Of Rust and Blood ➤ The Mandalorian

↳ Chapter 5

"What do you see?" Bex questioned as Mando surveyed the area with the scope.

"Mercenaries." He responded. "A lot of them. Armed."

Bex could have guessed that there was going to be a gunfight, especially with how unusual the circumstances of the bounty were. Her best guess was that the person they were after had to be associated with the mercenary and bounty hunter scene. This was a person that clearly had made a lot of enemies if they had a bounty on their head to bring them back dead. And if they had a compound with this many mercenaries protecting them. It made Bex wonder what it was her and Mando were dealing with. She didn't know why, but it felt out of their depth.

"How do you want to do this?" Bex looked at him. "I stay high and you go low?"

The high and low strategy wasn't the one they typically went with as both of them like being in close proximity to the other in case things went south, but with the situation that laid before them, it was better for her to be Mando's eye in the sky. Not only that, she was a decent sniper shot, by no means the best but that wouldn't matter to a couple low level mercenaries.

"That might be the best-" Mando cut his sentence short as he turned the scope to his right.

"What? What is it?"

"We've got a problem." Mando said as he pulled the telescope away from his face. "A bounty droid."

"What?" Bex held out her hand for the scope, which Mando placed in her hands.

Bex looked through the scope as the bounty droid approached the compound.

She could tell that it was an IG-series droid, which could mean one of two things for them. One, it would mean that it was just one outdated droid that they could easily get rid of. Or two, it was one of the newly refurbished IG droids that the Banking Clan maintained. The first meant that the droid would pose little problem to their plan, the second meant that they were going to have to adapt quickly if they wanted the bounty.

"Why would a bounty droid be here?" She questioned her partner as she kept eyes on the droid.

"Obviously Greef didn't think we would get the job done."

"I'm slightly offended." Bex scoffed.

She watched as the droid quickly approached the front of the compound and began opening fire on the mercenaries; and based on the droid's shot, this was definitely a Banking Clan droid.

"The element of surprise is gone." Mando said, sitting up but remaining low to the ground. "We better get down there."

Bex nodded, following his lead. "Let's go."

She handed the scope back to Mando as the two began making their way down the cliffside. They moved quickly, but made sure to move carefully with Mando testing out each anchoring spot with his foot before he would reach up to help Bex down. As they moved, the droid continued to mow down mercenaries. While it might be helpful to narrow down the number of combatants, those that were inside the compound with their mark would know that something was going on and would leave room for escape.

They were going to have to move fast.

As the two reached the bottom of the cliffside, the doors of the compound had opened and the mercenaries had retreated inside. Bex knew that they were regrouping, and with the amount of mercenaries that were standing guard outside, she hesitated to think about how many were inside. They would be outgunned. That was, unless they had help.

"You think Greef really sent the droid?"

"Who else would have?" Mando answered. "This is clearly a high priority and when he didn't hear from me, he sent the droid to make sure it got done. But now he's screwed any chance either of us had."