Blood and Money - The Mandalorian

A New Day

           When I did wake up, I opened my eyes and stretched as I pulled the blanket off and tossed it back behind the seat. I sat there for a few minutes, before I stood up stretching my back and headed out of the control room "I'm getting too old to sleep in that seat." I thought to myself. Sometimes it was hard to find a comfortable spot. Next time I'll just sleep in Imerials room, but then again, maybe not. She doesn't sleep on a bed, she sleeps on a mat of the floor. Couch it is then. I thought to myself as I rounded the corner.

          The area was still dim which meant that everybody else was still asleep. The lights along the floor illumined enough for me to be able to walk without tripping over anything and the rest of the area was basked in a low light enough to see by. I headed over toward the kitchen area and grabbed a cup, then switched on the coffee maker that Rassen built and waited for a few minutes for it to heated up. When it was done I poured myself a cup, added the sweetener and the touch of creamer and then took a sip. It tasted good for fake coffee. I reached over to hit the button that opened the hatch and waited until it fully opened with a slight thump on the ground before I headed out. The cat was still laying there, but there were now small fuzzy creatures scampering around trying to eat it. They scurried off as I stepped of the hatch door. 

          I made my way under the ship and over to the landing gear to check on what sort of damage that cat might have done, ducking my head with the low hanging metal pieces, I saw a few spots where the metal had buckled a bit from the impact. Looking up at the top portion of it that connected to the ship, I could see that it was bent out a bit, but not enough to cause any problems. A quick hammering and I could get it back into place. I moved along checking the rest of the ship including the other landing gear. As the rest of them started to wake up slowly, first was Rassen who had come out, flipped on the lights and had started making something to eat. That man always thought with his stomach. Then Mando came out fully dressed in his armor holding Sprocket who he sat on the table then sat down next to him in the seat with his arm resting on the edge watching as Rassen flip the food in the pan and hearing it sizzle as it hit. And then Lane who came out stretching as she walked up to the kitchen area to grab a cup of coffee.

     "Mornin Govna." She spoke in a very thick cockney accent. She glanced around. "Where's Tye? Is she still asleep?" She joked toward Mando. "Did you wear her out mate? I'm impressed."

     "She slept in the control room." He told her.

     "Of course she did." She winked still joking then took a sip of her coffee before she sat down in front of Sprocket at the table, she noticed the ball bearing he was holding. "And where did you find that?" She tried to reach for it but he moved it away, he really wanted to keep it. "I wasn't going to take it from you love, you can have it." She smiled at him then tickled his cheek. She sat back in the seat as Rassen walked over with a serving of food and a small bowl of bone broth that he placed in front of Sprocket. Who in turn dropped the ball next to him and started picking up the food to eat. Rassen then grabbed himself a serving and sat down on the other side of the table to eat his own.

     "There's more if you want some." He indicated shoving a spoon full into his mouth and chewed. Mando of course just sat there, but Lane got up and grabbed a serving and walked back to sit down.

     "Help yourself." She tore a piece of bread off and ate it. Mando got up and grabbed himself a serving and headed into my room to eat it in private as I had come back on board and went over to get another cup of coffee.

     "Morning." I spoke waiting for the cup to fill. Then reached in and took a piece of  the cooked vegetable out of the pan and popped it into my mouth. I moved over toward the seat near the control table and sat down chewing slowly, smiling and shaking my head at them. "Don't everybody talk at once." I took a sip to wash it down, then reached over for a piece of bread. Lane was busy eating, so she only nodded in my direction as Rassen just waved his spoon at me. Of course Sprocket was cooing as he always did. I took a bite of the bread as Mando came out of the room with a clean plate.

     "Good Morning." He spoke as he set the plate down.

     "Morning, did you sleep good?" I asked as I chewed and watched him.

     "Better than I had in a long time." He nodded.

     "Great." I smiled at him, then looked over at the ones still eating. "Well, while you guys are stuffing your faces, I'm going to go ahead and head into town for that wire." I looked back at Mando  "Wanna come along?" I stood up looking at him.

     "Sure."

I drank down the rest of what I had in my cup as Rassen pulled off his money pouch and started counting out coins. I could hear them clinking as they hit each other in his palm. He offered me the coins in his hand.

      "Try not to go over 400 if you can." I walked over and took them, then placed them into my own money pouch.

     "I'll try." I closed the flap and hooked it back on. "Let's hope the storms over." I turned toward Mando and grabbed my coat sitting next to the door and slipped it on before heading down the ramp. I saw Dulkin, the inquisitive man from before picking up the large cat and placing it onto a lift. "Hey, Dulkin? right? How's it going?' I was hoping I got his name right, I was horrible with names, I stopped next to him.

      "That's right," He nodded as he shifted the cat more. "It seems you had bit of trouble last night." He grinned. "These things always tend to find their way up here looking for a warm place to sleep. Sometimes we just scare them back down into the tunnels, this is the first time I've found one dead in here."

     "Well this one was attacking at my ship. We really didn't have a choice, we had to do something to get it to stop. It was scooting my ship back against the wall buckling the landing gear." I told him watching him walk around the lift and yanking the rest of the cat onto it. "It came at us."

     "Oh, no no no, it's fine." He nodded adjusting it so it was evenly supported on the lift. "It's not like I haven't seen any of them dead before, they aren't house pets. They are really dangerous. It's a good thing no one was hurt and you were able to kill it, we've been trying to get rid of them for a long time. But they're everywhere, some hid in the tunnels, some hid in buildings, some are even out in the open. So just be careful going down alleyways." He added as he pressed a few buttons along the lift and it hovered in place where he then pushed it toward the hatch door which opened and I could see a bit of the sunshine peering in. At least the storm was gone. I thought to myself as I headed that way after I glanced over at Mando. I watched as Dulkin pushed the lift down the side of the building. I put my gloves on and sighed. 

      "For some reason I feel like shit for killing that thing." I told him as I started down the street in the direction of the shop that Mando had gotten the information for. There were people in the streets walking on either side of them as He walked beside me.

     "There would've been no way we could've scare it back into the tunnels, it was hungry, it was attacking us, because it was looking for food." He glanced at me. "So don't feel bad for killing it."

     "Well I didn't officially kill it, you did, with that knife thing." I smiled at him, then stopped to look at him. "Which by the way, how in the hell did that small knife kill it?" Mando reached down into his boot and pulled it out to show it to me, I saw it vibrating in his hand. Well that's new, I thought to myself.

     "This sends out a high-frequency sonic pulse that ripples across the flesh and causes extreme damage, a small wound becomes a gaping wound." He explained then put it back into his boot.

     "I need to get me one of those." I smiled as I continued to walk.

A/N I got that bit of info about the knife from off the the Wookieepedia site. It's pretty much where I find most of my info for the Mandalorians, just so I don't write something that doesn't exist and have people mad because I wrote false information. But there you go.

1632W