Stowaway | A Mandalorian Love Story | Din Djarin x OC

Chapter Twenty-Two: Maybe Its Time to Be Honest

Suggested Listening:
Giza Port - Jerry Goldsmith (from The Mummy) | ...surprise surprise
Rhonda With Graboid - Ernest Troost (from Tremors)| ...flick of a flare gun
Mall Chase - John Powell (from Evolution!) | ...escape from the cage, escape from the cave
The Confession - James Horner (from The Mask of Zorro) | ...you're bleeding
Rattlesnake Ridge - Joel McNeely (from A Million Ways to Die in the West) | ...looking in the mirror
Finding Dory (Main Title) - Thomas Newman (from Finding Dory) | ...the hologram

It turned out that, surprise surprise, a volcanic planet had a hell of a lot of volcanoes on it.

"I never thought I'd wish I was on Tatooine..." I muttered to myself, squinting at Cara's coordinate tracker's tiny screen. "At least I can tell one sand dune from the other out there."

I whacked the side of the coordinate tracker and it went blank, emitting a sad little hum as it powered down. I made a mental note to tell Greef Karga to sacrifice a solid gold column or two to put a little more money into Nevarro law enforcement's equipment budget.

The Yarga Fissure, she had said. That should be easy enough to find, but the device couldn't calibrate all the way out here in the boondocks and every big giant hole in the ground was frustratingly devoid of nefarious cult-members.

I swallowed, straining through the dryness of my throat and mouth. It had been hours. My stomach twisted at the thought of Din kidnapped, incapacitated... who knew what horrible things he had been put through at this point — if he was even still alive.

Don't think that, I scolded myself silently, ignoring my shaking hands. That helps no one. Keep moving.

I scanned the jagged, rocky terrain until something caught my eye — an almost imperceptible billow of smoke slithering into the air up at the top of one of the ridges.

Looks like a fissure to me, I thought, and began climbing toward the twenty-something foot high peak as stealthily as I could. As I reached the crest, I crouched down and slowly peered over the edge. The crack in the rock smelled like putrid sulfur and I held my breath as I glanced down into the cavern, only to find... nothing. It was just a narrow corridor of volcanic slate with gasses brewing at the bottom.

"Dank Farrik!" I turned around to sit and kicked my heel against the rock in frustration. As I recoiled in pain and cussed a little more, a small boulder came loose and rolled gently down the slope. It tumbled faster and faster until it crashed into the coordinate tracker with a loud thwack.

"Perfect," I muttered.

Suddenly, the tracker emitted an upbeat series of beeps and the screen came to life. My eyes widened and I scrambled to my feet, scuffing down the side of the knoll and snatching the device up off the ground.

Sure enough, it was working — and pointing me west, less than a mile away.

I slowed the speeder to a silent creep as I came around the corner of a hill and saw it — the cave entrance to the caverns beneath the Yarga Fissure. This particular big hole in the ground was a little harder to miss — it reached up toward the smoggy sky in a massive peak, it's inner-workings quaking the ground beneath my feet. I knew right away that I'd found the right place — the opening of the cave had crude wooden scaffolding, like the entrance to a mine. If I listened very hard, through the steady, low rumble of the volcano, I could hear the faintest echo of voices.

My breath caught in my throat as two figures appeared out of the corner of my eye — two cloaked figures of disparate heights and shapes, walking out of the hills toward the entrance, carrying bags of supplies. Cara was right — these two were definitely not the same species, though they spoke the same language, something I couldn't understand. As they disappeared into the cave, I narrowed my eyes... and finalized my plan.