Chapter Text
The edge of Tatooine’s first sun glowed a brilliant orange as it peeked over the horizon. A gleaming N-1 starfighter barreled out of a canyon toward the sandy waves of the Dune Sea, early morning light flashing off the blunt nose of the ship.
Din Djarin ran through his arrival checklists by muscle memory, checking the fuel gauge, running a report on his exhaust output through the ship's central processor and skimming over it for anything out of the ordinary.
Grogu burbled away behind him, safe and secure behind the scuffed transparisteel bubble of the modified astromech port. He squeaked out a few unintelligible vowels and then let out a squeal at the sight of a herd of Banthas lumbering down a distant dune. A baby half the size of the others trailed behind the group and lifted its head to watch as they passed by.
Grogu’s delight did little to ease Din’s grip on the ship’s controls.
Din hadn’t been avoiding Tatooine, he just…hadn’t had a good enough reason to return. Particularly with how things went down the last time he was planetside. He was pretty sure he’d worn out his welcome in some parts of Tatooine–namely the Mos Pelgo territories–forever. That was bound to happen when you got a town’s leader gunned down, shot in the street not just as a warning but a threat – this is what happens to anyone who stands against the Pyke Syndicate.
He reached across to flip his primary comm unit to automatically patch through all incoming transmissions and froze, his hand hovering above the switch. The indicator light beside it, the one for his sublight comlink frequency, was dark. He hesitated, then closed and reopened the channel to refresh the feed.
The indicator remained dark. No messages awaited him even after his long hours in hyperspace. His calls to her remained unanswered, his messages bounced back undelivered.
He steeled himself against the pang of continued disappointment as it rose in his chest, was careful not to engage with the feeling, to remain an observer as it crested and fell and passed through him, leaving as quickly as it came.
Some things, he could choose not to feel. He took those opportunities where he could.
The Tribe was gone, down to the last foundling who hadn’t yet grown into their first set of armor, massacred alongside their caretakers and left to die in the ash covered alleys of Nevarro. Kuiil too, because he’d tried to help protect Grogu. Even the damn assassin droid was dead.
All the years of careful planning, cautious movements to hide their numbers, obliterated in a single day. Everyone he'd lived with, trained with, wiped out in a matter of hours, for him. For his foundling. He hadn’t even needed to ask for their aid. He’d provided for them for years, taking jobs that were beneath him to ensure all mouths were fed. And in turn, they gave him their unquestioning loyalty to the point of certain death, down to the last child.
This was the Way.
The shadow of something darker lurked at the back of his mind, vague and always forced back down before it could fully form. It crept up on him in the quiet moments when he was alone or staring at the blur of hyperspace as he drifted in the semi-conscious state between waking and dreaming when his thoughts weren’t fully his to command.
The Armorer’s words rang in his ears every day now, it seemed.
You are a Mandalorian no more.
So much loss, and to what end. The souls of his covert had been saved and they lived on, preserved in the manda through the collection of their armor to be reforged for the protection of future generations. But in having pushed aside their shared creed in not one but two moments of weakness, regardless of his reasons for doing so, he insulted their memory and their sacrifice.
Some feelings couldn’t be turned off.
The shame of his broken creed was etched into his body bone-deep, scraping and grinding away at him, threatening to weaken his resolve each time he met another dead end in his search for redemption. It refused to let him rest without seeing glimpses of armor piled high, splattered with blood and carbon scoring, waiting to be melted down for the foundlings that now may never come because there was no one left to find them. The ghosts of black visors turned away from him not in anger, but in apathy.
Their anger would have been easier to bear.
He was an exile, apostate, Mand’alor by rite of combat and yet no longer Mandalorian, unworthy of the beskar that weighed heavy on his head.
But he would not let his people’s sacrifice be for nothing.
He would not let shame drown him or drag him down to depths he couldn’t return from. No setback could stop him. He would find his redemption and return to help Paz and the Armorer rebuild the Tribe. His resolve would be absolute.
Because this was also the Way.
Din set his mouth into a thin line beneath his helmet and flipped on the N-1’s beacon to identify himself to the compound's control center. A green light blinked on to indicate successful transmission. The tallest of the palace’s three towers rose above jagged cliffs in the distance, its outline distorted by the shimmering heat wave already forming along the horizon.
The ship’s comm chimed softly and the incoming call went live.
Fennec Shand’s dry voice came through without waiting for him to acknowledge.
“Good, you’re on time. You’re cleared for landing outside the palace, hangar bay is full up.”
Din frowned and adjusted his grip on the flight controls, decreasing the speed as he finished his descent. The starfighter skimmed low over the sand, kicking up billowing clouds of red-orange grit in its wake.
“Is Fett hosting visitors?”
“Something like that. Krrsantan’s waiting, he’ll escort you inside.”
“Understood.”
The comlink chimed again as Fennec cut the communication without further comment.
Many had chosen over the past few years to risk or even give their lives for him, or for Grogu, and Din was grateful. But some hadn't had the chance to make a decision before someone forced their hand and they ended up as collateral damage.
The sight of the still-blackened crater of Mos Espa when he’d entered the atmosphere had brought with it a troubling thought.
Marshal Cobb Vanth–a self-appointed lawman on a planet with no law. A man with an easy smile that thinly veiled a cunning born from a long life surviving on a planet with a desert more hospitable than the beings who lived in it. A man who’d dared to impersonate a Mandalorian for nearly five years and almost gotten away with it, mad enough to strap on a barely functional jetpack and actually fly. A good man, despite his gruff exterior, a leader capable of growth and change to the point that he, a Tatooine native with a deeply-ingrained distrust of the Tuskens, had made and kept peace with them in the vast sands he called home.
A friend. And now the Marshal was gone, like all the rest.
Just another in a long line of people who’d gotten involved with him and the kid and ended up dead for it.
Vanth was one of those who hadn’t had the time to make a choice. He doubtlessly would have crossed paths with the Pykes in time, but in directly asking him for a favor, to get involved in Fett’s fight, Din had put a target on Vanth’s back.
If only he’d lingered in that cantina for a while longer, sat and allowed himself a few minutes of respite from the near-constant barrage of other people’s problems. If he’d given in to that little temptation, lifted his helmet just enough to tilt his head back and take a sip of that damn spotchka, if he’d just had an actual drink with the Marshal like he’d halfway considered, if he’d just been there a little longer–
If he’d just.
Din gripped the controls a little tighter. The Marshal’s death was worse than some of the others; not being bound together by creed meant there was no penance he could perform in Vanth’s name to absolve himself.
The first rays of light from Tatooine’s rising second sun painted the sky orange as Din reached the palace. He pushed the N-1 into a steep climb and skimmed close over the rocks, banking sharply to whip around the compound.
He circled once to scout out his landing area. A few landspeeders flanked by a half dozen battered speeder bikes sat clustered together on the sand flats beyond the protective crags that shielded the palace from ground approach on three sides. Several of them bore the markings of local mining coalitions.
Krrsantan wasn’t hard to spot. The broad, black-furred Wookiee towered over the landspeeder idling next to him.
Din landed in a cloud of dust and sand and cut the engines, engaged his security systems with the press of a button and used both hands to push himself up in the cockpit with a low grunt of effort. He winced as he swung his legs over the side and rolled his shoulders.
It wasn't the first time he'd emerged with legs so stiff they'd gone a bit numb. He wiggled his toes experimentally inside his boots, then slid down the side of his ship to land sure footed on the hard ground.
He barely stifled another grunt when pain shot through both stiff knees upon impact.
The hilt of the darksaber weighed heavy on his belt where it was secured to his low back and covered by his cloak, out of sight but never out of his mind.
A few meters away, Krrsantan lifted his chin and barked out a greeting, hefting his long rifle and placing it in the backseat of the landspeeder. He gestured to the passenger’s side and climbed in behind the controls, tucking his long legs in as best he could.
Din turned and lifted Grogu from the cockpit and was immediately rewarded with a toothy smile and a few babbling syllables.
“In you go, buddy.”
Grogu allowed himself to be maneuvered into the heavy canvas satchel slung over Din’s shoulder and peered out at the Wookiee as Din jumped into the speeder.
“ Patu ,” he said decisively. His huge eyes squinted at their hairy pilot, then up at Din.
“Yeah.” Din looked to Krrsantan. “Let’s not keep the Daimyo waiting.”
After calling him from half-way across the Outer Rim for what he’d insisted was a private and time-sensitive matter – Fett was making him wait.
Din paced the length of a cavernous hallway off the main throne room. He’d already cataloged everything along the twenty-two paces of space twice over.
With his helmet sensors tuned to maximum, he could barely make out a few muffled voices in the throne room through the thick stone walls. A distant door slammed hard. Din looked over his shoulder, turned, and walked the length of the hall, stopping at the doors to the throne room where Krrsantan stood guard, motionless and unbothered by the commotion inside.
Grogu let out a concerned sound and Din patted his head, smoothing down the sparse white hairs between his huge ears.
“It’s okay. Soon," he said, but rested his free hand on the blaster on his thigh regardless. He ran a gloved fingertip down the holster, feeling for anything that might be snagged on the pistol and prevent a quick draw.
“How much longer?”
The Wookie shrugged in response.
A rusting silver protocol droid shuffled into the corridor with three Trandoshan males following close behind, all dressed in mining jumpsuits and armed from toe to snout.
“Master Djarin,” the droid said in a light, pleasant tone as it passed him, escorting the Trandoshans to Krrsantan’s post and they were let into the throne room without comment.
Din sighed and flicked his eyes to the side of his heads-up display to check the chronometer in the corner. He was trying to be patient, but as his wait stretched to twenty minutes, then thirty…
He went back to staring at one of the threadbare tapestries in blues and tans hanging on the rough hewn wall, studying the abstract swirls along the bottom edge. He started to count the stitches.
Sometime in the three hundreds, the throne room’s double doors swung open and Fennec stepped through with her helmet held securely under her arm. She inclined her head to Din.
“Thank you for your patience,” she said, before he could interject.
The trio of Trandoshans emerged and scuttled quickly around her. The leader of the group looked straight ahead as he passed, as though neither Fennec nor the fully armored Mandalorian in front of him even existed.
“Not everyone has been as cooperative or punctual today."
Fennec gave them a pointed side eye and Krrsantan growled at her cue, low and menacing.
The Trandoshans walked faster.
“That’s unfortunate for you,” Din said mildly, using his HUD to watch their retreat without turning his head.
Fennec lifted her chin, indicating the throne room behind her.
“Indeed. Follow me.”
Din hadn’t visited the palace during Jabba’s reign but anyone who’d spent any time on Tatooine in the last fifty years had heard the stories. A rotating door of bounty hunters and mercenaries and criminals, both of the petty variety and those wanted in a dozen systems for crimes that would nauseate even the most seasoned Tatooine slaver.
The palace had been emptied of Jabba’s vast hoard of enslaved performers and staff, stripped of Bib Fortuna’s collections of art looted from civilians and less well protected gangsters, swept clean of the ancient dust and grime of years past.
Under Fett, gone were the debauched crowds of sycophants praising Tatooine’s current crime boss at every turn, gone were bands and musical acts, the wispy clouds of smoke and the sharp tang of spice in the air.
The throne room was much the same as it had been on Din’s last visit several weeks earlier.
A few pedestals with relics from the Dune Sea lined the back wall and scattered candles flickered in dark corners. It was dimly lit, entirely functional and mostly empty save for the throne and a heavy table placed over the grate in the center of the room. A clean slate.
Boba Fett stood in full armor beside the long table, his hands braced on the dull gray surface as he studied a massive holographic map of the Outer Rim, flanked on one side by a spindly service droid. The holo’s pale blue glow blurred and flickered where it was interrupted by half-eaten platters of food strewn across one end of the table.
The space between Fett’s brows creased as he waved a hand and the hologram centered on a planet with several moons, one of them dwarfing the rest. His helmet rested beside him on the edge of the durasteel slab, dark visor gleaming in the low artificial lights lining the walls of the chamber.
Krrsantan stopped short to guard the door as Din descended the last few steps and leaned one shoulder against the throne room wall.
“You called.”
Fett pushed off from the table and straightened, turning to nod at Din and then Fennec, who strode across the room to set her helmet down on the dais. She swung up and sat perched on the arm of Fett’s throne, crossing her feet at the ankles.
“Djarin.” Fett reached out and Din stepped forward to meet him halfway. They grasped each other’s forearms firmly with the clear ring of beskar on beskar .
“Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
Din noded a wordless acknowledgement.
“What is so important that it couldn’t be discussed over comms?”
"I don't yet know who else on Tatooine might be listening." Fett looked down at Grogu who returned his gaze with a wide eyed stare.
“Hey, son.” He released Din’s forearm and reached an outstretched finger to the kid, but his ears drooped and he shrank away, nestling further down into the pouch. “How’s this little womp rat?”
Din looked to Fennec, then back to Fett. His leather glove creaked as he clenched and unclenched one hand at his side. He hadn’t dropped everything and flown to Tatooine in one wearying straight shot just to waste time on pleasantries.
“He’s fine," he answered after allowing himself a moment of annoyance. "Why did you call me here?"
Fett smiled at Grogu and drew back to wave a dismissive hand to the droid still standing at its post beside the table.
“Go ahead.”
The droid stepped obediently away and disappeared into the open doorway of a side corridor.
“I came across a piece of information that I think will be particularly valuable to you. I thought it safest that we discuss in person,” Fett said, making a half turn on his heel and gesturing to the map. The hologram shifted again to focus on the largest moon.
Din cocked his head to one side.
“What’s on Nar Shaddaa?”
“It’s who’s on Nar Shaddaa,” Fett said, waving the map away.
Grogu interrupted with a questioning noise and pointed to a platter of half-eaten sausages at the head of the table. Din lifted him out of the satchel at his hip and set down the squirming child, then leaned over and raised a warning finger to his foundling.
“Don’t make yourself sick," he scolded, with no bite in his tone.
Grogu waddled away to the veritable bounty of fruits and breakfast dishes and sat himself down in the center, touching one of everything as he worked out what he wanted to eat first.
Fett circled around to stand at the table opposite from Din. He tapped his gauntlet and brought up several recordings side by side on the holo that showed a few figures in an alley, the closest one lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood with a length of durasteel rebar shoved through his neck. Two forms grappled in the shadows and one was kicked to the ground and knocked unconscious with a boot to the face. It was all too dark, too monochrome, too blurry to make out much more.
Lifted from a local security cams… Surprising that anyone there bothers with cams at all, Din mused.
With another tap of his gauntlet, Fett cleared the holos and replaced the footage with a clear still image in muted colors. The scrolling Aurebesh along the periphery indicated it was from a few days ago, from a docking bay in one of the seedier parts of the city. A single being crouched beside a light freighter, broad shouldered, wearing a hooded cloak that pooled on the ground at their feet.
They were turned halfway away from the security feed, most of their body obscured by that cloak, but one thing was unmistakable and it made Din go still.
The narrow slits of a t-shaped visor stared out at him from the holo, gleaming black as a starless night.
Fett crossed his arms over his armored chest.
“I found you a Mandalorian.”
Dank farrik.
Din said nothing as a flush spread up his neck beneath his cowl. Weeks of scouring the galaxy for more of his people and Fett stumbled across one by accident?
Maybe he was losing his edge. Maybe he'd already lost it. Maybe he wasn’t the hunter he once was.
He studied the image in silence for a long moment. He didn’t recognize the armor from what little he could see.
The visor was a simple, standard shape, unremarkable. Some of the midnight blue paint around it was scuffed to silver, hinting at beskar beneath. The cloak hid any clan markings or signets that might have been present elsewhere.
Momentarily distracted from his feast, Grogu dropped a half-eaten chunk of a frosted bun and walked closer, disrupting the holoprojector with sticky fingers as he grasped at the image. He cooed and sat down on the table, staring up at the unfamiliar Mandalorian.
“How?” Din asked, finally.
“Through a connection on Nal Hutta who’s monitoring the moons’ spice mining operations for me. My contact thought I might be interested.”
Fett looked to the shimmering image.
“Presumably human, presumably male. He works out of Nar Shaddaa as a contract killer. My contact didn't have a name for me.”
“Apparently you aren’t the only one to go by ‘Mando’ in the Outer Rim,” Fennec called out from across the room.
Din looked at her and then back to Fett.
"What's the catch?"
Fett spread his hands wide. "Nothing. The information isn't for trade, I give it freely."
Din tilted his helmet to one side. “There’s always a catch, Fett.”
Fennec jumped down from the throne and joined them at the table, taking up her usual place on Fett’s right side.
“It’s not a catch, exactly.”
She picked up a square of delicately embroidered fabric from a table setting and dipped it into a water glass. She reached over and wiped Grogu’s fingers clean with an uncommonly soft smile and set him on the floor.
“But there is a request, should you go to Nar Shaddaa and should you be willing to help us.”
“My contact’s primary intelligence report was on the spice trade out of the moon,” Fett continued. “He advised the Pykes are keeping their distance for now but there are plans in place to test the waters again, and soon. He estimates within the next six months.”
Din shook his head.
“Do you trust your informant’s intel?”
Fett nodded.
“We corroborated this rumor with some locals this morning. Sorry for the wait,” he added with an apologetic half shrug.
"I thought we killed their leader," Din said. "Shouldn't they still be licking their wounds half the galaxy away from here?"
"It seems we cut off one head of one serpent.” Fett grimaced as though the very mention of spice runners left a bad taste in his mouth. "Tatooine is too valuable to their transportation routes for them to abandon it forever, no matter how many we kill or who sits as Daimyo."
He waved a hand and the holoprojector powered down with a soft whirr.
"If you're willing, I would ask that you help me make a statement. Publicly.”
“Violently,” Fennec chimed in.
“ Possibly violently,” Fett corrected. “I’m not looking to provoke. Just to issue a warning to the Pykes, and any other cartels harboring an ill-advised interest, that Tatooine is protected. The spice trade here is over. And I have someone I suggest you take with you to reinforce our show of strength, should you both agree to assist us."
Din glanced over his shoulder at Krrsantan.
"I don't think he'll fit in my cockpit."
Behind him, the Wookiee chuffed a growling laugh. One corner of Fett's mouth quirked upward.
"Not him. I’ve tasked Krrsantan with the protection of Freetown and patrol of the Mos Pelgo territories in the absence of a Marshal."
Din started at the mention of Mos Pelgo and did his best to mask his reaction with a quick nod. He clasped his hands in front of himself to keep them still, squeezed them tight to ground himself.
“Good. They’re fine people. They will be pleased to hear that you are honoring your end of the bargain with them for Mos Espa’s defense.”
And we owe them more than we can repay.
“If not Krrsantan,” Din asked, “then who?”
A man cleared his throat behind him.
"Hey, partner."
He knew that voice. A cold wave rushed over Din, spreading outward from the center of his chest from beneath his diamond shaped heart of beskar . His lungs burned as if from a breath held for too long.
Din turned to see Cobb Vanth standing on the steps behind him, holstered blaster strapped to his left hip.
How–
Cobb's face was unshaven, his gray and silver beard overgrown to just this side of unkempt. The kerchief around his neck had apparently survived the encounter with Cad Bane but the red shirt was gone, replaced by a snug black compression fabric and a heavy jacket of tanned krayt hide slightly too large for his frame. He looked thinner, exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes. At least he was wearing full gloves for once–Din had never understood the point of fingerless gloves under Tatooine’s blistering twin suns.
But he was alive.
"Cobb," Din said, a little breathlessly.
He moved forward and closed the distance between them, forgetting himself for a moment before he realized what he was doing and halted an arm’s length away. His mouth went dry and worked silently beneath his helmet as he searched for something to say. His fingertips tingled inside his gloves, his head buzzing.
Oblivious to Din's inner turmoil, Fennec lifted a questioning eyebrow at Cobb from her place at the table.
“Recovered from our outburst this morning, have we?”
The shouting he’d barely been able to make out from the hallway earlier clicked into place in Din’s mind.
Cobb squinted at her over Din’s shoulder and shot her a sardonic smile.
"Well, pardon me if I'm still uneasy about your plan to march right up to the enemy and point a blaster in their face like a damn fool."
Cobb's gaze darted back to stare Din directly in the eye through the horizontal slit of the impenetrable visor, more intently than he ever had before. He knew exactly where to look and it sent an unsettled shiver down Din's spine before he remembered again that Cobb had spent the better part of the last five years on the inside of Fett's helmet.
A little bit of the tension in Cobb's jaw eased as he looked at Din. He tapped the side of his own temple with his left hand and then pointed to Din's head.
"I half expected to see that smiling face of yours at my bedside when I woke up two weeks back, Mando."
Cobb smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. At least it was a less withering than the look Fennec received.
"I thought you were dead," Din finally managed to force out, his voice sounding unsteady even to himself as blood rushed in his ears.
"For all anyone outside this room knows, he is,” Fett cut in.
“About that,” Cobb shot back, pursing his lips as his annoyance very clearly returned to a simmer. He fixed his eyes on Fett.
“Make no mistake, I am grateful, to you and to the doc and most importantly to that bacta tank you got up there. And don’t take this the wrong way." He raised a finger to Fett and took a breath. "But we've all suffered and lost enough here. Seeing as I’m on the mend, I’ll be getting back to my people now. "
Fett rounded the table to stand beside Din.
"This isn't for me, Marshal. It's not even for Mos Espa, it's for the good of Tatooine. We have an opportunity to make a decisive offensive move, one we won't have again."
“What better show of strength could there be than having Tatooine’s murdered Marshal show up on your doorstep and tell you to get fucked?” Fennec challenged from across the table.
"I already told you, I ain't leaving my town in the dust just to go piss off some spice runners a sector away from here and bring down more violence on all our heads.”
A sharp squeal rang out and cut off their discussion. Cobb frowned and turned in a slow circle to look around. From the doorway, Krrsantan stretched up to peer over them.
Din sighed and crouched to see Grogu laying face-down on the floor grate under the table, clutching sausages in both tiny fists. He dropped one through a hole and laughed as it fell into the Rancor pen below.
The telltale low roar of a Rancor awakened from its nap by the lure of a tasty snack echoed up from beneath the floor, followed by a bright giggle from Grogu.
“That’s just teasing him, kid,” Din chided, dropping to one knee to haul Grogu out from under the table by the back of his robe. Grogu giggled again and released both handfuls of the sausages and they rolled into the grate and down to the Rancor.
When Din got back to his feet, he noticed Fennec was not even trying to hide her smile. Cobb’s mouth hung slightly open and he pointed to Grogu.
“I thought the little guy was gone.”
“Long story,” Din said, tucking his foundling back into the satchel where he couldn’t cause any trouble.
Fett reactivated the holoprojector. The rotating sphere of Nar Shaddaa appeared again, bathing them all in a pale blue glow.
“Neither of you have any obligation here,” he admitted, bringing them all back to the matter at hand. “But I think our interests are aligned. Let me explain, then you can both go if you wish. It’s I who owe you, not the other way around.”
They went back and forth for the better part of an hour, Fett laying out his plan, Din and Cobb questioning the details, Fennec filling in the gaps.
Afterward, Cobb let out a long sigh and ran a gloved hand through his hair.
"What do you think, Mando?"
Din still couldn’t quite reconcile with the fact that a friend who was supposed to be dead, who he'd believed to be dead an hour prior, was standing next to him. Fett had left him in the dark on this, let him think the Marshal was dead, and even though he understood why it still rankled him. He glanced at Cobb, then Fett, and allowed himself several moments to think.
"I think...I'm willing if you are."
Cobb's face was unreadable. He nodded slowly.
"That so?"
"It is."
Cobb turned to Fett.
"Alright then. But if this goes south, we're going to have a problem, you and me."