─ ❛ 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 ❜
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, Cyi should be dead. Instead, she's crammed into the hold of some chumbucket of a spaceship with a kid that may or may not be toying with the fabric of the universe.
By all accou...
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.･ ̣ ✵ ･ *.
⠀⠀⠀ MANDO HAS DINED on stew thinner than the dust that coats every crate in the storage hold. And, given that most stew he eats has the consistency of wet clay, that's saying a lot.
⠀⠀⠀ He's hunkered down. With one hand, he keeps the green kid tucked close to him. With the other, he readies his blaster. From the sound of things, the wall behind his stack of crates is now a smoking pile of rubble.
⠀⠀⠀ You missed, he thinks wryly. Laser sights cut through the air, searching, searching, searching. They do not find him. Yet.
⠀⠀⠀ He knows it's but a matter of time until a stormtrooper pokes his head down around the stack of crates, or until one hears the rasp his helmet makes as it filters out the dust and smoke from the air.
⠀⠀⠀ Another laser cuts across the dust. It's closer than the others, and he sighs. Better to surprise than to be surprised, he tells himself.
⠀⠀⠀ He sets the child in a shadowy hollow between two crates. Then he waits. When most of the sights seem aimed away from him, he rises. The smoke hides his movements, and his footsteps are silent on the carpet of dust.
⠀⠀⠀ His blaster is a lot less quiet.
⠀⠀⠀ The first trooper falls without so much as crying out, but a blam echoes through the room. Instantly, every sweeping sightline snaps toward him.
⠀⠀⠀ "Dank farrik," Mando mutters. But already, the blood is pumping in his veins. He's poised to dance that deadly jig. Death is his partner, the stage is theirs.
⠀⠀⠀ An Imp materializes out of the dust, and Mando spins. He fires at the chink where helmet meets breastplate and is running before the body hits the floor. Pounding footsteps bounce off the crates, off the walls, off the ceiling, and figures run ghostly in the thick air.
⠀⠀⠀ They're converging on him now, a hurricane of fists and feet and knives and blasters. It has quite the grounding effect. In the midst of the fight, Mando sees everything, and his body responds automatically.
⠀⠀⠀ A white clad fist shoves an electro-knife at his face; he ducks away. Momentum carries the Imp forward, and Mando slams his elbow on the back of his neck. Then he's spinning to meet the next attack.
⠀⠀⠀ He knocks a blaster from another stormtrooper's hand before he can fire. Like the thief, he thinks as he sweeps the feet out from beneath yet another Imp. He lands hard on his back, and Mando knocks him on the head. The last one is running toward the blasted wall. Whether to get help or simply hide, Mando doesn't know. Or care.
⠀⠀⠀ He shoots a line from his wrist that snares the trooper's feet. He goes toppling to the ground, and Mando fires at him.
⠀⠀⠀ He glances around to make sure that that was indeed the last Imp. Satisfied, he picks his way across the rubble to where he stashed the kid. He ducks down. The child stares up at him, unblinking.
