Chapter Text
“No one touches her,” the Mandalorian snarled, crouched over the woman’s prone body. He had the Darksaber drawn, and the crackling energy reflected off his beskar armor from a thousand angles.
Moff Gideon raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so,” he said. “That Jedi is property of the Empire.” And with a tilt of his gloved hand, the Stormtroopers rushed in.
The Mandalorian was a blur of beskar and dark energy as he surged forward, catching the Stormtroopers off guard. The Darksaber hummed as the Mandalorian swung, decapitating two troopers in one clean sweep.
As their bodies fell, the Mandalorian drew his blaster with one hand and fired under his arm holding the Darksaber, sending an energy bolt into the nearest trooper.
Moff Gideon watched impassively as ten more troopers swept out of the ship and onto the field, firing at will at their foe.
The Mandalorian, for his part, was holding his own, but Moff Gideon knew all it would take was one moment of hesitation or indecision. Then the Mandalorian would fall, and the beskar, the Darksaber, and the Jedi would be the Moff’s.
But Stormtroopers were falling left and right. The Mandalorian swung and shot in unerring rhythm, turning this way and that.
But he was slowly moving away from the Jedi, and the Moff nodded to his own two Stormtroopers guards.
They moved across the field, giving the Mandalorian a wide berth, and retrieved the body even as their comrades fell.
They jogged back to Moff Gideon, the Jedi’s body swinging between them. They deposited her on the ramp in front of the Moff, and he smirked.
The last of the Stormtroopers fell and when their replacements lined up at the door, he held up a hand, holding them back.
The Mandalorian, breathing heavily, turned and took in the scene before him. Moff Gideon, standing above the Jedi’s supine form, holding back an entire squadron of Stormtroopers from rushing the Mandalorian and killing him where he stood, beskar or no.
“Give me the beskar and the Darksaber, and I’ll return your precious Jedi. She’ll be mostly unharmed.” He knew it would anger the Mandalorian, would send him into a fit of rage—and once he was angry, he would make mistakes, and the Stormtroopers would end him.
The Mandalorian pointed his gun straight at the Moff. The tip of the Darksaber in his other hand sizzled against the grass, burning the grass into ash and the ash into nothingness.
“Or I could shoot you. Give me the Jedi.”
Moff Gideon held up his hands placatingly—a sarcastic gesture. “She’s all yours, Mando. Just give me the Darksaber, your armor, and a vial or two of her blood, then we’ll go our own ways.”
The Mandalorian didn’t move.
The Moff sighed angrily. “I’m not a bargaining man, Mando. If you don’t take my offer now, I will take the Jedi, drain her until not an ounce of life is left in her pathetic body, then eject her into space to crumble and be alone for eternity.” There was steel in his eyes as he finished, “Your choice.”
The Mandalorian tilted his head to the side, then shot the Stormtrooper guard directly to the Moff’s right.
The Moff signaled the squadron forward as the guard’s body thumped to the metal ramp. The Moff looked down at it in disgust and shoved it forward with his boot, sending it tumbling off the ramp to the grassy field. It lay there, smoking blaster hole in the helmet, the edges of it glowing from the heat of the shot.
The Moff turned to see half the squadron sharing the same fate. Crumpled bodies were piling up in the wake of the Mandalorian, who took steady steps forward as he danced—for there was no other word to describe it but danced—through the troopers, firing and slashing like a man stepping through a waltz.
The Moff let his remaining guard step in front of him, shooting at the Mandalorian, but the shots ricocheted. The Mandalorian didn’t stay still long enough for the trooper to target his exposed spots.
The Mandalorian decimated the squadron with ease and threw aside the Darksaber as he mounted the ramp.
The Moff stumbled backward as the Mandalorian took the Stormtrooper guard in his hands and snapped his neck, then tossed his body off the ramp.
Then the Moff’s heel caught a divet in the metal and he tumbled to the cold floor, scrambling away from the person who had just killed 20 troopers in less than 2 minutes.
The Mandalorian was animal. He crouched over the Jedi’s body like a creature over a kill. Every line of his body screamed predator… and the Moff was afraid.
Moff Gideon found that his tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He could only try to put more space between him and the Mandalorian—his only protection would be to get deeper into the ship.
The Mandalorian snarled, “I told you, no one touches her but me.”
The Moff’s back hit something hard—a crate or wall or something else blocking him from safety. His brain wasn’t working right—all the diplomatic training in the world couldn’t overpower pure animal fear.
The Mandalorian stood and stalked to the Moff, crossing the distance in four long strides.
He grabbed the Moff by the front of his uniform with one hand and lifted him into the air. Moff Gideon could see his own distorted, terrified face in the helmet as the Mandalorian spoke in a furious, quiet snarl.
“You touch her again, and I’ll make your death more slow and more painful than anyone has ever experienced. You think you’re scared now? I will have you begging for death before I’ve even begun.”
The Moff could do nothing—his body seemed to have frozen and his mind had gone blank.
The Mandalorian tossed him and he slammed against the wall. Something cracked and pain shot through his body as he crumpled to the floor. Was it his ribs, or his skull? He wasn’t sure.
He watched through blurry vision as the Mandalorian picked up his prize and, cradling the Jedi gently in his arms, strode down the ramp, past the massacre he had caused, and back into his ship.
That ramp closed and the ship took off, and only then did the Moff dare to sit up.
Footsteps pounded onto the ramp from the ship, and a hazy Stormtrooper appeared before him. “Sir!” she shouted. “Are you alright? We heard the commotion!”
The Moff tried to stand but collapsed back almost immediately. The trooper helped him to his feet and he sneered at her. “Too late. The Mandalorian has the Jedi and they’re gone now.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, now helping him deeper into the ship as the ramp closed. “We mobilized as fast as we could.”
The Moff limped to the command room and directed them to leave. The emperor was expecting him back posthaste, and he’d already delayed long enough.
The ship entered the atmosphere, then hyperspace, leaving the fallen Stormtroopers’ bodies to decompose inside their plastic shells, alone on a forgotten planet.