Blood and Money - The Mandalorian

Placing Blame

     "Why is it whenever something bad happens, you're the one at fault?" he started.

     "Just lucky I guess." She grinned and took a sip, then reached over and picked up the brown bag on the table, she dug into it finding the cookies. She pulled a few out and popped one into her mouth. 

     "It's because you attract bad luck for everyone and you put us all in danger."

     "Hey, in my defense, not everything is my fault." She used a cookie to point at him stressing her point then popped it into her mouth.

     "Oh yeah?" He folded his arms across his chest again. "What about Zurga 7? When you touched their sacred statue because you didn't think it was real, and they threaten to chop your hands off until Tye bailed you out by fighting that huge creature."

     "I thought it was made out of glass, how was I supposed to know it was made out of tiny crystals that attached to my hand? But you won money off that fight, a lot of money if I recall correctly." I looked over at Rassen as I sat back down.

     "You bet on that fight? Really?" I asked him, not knowing he had done that. I almost died and he was betting on the fight. Lane gave a chuckle. Rassen continued. 

     "That's not the point." He glanced back at me. "And what about the incident on Purga? I suppose that wasn't your fault either?"

     "No, that was my fault. That water felt good though."

     "Especially when you jumped in and shouted 'Make me younger!' which offended half the people there and they wanted to drown you, until Tye stepped in and gave them half of the bounty." He stepped closer. "Are you not seeing a pattern here?"

     "Yeah, I need to stop doing things in front of Tye because she's a Debbie downer." I looked at her and shook my head.

     "No, you need to stop getting us into trouble." He snapped.

     "I'm not the only one that's gotten us into trouble little man. You've done your fair share." She grinned toward him "Have you forgotten about what happened on the Sarious Space station? You bet every coin we had on a long shot and lost it all and then some. They forced us all into a work camp until we paid off the debt which took us three months before we could leave. Tye was fighting off assholes that wanted to use you as target practice everytime she turned around. So yeah, I'm seeing a very clear pattern." Mando, who was standing near me, looked at me and leaned closer.

     "I'm seeing it too, you always seem to be risking your life to get them out of trouble. Now I understand why you didn't want me to risk mine."

     "Hey, you're a big boy, you can make your own decisions. It's not like I held a gun to your head or anything." I told him taking a sip of my coffee, I needed to end this whole 'who's at fault' conversation, I took a deep sigh. "Okay look, right now we need to focus on getting his ship fixed so we can all get out of here in one piece. So what I suggest is this. When the storm lets up enough, I can head out and get what you need to fix it and we are all helping you." I looked at Rassen. "None of this 'I'm doing it myself because I don't trust you.' Bullshit. It needs to be done fast."

     "Fine, but you better do what I say and no arguing when I tell you to do something." Rassen turned away not really happy about us helping. He headed over toward the couch and plopped himself down in a huff mumbling under his breath. Temen who had been sitting on the couch this whole time staying silent, because he didn't like confrontation finally walked over to Lane and sat down next to her.

      "May I heal that for you?" He asked her looking at her wound on her forehead.

      "Oh yeah, sure, knock yourself out." She nodded as he smiled and raised his hand up to the wound. It healed quickly since it wasn't very deep. But Lane had forgotten about it seeing that she had drank so much that her whole body had gone numb from the booze. So it didn't even bother her at that moment.

     I finished my coffee and got up from the chair. "Alright, well now that that's settled, I suggest we all get some sleep or whatever you want to do until morning and then we'll get started on Mando's ship." I headed toward the control room, I flashed a peace sign "Peace out." and walked around the corner heading into the control room where I sat down in my seat and rubbed my face. All this stress was tiring on my brain and I needed to relax. I leaned over to switch on the music and then sat back in the seat, propped my feet up on the control table and tried to get comfortable and forget about this long day. But instead of getting what I wanted at that moment, NED popped up from his slot.

      "What do you want?" I sighed, leaning on my hand.

     "Bad day?" He asked, his screen was swirling blue.

     "Yup and it just got worse." I removed my hand. "What do you want?"

     "After the Mandalorian's ship is fixed, will we be parting ways?" He tilted toward me.

     "I guess so, why?"

      "Well, I was doing some scanning and I picked up a signal, a long range communication about, him. Apparently he stole that child from a secure facility and is now on the run from bounty hunters."

     "What's your point?" I shook my head.

     "The point is, that they are looking for him and that child." His screen turned green. "And they are offering a huge bounty for his return."

     "And?" I asked him not really caring.

     "We could turn him in and collect the huge bounty on him, Wouldn't you want it? It could be used to fix the ship?"

     "No."

     "Why not? We could just send our location and one of the other bounty hunters could come and pick him up. That way he would be gone and we could go on our way and not be stuck here."

     "You know what NED? You have exactly two seconds to get away from me before I reach over there and yank out your control chip."

      "I was only suggesting that we get out of here since Lord Clairo is back and he's looking for this ship." His screen turned yellow as he moved back away from me. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to be destroyed again. It felt wrong not being part of something."

      "No you weren't, you're being an asshole and just thinking about yourself. You have two seconds, starting now." I started counting. "One." NED sank down into his spot "And don't show your face again until I say so." I shook my head "Stupid computer."

A/N I find that I'm running out of steam for this story and I don't like that. I will try to keep going, but I don't want it to be boring either. So if it's getting dull, please let me know.

1233W