PURPOSE | The Mandalorian

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Twenty minutes had passed since Din and Cara left and the forest before me was still eerily silent. Every once in a while a slight breeze would rustle the leaves and I'd look through the scope of my rifle blaster, hoping that they'd finally made it back. But when the wind blew for the third time, I wasn't fooled.

"C'mon," I whispered to myself impatiently as I tapped my finger on my thigh, "Don't leave me here, guys."

Another five minutes passed. Then another.

Just when I had begun to think that something had gone wrong, Cara sprinted through the tree line, Din not far behind. They weaved their way through the trenches and pools before leaping for the top of the wall and hauling themselves over. Once they cleared the wall, Cara ran straight for her big gun, propping it against her hip as she hauled it on top of the shooting platform.

Din was looking straight at me. I sighed a huge sigh of relief when he nodded at me, giving the signal that the raiders and AT-ST were following. I shouted to the villagers below on the lower platforms, "Get ready! They're coming in hot!"

All the villagers tensed simultaneously, the ones with blasters aiming them at the tree line. There was silence for a few moments before we heard it. The booms of the walker slowly got louder and louder until is huge, glowing red eyes loomed above, staring straight at me. My chest tightened so severely that it made breathing all but impossible as I dropped my head and laid flat against the tower floor, keeping out of sight from its spotlights. I breathed a few deep breaths, flipping the blaster's safety off.

Then Cara's loud voice echoed throughout the village.

"Fire!"

Blasters erupted on both sides of me, aiming straight for the AT-ST. Some bolts missed majorly, but most of them hit its body. It didn't matter, though. They didn't even phase it as it stepped out of the cover of the trees and towards the trench.

Just then, some of the raiders began to charge the wall. I pulled the stock of my blaster into my shoulder and starting shooting them down one by one, dropping them like stones.

"Nice shooting," A familiar voice breathed as he began shooting down at the raiders to my right.

I spared a second to glance at Din beside me, the red light from the blaster bolts being fired around us reflecting off his armor. His chest was heaving up and down while he fought to catch his breath as he fired his pulse rifle at the AT-ST before us.

Thankful that he'd made it back, I smiled to myself and resumed shooting.

But something wasn't right.

I stopped the hellfire that was coming from my blaster to stare wide-eyed at the AT-ST, which wasn't advancing anymore. "Shouldn't that walker be up in flames by now?" I shouted over the din of blaster fire.

Din stopped shooting as he took in the monster walker. "Fuck!" He whisper-cursed. "It won't step forward. It knows the trap!"

I cursed as well. "We have to get it to walk forward," I shouted at him. "Otherwise we're all dead."

"Stop!" Din screamed over the top of the tower to the villagers below. "Get down!"

The rain of blaster bolts ceased immediately and the villagers all ducked for cover. Din crouched below the rail of the tower, invisible to the eyes of the walker. I joined him, sucking down huge breaths of air.

"Hey, relax," He muttered when he noticed my breathing.

But the loud boom of the walker's cannons firing scared me out of my skin. I flinched majorly, not realizing my death grip on Din's knee until he pried my fingers away.