Armored Passion | The Mandalorian

|9|

"Hey, you should slow down before you bust the inner turbine," I shout, hoping that Mando could hear me over the whistling wind and the thick layer of his beskar helmet. But instead of slowing down, he actually speeds up, making me furrow my brows and hold onto his torso a little tighter. "You're overworking the inner turbine with all this speed and weight. You should really slow the hell down before-"

The heavy speeder bike suddenly tips forward, the nose of the bike getting caught on something while the tail lifts up high into the air. I let out a small yelp as I'm sent flying through the air, my arms flailing slightly as I started to free-fall towards the ground. My side soon slams into the rough sand and I let out a small groan, slowly rolling myself onto my back as my arm and side start to ache. 

The large speeder flies right over my body and I carefully watch it crash into the sand not too far away from my body. I let out a small sigh and close my eyes, knowing that we were going to have to trudge through the desert with all of our stuff like we had last time we were on this dry ass planet. 

A loud cry echoes out above me and I look up to see a large man holding a knife in the air, getting ready to plunge it into the middle of my chest. My eyes widen and I quickly roll to the side and out of the way, making it back up to a kneeling position before swiping my leg under both of his and sending him straight to the ground. 

As I turn back around to face him, he throws a handful of sand in my eyes and I instantly reel away from him, hiding my face slightly as I tightly shut my now burning eyes. Well, it looks like I'm just going to have to fight blind. 

"Now that was just playing dirty," I snap, squaring my shoulders out as I kept my eyes closed. The sand seemed to scratch and burn them every time I tried to move them, so I figured it would be better to just keep them closed. 

I take a deep breath and focus my mind, trying to listen and sense where he was standing. He starts running at me, the knife ready in his clenched fist. A slight smirk tugs at my lips and just as he gets a little closer, I swipe myself to the side and stick my leg out, easily tripping him. I quickly plant my knee on his stomach and blindly wrestle his hands in hopes of getting the knife before he could stab me with it. 

I managed to grab the knife and stab it right into his thigh, forcing him to stop fighting me while his attention instantly snapped down to his now bleeding leg. He lets out a cry of pain and both of his hands reach down to grasp at his leg. I land two good punches on his face before he finally falls limp under me. I slowly rock back and take a seat in the hot sand, letting out a small huff of hot air as I tried to catch my breath. 

I rub at my eyes a bit, blinking a few times in hopes of getting my vision back. After a few painful blinks and my eyes adjusting to the blazing sun, I was finally able to see again. It still hurt, but at least I was able to see. 

"Alright, the turbine wasn't the cause of that crash, but regardless of the cause, you were going way too fast!" I snap, looking over to Mando just to see that he was standing with his hands out in the air, trying to stop the last guy from cutting up the kid with a small dagger. My eyes widen and my breath hitches slightly, my little quarrel with Mando quickly disappearing. 

"If you put one mark on him, there's no place that you will be able to hide from us," Mando says, shaking his head while taking a step towards the small man. I furrow my brows, wondering if threatening the guy with a knife to the kid's throat was the best option in this situation. "We can strike a bargain. There's a lot of value in this wreckage. Take your pick."

The man slowly bends down, picking up a familiar-looking silver hilt. My eyes widen as I feel my heart drop. My hand instantly whips down to my hip, where my lightsaber usually rested, but it wasn't there. I look back up to see that it was indeed what the short man was holding, making my heart almost jump. He then points the knife at Mando's jetpack, nodding his head before swiping the knife back to the kid's neck.