not so lonely [din djarin]

chapter 2

"I can run myself, y'know!" Rhi shouted. He dropped her hands and allowed her to run without his assistance. He was fast, but Rhi didn't have any trouble keeping up with him. He dropped to one knee and aimed his Amban at the back of the ship. He fired a single shot at a part, but it didn't do any damage. He stood up and started running again, not even checking to see if Rhi was following him. He caught up with the ship and jumped onto a ladder, pulling himself up. He looked behind, seeing Rhi running alongside the kids' container. The Jawas turned their ship slightly so it would clip a cliffside, in hopes that Mando would get hit by the rocks. Luckily, Mando pulled himself onto a deep ledge and just barely missed getting hit. Rhi had to stop right before the cliff so she didn't get run over, but once the sandcrawler was clear, she continued running. After the Jawas saw that he didn't get hit, they started throwing down spare parts and scrap metal. He climbed up the side of the crawler and almost got into the ship, but a Jawa closed the window on his fingers. He shot his whipcord at a repeating blaster that was mounted on top of the crawler and tried pulling himself up. One Jawa electrocuted him as other Jawas threw rocks that hit him in the helmet. He continued pulling himself up, throwing one Jawa out of the ship as he did. It hit the ground right in front of Rhi, and she cursed as she jumped over the small corpse. The Jawas knocked the blaster off of the top of the crawler but Mando caught the side of it and pulled himself to the top of the crawler. Rhi couldn't see everything, but suddenly Mando was falling off of the top of the ship. He hit the ground, hard. When Rhi caught up with him, she dropped to her knees beside him.

"Hey, Mando?"

No response.

"Mando, y'can't die like this. You're my only chance at getting back into town."

No response. She shook his shoulder, which wasn't exactly easy with her hands cuffed together.

"Mando!"

She stood up, looking around at the desert. She watched as the sandcrawler drove away in the direction of town. Rhi knew it would be about two hours of travel for them, but how long would it take for her? And besides, she didn't want to leave Mando. If Jawas ran around in these parts, what about Tuskan Raiders? They would kill him, and the kid. She kicked Mando's side lightly, trying to get a response. She huffed when she realised Mando would be out for a while.

"Stars, Mando. This isn't really a good time to get knocked out."

He gasped and shot up. Rhi jumped back, palms flat and facing him.

"You're still here," he said.

"Yeah, well," she brought her hands up to scratch her head. "Where else would I go?"

Mando looked to the horizon and noticed that the sandcrawler was gone. He wheezed as he stood up.

"Are you sure you should be walking right now?"

"'M fine."

"'Course you are."

They walked back to the ship. Mando kicked at the scrap that was laying in the sand. He boarded his ship and checked the armory. It was empty. He slammed the doors shut and climbed the ladder up to the cockpit. Rhi stood in the hull, looking around at the stripped ship. She heard the engines trying to fire up, but it just sputtered and failed. He jumped back down to the hull and sat down on his bunk.