I assure you, I never come quietly, and I love it when things get messy… But, I promise to come along without a fuss… I would ask for a teeny little favor, though.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

She stood up and held her hands out, her wrists limp.

“Will you use the binders on me?”

I looked at her for a moment, studying her, wondering if this was some kind of trick. She was about 5’4”, and I doubt she weighed much more than a loth cat. How much trouble could she be?

“You want to be bound?” I asked doubtfully.

“It’ll give me one last thrill before you turn me in,” she said softly. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Her flirtatious tone, her double entendres, were at odds with the situation. Cautiously, I put the binders around her wrists.  I was just about to snap them shut, locking them, when suddenly, she moved.  She was blindingly fast, inhumanly fast.  Before I knew what was happening, she had slipped out of the binders, snatched them from my grasp and snapped them shut around my own wrists.  I stood there, looking at my hands, dumbfounded.  She retook her seat, and with her foot, pushed the chair across from her away from the table.  She motioned for me to sit.

“Have a seat, Handsome… I want to have a little chat.  And keep your hands where I can see them, please,” she said conversationally. All traces of seduction and flirtation were gone from her voice, and I realized that Tav Moonraker could in fact be a lot of trouble.  I hesitated, mulling over my options when she spoke again.  “People are looking, Mando,” she hissed. “I’m sure you’re just as keen as I am to avoid attracting attention, so sit down.” She hissed through a forced smile.  I sat.

She studied me for a moment, looking at me from my boots to the top of my helmet.  Her piercing gaze made me feel laid bare, despite my armor and gambeson. She bit her bottom lip, and the expression, coupled with the dim light from the window behind her, made her seem much younger than the age listed on her bounty puck. 

“I assume Black Sun set you on my tail?”  She asked after a long silence passed between us.  She leaned in closer, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard.

“Yes,”  I said after a slight hesitation.

“Can I ask how much?”  Tav asked with genuine curiosity. 

“Five hundred thousand,”  I replied.

She whistled appreciatively.

“And my old teacher said I’d never been worth anything,” she chuckled. “Nice to know I’ve exceeded his expectations.”

Behind my helmet, I felt my face going slack with disbelief.  

“You’re awfully calm for someone with a price that large on their head,” I remarked.

“Am I?”  She said teasingly. 

“Yes. Usually this is where people start begging.”

“I’m not generally above begging, but as I have the upper hand at the moment, would you settle for a bargain?”

“A Bargain?”

“I’d like to hire you to help me with a bounty,” she said.

“I think that’s a conflict of interest.”  Despite myself, I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “Why does Black Sun want you so badly?”

“I stole something from them.”

“What did you steal?” I asked, genuinely curious that there was something Black Sun wanted that badly.

“A Weapon,” she said after a moment. 

“What kind of weapon?”

“Something for infiltration. Black Sun was preparing to use it to tear apart the New Republic from the inside.”

“What kind of weapon could do that?” 

“Look, the less you know, the better,” she said tiredly.  “Just know that in the wrong hands, the weapon would be catastrophic, all right?”  Her face was earnest, but a criminal wouldn’t be a very good criminal if they couldn’t lie. I leaned back in the chair, my bound hands on the table in front of me.

“Why should I believe you?”  I asked her. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t,” she admitted. “I don’t have any way to prove it to you.”

“You could show me this weapon,” I said. 

“I’ve hidden it somewhere safe,” she said, her gaze dropping to the table. “It’s… Better that way. Safer.”

“I’m afraid that I can’t forgo a bounty on blind faith in a criminal,” I said. “I need something more solid than that.”

“Hence my offer to hire you… The bounty I want to go after is worth a cool million.  And I’ll let you take it all,” she said.

“And what do you want in exchange for this?  For me to just let you go, on your word?”

“No, I would stay with you while we hunt him down,” she said. “I imagine that you won’t be the last hunter to come after me, and I would be safer with you.”

“I’m not a bodyguard,” I replied.

“I’m not asking you to be a bodyguard.  I’m asking you to be my partner; you watch my back, and I’ll watch yours.”

“Why should I trust you?  How do I know you wouldn’t kill me in my sleep?” I asked again.

“For one, that would defeat the purpose of partnering with you. You can’t watch my back if you’re dead,” she said, leaning forward with her elbows on the table, propping her chin up on her palms.  “For two, I wouldn’t be so foolish as to try to attack a Mandalorian. I can hold my own in a fight, but I’m not a warrior.”

I considered her words.

“Who’s the bounty?” I asked.

“His name is Germaine.  Germaine Rendar.  He’s ex-Imperial.”

“There are lots of ex-Imperials out there,” I reasoned. “Why is he worth so much to the New Republic?”

“He was a science officer, in charge of their genetics division,” she explained. “After the war, he stole massive amounts of weapons and munitions from the Empire and sold them to criminal organizations.  Black Sun was one of them,” Tav went on.  “To fund his ‘continued research’.”  She let out a shaky breath. “His experiments were so vile, even the Empire sanctioned him a few times.”

“You know a lot about this guy,” I said.

“I wouldn’t take on something like this without doing my research.  The Empire might not be our governing body anymore, but they still have plenty of wealth and power.”

She made a certain amount of sense.  I watched as she pulled a data stick from the worn travel pack that was hanging on the back of her chair.

“This is all the information I have,” she says.  “As a show of faith, I’d give it to you for agreeing to help me.  It has everything.  Locations of known bases, associates, and more.”

“How did you get all this?”

“It’s been my mission to bring Germaine down for a while.  This is… My life’s work,” Tav admitted, turning the data stick around in her fingers.  There was a split second of something on her face… Vulnerability, maybe.  I wasn’t sure if it was a manipulation tactic or not. “We catch him, turn him in… Then you collect the bounty, and drop me off somewhere remote, far away from the core, and we go our separate ways.  Me with my freedom, and you with your fortune.”

“You’d walk away from a million credits, just like that?”  I asked doubtfully.

“You can’t put a price on freedom,” she said. “Though apparently in my case, it’s five hundred thousand.”

A huff of laughter escaped my lips before I could stop it. I gazed at her, the sensors in my helmet scanning her for things like heat signatures, perspiration, irregular heart beat; anything that might indicate she was lying.  The things she might not even realize about herself, no matter how good of a liar she was… But nothing flagged my sensors.  I stayed quiet for a few more minutes, studying her.  Her travel pack was worn, threadbare, and stained with what could have been any number of things but was most likely blood.  Her dress was pretty, clean and obviously new, but her boots were old, well worn, scuffed and dirty.  If she was such a good thief, why hadn’t she stolen herself a better pack, better boots?  Or the credits to buy them? Something wasn’t adding up, but I didn’t have enough information to parse out what, exactly.

“Say I decided to help you,” I said, leaning back in the chair, my head tilted to one side. “Are you expecting me to do all the work to collect the bounty?”

“No,” she replied. “I told you I can hold my own in a fight.  I’m good with a blaster, and I’m excellent at sneaking.  I’m also very good with people.”

“Good with people?”

“I think the word to describe it is charming.” Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I can be very charming when the occasion calls for it.”

“I don’t doubt that,” I replied dryly, thinking of the way she’d used her flirtatious demeanor to cuff me.  I sighed, pondering the arrangement.  I wanted to believe her, if for no other reason that a million credits buys a lot of fuel and repairs for my ship, weapons and armor upgrades… But there was something about that flash of emotion, that split second of vulnerability that tugged at something inside me. “I have conditions,” I said, still not quite agreeing to her proposal.

“Naturally,” she agreed, gesturing for me to continue.

“The first condition is that before we do anything, I’m going to look this Germaine guy up on the holonet to see if there’s really a bounty on him, and that it’s as much as you claim.”

“Of course,” she nodded.

“The second is that you’re going to wear a tracking bracelet at all times.”

“Sure,” she agreed.

“And finally… This is not a democracy.  You’ll do what I tell you.  Can you handle that?”

She nodded, her eyes wide in disbelief.

“So… You’ll help me?”

“I’ll help you,” I agreed.  I held up my bound wrists.  “Now will you unlock these?”

She reached across the table.

“Sure thing, Handsome.”  I tilted my head again.  That was the second time she’d called me that.

“Ironic nicknames a fun quirk of yours?” I asked, putting the binders back on my belt.

“Indeed,” she said with a wry smile. “So now what?”

“My ship’s being refueled, and I need to get supplies before I… We go offworld.”

“I have a couple of things at the inn,” she said. “I’ll go grab them and meet you at the hangar?”

“No,” I said. I wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to disappear. “If you need to go to the inn, I’ll go with you.  You stay where I can see you until I lock that tracking bracelet around your wrist.”

“All right,” she said, standing up. “Then come along.”

I followed her out of the cantina, across the dusty, scorching sands to an old inn across the street. The sign by the door advertised cheap rooms with by-the-hour rates.  The old Riodian innkeeper eyed us with curiosity as I followed her up a creaking staircase to her room.  I kept my eyes moving, watching for anything suspicious.  The room was small, cramped, and smelled faintly of dry rot.  It was a bit of a sad sight.  She gathered up a few books from the nightstand and a couple of changes of clothes that lay in a pile on the floor next to the bed.  She tucked everything into that worn travel pack.

“All right,” she said. “I’m ready.”

“That’s all you have?”

“I travel light,” she said with a shrug.  The picture I was piecing together of Tav was quite different than what the bounty puck had described.  I didn’t see a master thief, or a dangerous, violent criminal.  I saw a sad young woman with very few options and a lot of powerful enemies. I felt that tug again.

I gestured for her to follow me.  The innkeeper watched as depart, his expression still curious.  I could only imagine what he thought.  I led Tav to my ship at the spaceport.

“Still refueling,” the Bothan mechanic huffed as we entered the hangar bay. My ship, the Razor Crest, was hooked to a fuel tanker that hummed rhythmically as it pumped fuel into the massive tanks.  Tav looked up at the ship appreciatively.

“That’s fine, we just need to go aboard for a few minutes,” I said.  He nodded. 

“You speak Huttese,” Tav said, coming along beside me.

“Yes,” I said, not elaborating further.

“You spend a lot of time in the Outer Rim, then.”

“Yes,” I said as we walked up the gangplank of the ship.  

“You have a carbonite freezing chamber,” she observed as we passed by it.

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything else.

“This isn’t a luxury liner,” I told her as we made our way into the crew quarters of the ship. “This is my bunk,” I pointed to the small alcove where I slept.  Across the cabin, there was an identical one. “You can put your things in there.  It’s not very comfortable, but it beats sleeping in a chair,” I said.  I rarely traveled with anyone other than bounties, and I’d never seen fit to properly outfit the other bunk.  “We can get a bed roll at the market,” I heard myself saying, thinking that I wanted her to be comfortable.  That thought gave me a momentary pause..

Tav nodded, setting her worn pack down on the hard slab that was meant to be a platform for a mattress.  She held out her wrist to me.  I tilted my head to one side.

“The tracking bracelet?”  She reminded me, dropping her arm.

“Right,” I said, giving myself a mental shake.  I walked over to my munitions locker, punching the security code in on the keypad.  A panel opened.

Tav let out another whistle, low and almost appreciative.

“That’s a lot of fire power.”

“Weapons are part of Mandalorian Religion,” I said. Tav nodded, taking in the collection. 

“You are particularly devout,” she quipped.

This time I caught the huff of laughter before it escaped my lips.

“I prefer to think of it as being prepared,” I replied, pulling a delicate gold band from a drawer.  She held her wrist out to me again, and I took it in my hands, closing the tracking bracelet around it, locking it in place. “The only way that’ll come off is if your arm comes off,” I warned her. “So don’t try anything.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

“All right,”  I said. “There’s a locker under the platform in your bunk if you want to secure your things while we’re off ship.”

“Do you mind if I change clothes?”

“Change clothes? Why?”

“I’m not exactly dressed for what lies ahead…  I thought I had another day or two of leisure, at least.”

“You knew someone was going to come after you?”

“I know Black Sun well enough to know that they weren’t going to let the weapon slip through their grasp without a hell of a fight,” she said. Every answer she gave me left me with more questions, but if what she was saying about Germaine Rendar was true, there would be plenty of time to ask them. She crossed her arms over her chest, and I could see gooseflesh on her arms.

“You’re cold,” I realized.  “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and change, I’ll… be in the hangar. Just… don’t touch anything.”  I locked my weapons back up, and then left her alone in the crew quarters.

A few minutes later, she came down the gangplank, dressed in trousers and a tunic. A belt at her waist held a blaster and a knife. She looked at me as she pulled a traveling cloak around her shoulders.

“Unless you have an objection to me carrying weapons,” she said as her fingers manipulated the clasp of the brown linen cloak.  I thought about it.

“Give me your blaster, but you can keep the knife.” 

Dutifully, she took her blaster from her belt, handing it to me, grip first.

That was… Much easier than I thought, I mused to myself.  I hooked her blaster to my belt.

“I’m a little sentimental about that blaster,” she said. “So while I understand that you don’t trust me with it, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t trade it or sell it.”

I turned to look back at her, cocking my head to one side.

“Sentimental about a blaster?”

“I figured you of all people might understand,” she replied with a shrug.

“I do, I’m just… Surprised, is all.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s rare I meet anyone else who appreciates or shares my affinity for weapons.”

“Not all weapons, just that blaster.  We’ve… been through a lot together.”

I looked down at the blaster on my belt.  It was a standard E-11.

“This is a stormtrooper rifle,”  I said, turning my head back to her. 

“It was, now it’s mine.”

“Were you a stormtrooper?” I asked, feeling my body tense involuntarily.

“No,” she said, looking at me, her gaze locked onto the viewfinder in my helmet, as if she was trying to look me in the eye.  “I hate the Empire, believe me. I came into possession of that blaster about 4 years ago.  It’s gotten me out of a lot of tough scraps that I didn’t think I would survive at times.”

I took a moment to reflect on that statement.

“All right,” I said.  We headed to the market, where I refilled the ration box, and water jugs.  By the time that was complete, the ship was fueled, and we boarded again.  Tav lingered in the doorway of the cockpit while I made good on my promise to look Germaine up on the HoloNet.  True to her word, the ex-Imperial genetic scientist had a bounty on his head.

“This says the bounty on him is five million,” I said, turning back to her.

“What?” She looked confused.

“Were you trying to short change me?”

“Even if I was, a million is still more than you’d get for turning me in,” she shot back snidely.  She came further into the cockpit and stood next to me.  She pointed to an alert in the corner of the screen.  “They updated the amount and the information two days ago,” she pointed out. “I haven’t had access to a terminal.”

I turned to look at her.  It was plausible, but I was still suspicious.  I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, but the second she put a toe out of light, I was carbon freezing her and collecting both bounties.

“If it’s five million, then I want two million.”

“Hell of a finder’s fee.”

She held up the data stick she’d shown me earlier.

“I did a lot of leg work.”

“So you claim, but I haven’t seen what’s on that.”

She handed me the data stick.

“Knock yourself out, but your droid should probably parse it for you.”

“I don’t have a droid.”

“What?” she turned back to me. “Not even a mech?”

“No,” I said firmly.  “I’ll look at this manually.”

“It’ll take a while,” she said with a shrug.  She sat in the co-pilot’s chair, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Well, it’s a ways to our next destination.”

“Where are we going?”

“Nevarro,” I said. “I need to pick up some smaller bounties to fund this hunt for your ex-Imperial, and I need to check in with my tribe.  The data sheet on Germaine says that his bases are well fortified, so I’ll need time to come up with a plan, as well.”

She nodded, which surprised me.  I expected her to argue; either with the idea of going to Nevarro, or that I was the one doing the planning.

“You sure Nevarro is the best idea, with the bounty on my head?” She asked after a moment.

“You’re with me.  No one is going to bother you,” I said. “If they even register that you’ve got a price on your head, they’ll assume I’m taking you in.”

“And what if someone tries to relieve you of your prize, handsome?”

“Then I guess we’ll see how good you are in a fight.”

She huffed, and her expression landed somewhere between amusement and incredulity.

“I guess we will,” she said, hugging her knees.

“Are you still cold?” I asked her.

“No, just… Anxious.”

I started the prelight controls.

“Anxious about what, exactly?”

“All of it… The price on my head, Germaine… You.”

“Me?”

“You’re a Mandalorian,” she said with a shrug.

I felt my shoulders stiffen.  

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” I said, unable to keep the cold gruffness from my voice.

“That’s not what I meant… I didn’t…” she sighed, shaking her head. “I meant that you are obviously a skilled warrior, and a skilled bounty hunter.  That’s intimidating.”

“‘Obviously’?” I turned slightly in the pilot’s chair, hitting the aft port switches close to her chair.

“Yes,” she said. “I can tell you’re very good at what you do.”

“How can you tell?”

“Your armor,” she said. 

“My armor?”

“It’s Beskar steel.  Beskar isn’t cheap.  And yours is relatively new.  It’s seen a little action,” she said, her eyes traveling along some of the dents and scrapes in my armor. “But it’s new enough that it probably isn’t a family heirloom. That means you earned enough hunting for a full suit. And you survived without the suit while you did it.  You’re either very skilled, or very, very lucky.”

I paused, surprised by her perceptiveness, and by the slight edge of reverence in her voice. She obviously respected Mandalorians, at least enough to learn about our culture.  That wasn’t something I was used to from outsiders.  The ship was ready for take off, and as my fingers lingered over the thrust ignition, I turned to look at her again.  She was sitting there, her legs pulled to her chest, the dim lights from the switch panel illuminating her in pale orange light.

“You certainly know a lot about Mandalorians.”

“I read a lot.”

I wasn’t sure if she was serious or not, so I didn’t respond.  I engaged the thrusters and the ship slowly rose out of the hangar bay.

“Settle in,” I told her.  “It’s going to be a long flight.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

I debated saying no, afraid that one question would breed a thousand before we landed on Nevarro, but in spite of myself, I nodded.

“What’s your name?” she asked. 

I was surprised. Most people, most outsiders, even people who knew me, were content to call me Mando. I never volunteered my name, and it was rarely asked for.  I turned back to her yet again, rotating the pilot’s chair so that I was completely facing her.  I reflected on the strange turn this day had taken.

“Djarin,” I finally said.  “My name’s Djarin.”

“Nice to meet you, Djarin.”  Tav said, extending her hand to me.  She smiled softly, and I felt that tug again.  I took her hand and shook it, perplexed by everything.

“Nice to meet you, Tav,” I replied.