THE MANDALORIAN: CHAPTERS 9-16

CHAPTER 10 - THE RESCUE

Cara Dune controlled her breathing, and moved forward quickly with bent knees keeping her blaster scope pressed up against her nose and steady on the target. She was favoring the Death Trooper blaster lately, it was small enough to move into tight areas and powerful enough to get the job done — for most of her ops. And she had plenty of them after the busy week she had endured.

This outpost had been found on the last unscheduled scan of the settlements surrounding the city. Cara had a sinking feeling that the forces Gideon brought had not been completely revealed. And what bothered her more was that a man of such resources did not have a Star Destroyer over head. High level Moffs commanded entire sectors. Moff Gideon was an Imperial Security Bureau commander. Based on his specific battle prowess she suspected he was Enforcement Branch. If he truly had only a few squadrons at his disposal and a shorter range TIE-fighter then his mission was clearly not popular among the remaining Imperials. That made him a zealot, which was worse.

She held her position, her sights still on the door. Then her team moved at her signal, the charges blew the door and she led the strike team in. She screamed for all of the troopers to surrender — and they did not comply. Blaster fire and smoke filled the air and the strike team cleared the building as the snipers stopped escapees as they tried to flee.

If the Moff was a zealot, bent on retrieving the Child at the expense of all of these Storm Troopers, Death Troopers, artillery and vehicles, then he had to have an escape plan. They may have only been dropped on Nevarro to achieve their goal, but someone else had to be coming.

Sometimes exit strategies failed, the extraction team never arrived, and Imperials were stranded as the infrastructure slowly broke down after the fall of the Empire. Cara had seen planetary resistance win the day over and over again. However, failures usually happened when Imperial resources are underestimated.

Within minutes Cara continued further into the building alone, her team preoccupied with the other occupants. Yet, Following her instincts, Cara could still hear voices down the hall. As she inched closer she heard words like, "Hurry!" and "Destroy it!"

She kicked in the door and found two men in Grand Admiral uniforms destroying data tapes. She shot the Admiral by the incinerator in the chest and turned her rifle toward the other one.

"Moff Gideon is dead. Is what you're destroying really worth dying for?"

The man's hands shook, "You don't understand. Gideon cannot be killed. You tried. We tried. He doesn't die."

Cara stared at him. The man was obviously disturbed. He was sweating through his uniform.

"If you won't kill me, then he will." He dropped the disk he was holding on the floor before her. "I followed these men for fear of my life for years. The ship should have come days ago. It's over. Kill me."

Cara picked up the data tape, then looked back at the Admiral. "Not yet," she stunned him to the ground.

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"It's records. Thousands and thousands of records. On all of us. Even on you." Cara put the pad down in front of the Armorer, who picked it up and started to scroll.

"This is a full manifest of the city," she said impressed.

Cara started to pace. "As part of their planning for the attack they must have evaluated us all. I'm sure they already had plenty of information on me which was easy to recall when I showed up at the city edge, but I've found Greef, all of the Guild members on Nevarro, and even what looks like nearly a FULL manifest of the Tribe — going back to records from Mandalore."