Buckets: A Star Wars Story

27. Son

We had one singular final stop to refuel on the way to Jakku, and Aurek and I found each other with little else to do but wait as the fleet refueled itself. I had been hanging around until the men mentioned that we weren't the only types refueling while there seemed to be a moment of respite hanging in the air.

Mandos.

Apparently, the Empire wasn't too concerned with the few roving bands that still remained active following the Purge. There was a small part of me that was clinging onto hope that maybe I could see someone.

See, I never would have admitted it at the time, but I was terrified of dying. There was a part of me that just intrinsically knew that Jakku was going to be my point of no return, and it scared me. I kept telling myself that dying for the Empire was glorious, that it was the best and only way to die if it came down to it. I had so many things I had to do, and yet there was the then future Battle of Jakku staring me unforgivingly in the face. I knew Kando was alive out there somewhere, and if I was going to die in just over forty-eight hours, I wanted to make every single second of it count.

I asked around casually if anyone had seen these alleged Mandalorians, and after a solid half an hour of asking about, I got enough from the piecemeal information to roughly know where they were. They had quarantined themselves off in a small section of the city and had all but taken it over. The local authorities didn't want to have to attempt to strongarm their way into their business considering how painfully armed these Mandos were said to have been.

I wasn't surprised by the revelation, and as I made up some petty excuse about going exploring to Peek and Aurek – neither of which believed me for an instant – I found myself more concerned on how I would be received considering the Empire's less than stellar history with the Mandalorians. In the days of the Old Empire, the Sith and Mandalorians had been strange allies, but that had clearly changed over the few thousand years considering that we had wiped them out by the hundreds during this war. I wasn't privy to the details, but from the whispers across the fleet, Moff Gideon had completely decimated them. Not one of our finer moments, that much was certain.

I had wandered around the various sections of town for around an hour when I finally found what I was looking for, judging by the alley lined with Mandalorians all chatting in their mother tongue. I stuck out like a sore thumb amid the colorful armor, and it didn't take them long to notice me either.

The Mandos all had their blasters on me faster than I could breathe, but I raised my hands, "Stop! I don't want any trouble!"

"Shut your mouth, Imp," one snarled and advanced towards me with his blaster pistol raised. He snapped it to my face, "We still remember the Purge here, boy."

"I'm here looking for Kando!" I managed out as I swallowed a rather embarrassing lump that had formed in my throat as I reached up and pulled my helmet off. "Tell him it's Shiny. I... I need to see him."

Several of them exchanged glances and slowly lowered their blasters as they too reached up to pull their helmets off, and I found myself staring down nearly ten identical faces.

Clones.

"What do you want with him?" the eldest of the Clones stepped forward. He had one scar across his face, and I could see tattoos peeking out from his collar. He went to jerk his rotary gun up before another Clone reached up and lowered his arm.

This one had longer hair, a long stripe of red dyed back through it with the sides shaved and tattooed themselves, and he shook his head at me in disbelief, "You're Shiny? Cadet..."

"65780," I added quickly in sheer relief that they knew him. Knew me in some small way. "Please... I really... I need to see him." I felt like I was ready to start crying. I knew that I wasn't going to come back from Jakku. There was only one person I needed to see before that.