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the-last-airblender · 3 years

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Chapter 5: The Siege (part 2)

This is part of the Run series, check out part 1 here and the masterlist with the previous chapters here

Notes: here’s part two!

You whirl around, ready to grab your hidden throwing knives, but then see it's Hal.

He raises his hands and smiles hesitantly. 'It's just me.'

'Sorry.' You let out a sigh of relief and smile back. 'It's not like I can stab you right now, anyway.'

Hal chuckles and walks over to the balustrade, leaning against one of the small columns supporting the domed roof. The corners between the columns and the cupola are adorned with intricate stone wickerwork, just like the balustrade, which you can therefore partly see through. These graceful patterns seem to be almost the only thing not made out of volcanic rock; where the interior walls are mostly plastered white, the rest of the three-storey house has a red-gray tone that blends in nicely with the landscape.

'How are you feeling? People saw you running upstairs as if your life depended on it.'

You look up and silently curse your lack of subtlety.

'I really needed some fresh air', you sigh. 'I think the pastry from earlier didn’t agree with me. But I’m feeling better now.' You give him a warm smile. 'Thank you.'

'We can stay out here for a while', Hal suggests. 'This is my favorite place in the whole building, actually. Or, well, outside the building, I suppose.'

You chuckle and you’re inclined to agree, but then you remember why you’re here in the first place and shake your head.

'As beautiful as this view is, I came here to party', you say.

He gallantly offers you his arm, grinning broadly. 'Very well, m'lady. Let's party.'

'Hurry up, purge the drives', the imperial scientist commands the colleague next to him.

Both are hurriedly pressing all kinds of buttons on the control panel, but a few seconds later the blasterfire sounds too close for his liking and when he looks up, the intruders are rapidly approaching them and he quickly grabs his own weapon.

'Destroy it!', he yells to his buddy, who also takes out his blaster and desperately starts firing at the panel. Then he hears his colleague fall to the ground and he fires a few more shots in the direction of the strangers, but to no avail. A well-aimed shot hits his chest and he falls over the panel like a bag of salt.

An eerie silence falls over the room as Din and his companions slowly walk past the cabins embedded in the wall. The four of them have placed enough explosives to destroy the entire base with Karga's detonator, but their element of surprise is lost. Din has already given you the signal to start a fire in the villa.

Blue light illuminates their confused and horrified faces. The cabins seem to be filled with a certain cloudy liquid and Din can only just make out the faint contours of motionless figures floating in it. He doesn't know what’s in there, but it certainly isn’t human. A chill runs down his spine.

'I thought you said this was a forward operating base', he says.

'I thought it was', Karga mumbles.

Dune stares at one of the cabins, her face dark. 'No, this isn't a military operation.' She looks up to the others. 'This is a lab. We need to get into the system and figure out what's going on.'

Mythrol starts to protest, but Karga interrupts him. 'Do it!'

Din looks from the cabins to the half-destroyed panel. The scientists had been very intent on destroying their data. What kind of research could possibly be so important?

'I don't like this', he announces to no one in particular.

'Pardon me.’ Mythrol gently pushes the scientist's body, which still hangs over the panel, to the side until it slides to the ground with a thud. Then he starts pushing buttons, hoping to get at least something out of the burnt device. For a moment it looks like the scientist succeeded in wrecking it, but then a small hologram pops up and the figure of a man with glasses starts talking. Din immediately recognizes the doctor to whom he initially delivered the child.

‘-replicated the results of the subsequent trials, which also resulted in catastrophic failure’, the doctor says. ‘There were promising effects for an entire fortnight, but then, sadly, the body rejected the blood. I highly doubt we'll find a donor with a higher M-count, though. I recommend that we suspend all experimentation. I fear that the volunteer will meet the same regrettable fate if we proceed with the transfusion. Unfortunately, we have exhausted our initial supply of blood. The Child is small, and I was only able to harvest a limited amount without killing him. If these experiments are to continue as requested, we would again require access to the donor. I will not disappoint you again, Moff Gideon. '

The message ends and an ominous feeling creeps over the Mandalorian. He looks from Dune to Karga.

'This must be an old transmission. Moff Gideon is dead,' he says, partly to reassure himself, but panic is already stirring in his chest.

Mythrol hardly dares to look at him. 'No. This recording is three days old.'

'If Gideon's alive, then...'

He doesn't get to finish his sentence.

'Over there!', a stormtrooper shouts from the hallway.

Blasterfire erupts from both sides and the man falls to the ground, but he didn’t come alone.

'We have them!', shouts another to his colleagues.

'I need to get to the kid', Din says hastily.

'Jet back, you're faster that way', Karga shouts over the sound of the shots. 'We'll head to the speeder and meet you in town!'

The Mandalorian nods and runs down a nearby hallway. Now he just needs to find the way out.

You're in the middle of your second dance with Hal when you get Din's signal. Because of the music, you can only understand half of it, but that’s all you need. Time to set this place ablaze.

On the way here you had worried about making any fire at all, since you didn’t have a lighter on you, but upon entering the mansion, the solution had immediately presented itself: candles had been placed on the balustrade of the second floor, inbetween each column, providing nice mood lighting. They certainly create atmosphere, but also an opportunity: with so many candles in the building, no one would be too surprised about a fire.

'All that twisting makes me sick', you shout in Hal's ear. 'I'm going to get some fresh air again. Be right back.'

'Wait, I'm coming with you', he says.

'I'd really prefer to go alone. Recharge my social battery, you know', you say quickly, planting a kiss on his cheek, hoping that will prevent any further protests. He opens his mouth and closes it again, flustered by the gesture, and you turn to walk away. Immediately, you bump into a person dressed in blue and you start to apologize, but then you see who it is.

'May I steal your friend here from you for a second?', Mayweather asks his son with a smile.

Before Hal can answer, however, the man has already put his arm through yours and is somewhat forcefully leading you away from the loud music.

'I almost didn't recognize you, lady Signas', he says without looking at you, pulling you to the side of the courtyard, towards the shadow of the overhanging balustrade. His body language still radiates the perfect, calm host, but the undertone in his voice is not lost on you and your heart is pounding so loudly that you have to make an effort to understand him. You pray to Dedis that he doesn't feel your trembling.

‘Then again, it has been years since I last saw you and you've certainly grown up a lot. But I'd recognize Duuganise wedding attire anywhere. I was at your father's wedding, remember?'

'No', you mutter as you reach the shadows, unable to stop your voice from shaking.

'Ah, I suppose you were very young at the time', Mayweather continues calmly, as if the two of you are just talking about the weather. 'His wife looked beautiful that day, almost as beautiful as you. What's her name again?'

He still holds your arm in a tight grip, even though you’re standing still now. To the other guests, it must seem as if the host is just having a friendly conversation with his guest.

You swallow and answer: 'Avlin.'

'Avlin, right', he nods. 'Did she do this?' He points to the paint on your arms and the lump growing in your throat prevents you from doing anything more than shake your head. 'No? Must have been your aunt, then. Always liked her. She's a very strong woman. Isn't it her son you married?'

All your instincts scream the same: he knows. Yet you cling to the last glimmer of hope for his ignorance and nod in agreement.

'That's right', you force yourself to add.

Then a guard appears from the corridor near you. He looks around and when he spots Mayweather, he comes up to him and whispers something in his ear. You're too busy panicking to hear him, but deep down you already know what news the guard is bringing. You’d heard shots when Din gave you the signal.

'Is that so?', Mayweather says with an unmistakably icy tone in his voice.

He looks down on you and you avoid his gaze. The grip on your arm tightens even more.

'I was wondering where you left that Mandalorian friend of yours.'

Your heart drops and you don’t fight him when he harshly drags you to the hallway. You’re led through a couple of wooden doors until you arrive in a mostly empty room where the festivities and the music can no longer be heard. The next moment you’re thrown against the wall and you fall to the stone floor with a pained cry.

'So what was your plan here, huh?', Mayweather begins, resting his hands on his knees and looking down at you as if you’re a naughty child. Every trace of kindness has now completely disappeared from his demeanor. 'They infiltrate the base while you stay up here and do… what, exactly?'

You push yourself into a sitting position and stubbornly stare at him, not planning to tell him anything about your intentions. For the time being, he doesn't seem to be aware of your affinity for knives or the ones still strapped to your legs. Whether he never knew or forgot, you can’t be sure, but once again you have to be smart about when to reveal your hidden weapons.

'One of my men did report a missing key, sir', suggests the brown-haired guard standing in the doorway. Mayweather raises an eyebrow and looks from him to you.

'I assume you're responsible for that, then', he concludes. ‘Certainly explains how they got in without the alarm going off. I should have known you were up to no good when I first noticed you, considering what you did back home. I should have put you on a ship and sent you back to Duugan the first chance I got. Guess I could still do that. But first I wanna know this: what are your friends planning on achieving down there, little girl?'

You don't answer and before you can blink, he slaps you across the face hard enough to make stars dance before your eyes. You can't hold back a scream as you lose your balance for a second. Your cheek burns painfully and anger rises in you.

Oh, this asshole is gonna pay.

You’re just about to grab a knife when Mayweather's next words stop you.

'What do we have here?'

He looks at something on the floor next to you and when you follow his gaze, your heart skips a beat.

Your earphone fell out of your ear.

In the silence that falls, a voice can be heard coming out of it, but you can only make out your name.

'Damn, my son sure is a bad judge of character', he sighs.

Before you can stop him, he plants his boot on top of the device and with a pathetic cracking sound your connection with the Mandalorian is severed.

Your scream echoes in Din’s head long after the connection is lost. He rushes through the long metal corridors, but every now and then he gets held up by alarmed stormtroopers. His instincts are screaming for him to fly to the child as quickly as possible. The news of Moff Gideon's survival scares him more than he'd like to admit and he can't wait to get to the Crest and leave this planet. But a little voice tugs on his conscience as he finally sees sunlight in the distance. The plan was that you would be picked up by Mythrol's speeder, but as always, the plan has long fallen apart. The sound of his heavy boots resounds through the hallway as he runs towards the light. He's not gonna leave you behind.

Panting, you run down the hall, as fast as your legs can carry you. Suddenly the road in front of you is blocked and you shoot into a side corridor, which turns out to lead back to the party. However, screams behind you tell you that the guards won't be afraid to just chase you there too. They underestimated you once and it cost them dearly, but they won't do that again.

You keep running under the balustrade while the rest of the guests let out cries of excitement and confusion, and you shoot up the stairs for the third time today. Your bun has come undone and the remnants flutter in the wind when you turn right twice without really knowing why. Once in the narrow hallway you realize what a stupid decision that was, but you can't go back. Wide-eyed, you slam against the balcony balustrade, wildly looking for a way out, but there isn't one. You're trapped.

Running footsteps echo behind you and you turn, half expecting to get shot right away, but much to your surprise it’s Hal who’s the first to reach the balcony, followed closely by the guards. The poor boy struggles to stop the enraged men, his face all confused.

'Wait, wait!', he shouts as you climb the balustrade in a desperate escape attempt. 'What are you doing?! Get down, I'm sure there's been some kind of misunderstanding... '

The Zabrak guard from earlier steps past him, his blaster pointed at you.

'Get back here', he barks.

'Stay there!', you shout, now standing upright, with your face towards them and holding on to the pillar next to you, still not really knowing what the hell you’re doing. You nervously glance down at the pass.

'Please, we can work this out', Hal begs.

The guards are staying where they are for now, no doubt because they want to bring you in alive and make you pay for the death of their commander and the injuring of their boss. You shoot the boy an apologetic look, but your cockyness has returned.

'You know, sometimes it is a good idea to look up a lady's dress', you tell the guards dryly.

And with a smug smile on your face, you let go of the column, salute them and let yourself fall off the balcony.

The sheer drop twists your insides to the point where you can't even scream and as the strong wind blows through your dress while gravity pulls you towards a painful death on the rocky floor meters below you, you immediately regret your decision; out of the corner of your eye, you see the black-and-metal-y blur that is the Mandalorian, who you saw flying in your general direction when you looked down.

And then you plummet right past him.

You finally manage to make a yelping sound as you start frantically flapping your limbs around in a desperate attempt to spontaneously grow wings and fly away from the rocks that are getting bigger and bigger by the second. Your now completely undone hairdo half clouds your vision when the realization hits you: in a few seconds, you're gonna hit the floor. If you're lucky, you'll be dead on impact. If Yris is in a particularly bad mood today, you'll survive but break every bone in your body. A strange calmness suddenly drowns out all your panic and time seems to slow down as you close your eyes and let your now useless body travel the last meters towards the ground.

When a strong force knocks the wind out of your lungs, you prepare yourself for the pain, but it wasn't rocks that hit you. It was beskar and muscles.

You open your eyes and see how Din awkwardly moves one of his arms from your waist to your knees to lift up your legs and thereby switch to a position he can actually hold long enough. You fly up into the sky again and as you rise above the hills, poorly aimed blaster shots fly right past you. Din seems to be too busy keeping both of you in the air to worry about it, rightfully relying on his beskar.

'Are you insane?!', he growls angrily.

With one arm you clamp to him and with the other you grab his blaster from the holster.

'Possibly', you shout back, looking past him and firing a few shots at the balcony, making sure not to aim at Hal. The guards duck and cease fire, and soon you’re too far away to get hit. You put the weapon back and you silently let yourself get flown back to the city. It’s all you can do to not ponder on the fact that the Mandalorian is literally carrying you in his arms like some kind of damsel in distress. Admittedly, you were very much in distress when you were falling from the balcony. You can feel his body heat and the strong muscles of his arms around your waist and legs and for some reason you feel like you’re in the safest place in the universe. Finally able to catch your breath, you let your head rest against his breastplate.

When you’ve almost reached the Razor Crest, the relative silence is rudely disrupted by a series of blasts, and you look over his shoulder at the fireballs rising up from the pass and the mansion. To your relief, you see that the guests are already outside, but that relief disappears as soon as you see thin shapes flying through the sky. Not birds, but Tie Fighters. You recognize them from a book and immediately realize that Karga, Dune and Mythrol are in trouble.

'They're being chased!', you shout. 'Tie Fighters are shooting at them!'

Din lands right next to his ship and hastily puts you down on the ground. He whirls around and sees that you’re right. He goes to move, but you’re one step ahead of him.

'Start the engines', you order. 'I'll get the kid.'

Before he can protest, you run into town.

A wild chase and a lot of shooting later, the Crest is flying safely over the city gate again, where Karga and the others are standing by the speeder and looking up at the ship. Din is just using his cape to wipe away the strange, mint-blue stuff the child spit out after the last looping, when Karga's voice sounds over the comm.

'That was some pretty impressive flying, Mando. Aren't you gonna let me buy you a drink?'

'Sorry', Din replies. 'We gotta hit the road before Gideon catches wise.'

'Well, good luck flying, my friend.'

Karga’s voice fades away and for a moment, a blessed silence falls over the cockpit. When the Crest leaves the atmosphere and Din has entered the coordinates for Qalla-knows-where, he turns to you. By now, the green color has disappeared from your face, but you’re pretty sure that you’d looked a lot like the child just now.

'I don't want to drag you into the whole Gideon business', he says. 'I can drop you off on any planet you like.'

After today's events, you're too tired to ask what that whole Gideon business is.

'Seems like we keep dragging each other into our businesses.' You laugh wearily. 'I don't mind. It's not like I have anywhere to go. So I wouldn't be against sticking around for a bit. You know, if you'll have me.'

You immediately regret your words, realizing that he was probably giving you a subtle hint, and you want to back out, but he answers before you can.

'Fine.'

He turns back to the controls and that's that. You blink slowly. That was easy. You decide to think about it later and you make a quarter turn in your chair and pull your knees against you, planning on getting some well-deserved shuteye. It’s not exactly comfortable, but you’re not complaining. Sleep is all that matters right now.

'You can take the bed', Din suddenly says, without looking up. 'It's next to the bathroom.'

You force yourself to protest. 'But that's yours! You should get some sleep as well.'

'I have some things I need to take care of.' When you still don't move, he adds: 'You need it more than I do. Go.'

You lack the energy to protest any further and you get up from your chair. At the sliding doors, you look back at him for a second. You’re no idiot, you’re fully aware that he just lied to you. The question is: why? An ancient instinct deep within you calls the answer, but you refuse to give in to it.

For now, anyway.

You leave the cockpit and climb down the stairs. That bed does sound great right now.

Tag list: @buckysalefty @dark-academics-and-florals

#mandalorian #mandalorian x reader #din djarin #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x reader #star wars #pedro pascal #fanfiction #fanfic

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