Bounty ▹ The Mandalorian

26 | puzzling pieces

Once she felt her feet push against a solid floor once again, she opened her eyes to see they had landed on the roof of the freighter. She whipped out her blaster and followed the Mandalorians down to the balcony surrounding the freighter. There were a few troopers standing guard on the balcony, but Celeste didn't have to do much since the other just shoved them off the ledge.

Once they caused enough ruckus, more troopers began filing out onto the balcony. But, Celeste's blaster did all the work shooting them down. The five entered the freighter, being met with dozens of more troopers. Each of the five took on at least three troopers. Fortunately, the troopers had the aim of a potato, so they were managing to fight just well.

Although Celeste's leg was still injured, she barely had to move to take down the troopers before her. She just pointed her blaster and shot at them. After she finished with her first wave of troopers, she strutted down the hall. She saw the doors at the end of the hall slid open, revealing more troopers. Effortlessly, she backed up into a wall, being protected from the lasers by the columns that lined the sides of the wall.

She didn't dare peek, not wanting to get fired at until her comrades could back her up. Once the other four managed to get close enough to help her, she swung out of her hiding place to shoot her blaster at the troopers. They easily took out the crowd of white armored men and pushed further down the hall, nearing the location of the weapons.

One after another the troopers fell. At one moment, Celeste got cornered by two troopers while the others were preoccupied with the dozens of other troopers. But, just as they were about to shoot her, they paused, cocking their head as they recognized her face. "Don't shoot her!" One of the three exclaimed.

Celeste furrowed her brows, taking advantage of their hesitation to grab one of their arms and flip them over, shooting them in the center of their helmet. The other two didn't even try to fire at her, despite her slaughtering their ally. She pointed her blaster at them and looked at them wearily. They threw their arms up in surrender, dropping their blasters instantly.

The Mandalorians didn't see the situation occurring as a smoke grenade was released and they were too focused on clearing out the other troopers. "Why aren't you fighting back?"

"We've been given the order to not harm you," one trooper responded, nervously awaiting the end of his life by her blaster.

Celeste cocked her head, in confusion. "Are you to capture me?"

The two shook their helmeted heads. "Who gave you this order?"

"Moff Gideon."

Instantly, Celeste shot her blaster two times. Once in the head of one trooper, the other in the head of the other. She scurried along to catch up with the Mandalorians, but, her mind was still dwelling on the information she had just learned. Gideon is protecting me. She thought to herself. He wasn't forcing her to come back, he was waiting for her to come back to him by herself.

And Celeste did not doubt she would eventually return. The power she felt when training at his base was incomparable to anything else she had ever experienced. She felt strong. She felt like she could protect her family. When all her life she had felt worthless, felt like scum, she finally felt important. She knew she was returning the child to the Jedi for its protection, even though she believed with enough training she would be able to protect the child herself. But, she proceeded with the plan to return him to the Jedi so that he may continue his training. And perhaps, so that she could, too, get in contact with the Jedi and train alongside him.

The five pushed through the freighter until they made it to the cargo control area. They seemed to be sealed off there, but, they had access to all of the panels of buttons in that unit. Also, in that unit, the weapons they were looking for was there, too. The Imps weren't too smart when trying to cut the five hijackers off.

But, that didn't seem to be enough for Bo-Katan. "Where are you going?" Mando asked her as she seemed to be opening doors to get to the cockpit.

She smiled devilishly, "we're taking the entire ship."

"What? This is more than I signed up for."

Bo-Katan looked ruthless when she replied to Mando. "There is something I need If I am to rule Mandalore. Something that was once mine. They know where it is and so on, so will I. Regardless, we are taking the ship for the battles ahead," Bo sighed.

"I got you your weapons, I have to return to my ship with the foundling," Mando growled back at her.

"If you want my help finding the Jedi, you will help me take this ship."

Mando took an intimidating step toward the woman. "You're changing the terms of the deal," he spoke slowly and lowly.

"This is the Way," she smirked at him before turning her back to him to continue on her task of getting to that cockpit.

* * *

Mando was pissed. But, what could they do? They needed information on the Jedi, or else they did it all for nothing at all. As they pushed onto the bridge, they felt the ship tilt suddenly downward. "They're taking down the ship! We need to move fast!" Bo shouted.

But, they were suddenly trapped when they were blocked by troopers with heavy artillery weapons shooting at them. "Dropping fast! Ten-thousand!" Bo shouted as her helmet fed her information about their dropping altitudes.

"Cover me!" Mando thought rapidly so that they wouldn't meet their demise in that freighter. Mando walked into the line of fire, his armor deflected the lasers shot at him from the troopers' blasters and threw some small grenades he had on his waistbelt. The explosion was small, but it was impactful enough to take out all of those troopers that were stopping them from getting to the pilots that were driving the freighter to the ground.

They hurried inside the pit and yanked the pilot off the wheel. There seemed to be only one as two dead bodies laid at his feet. Mando and Bo's comrade took control of the ship as Bo held the Imperial pilot by the barrel of her blaster. "Where is it?" She hissed at him.

"Where is what?" The pilot growled back at her, playing dumb with her as he knew exactly what she wanted.

"The Darksaber. Does he have it?" Bo spoke, caused Celeste's heart to nearly stop. Everything was coming together now. The Darksaber. The Empire. The Jedi. It all was making sense to her piece by piece in her little world. She was an important piece to bring it all together for Gideon.

"If you're asking, you already know," the man gritted his teeth, sending an electric shock through his body. He had a device in his mouth to kill himself in case he was put in a situation where he would leak information about the remnants of the Empire.

"No!!" Bo shouted as his body dropped to the ground.

"We have to go, he sent out a distress signal," Bo's comrade spoke up.

Once Mando and the other Mandalorian readjusted the ship in the proper course of direction, Mando abandoned the wheel. "Clear the atmosphere and prepare to jump," Bo barked at her two comrades.

Mando stood before Bo. "Are you sure you won't join us?" Bo questioned before releasing the information she promised would lead them to a Jedi.

"There's something I need to do."

"The Jedi, where can we find them?" Celeste got straight to the point as the ship was nearing the edge of the atmosphere, a place where Mando wouldn't be able to use his jet pack.

"Take the foundling to the city of Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus. There you will find Ahsoka Tano. Tell her you were sent by Bo-Katan," Bo Katan told the two. Another puzzle piece of information for Celeste was pieced together. Ahsoka Tano--the author of the journal Gideon had given her so that she could study from and self-train. Celeste had gained a lot of insightful information from that journal, but she didn't know that the woman was still alive.

Mando nodded curtly, then led Celeste out onto a balcony of the ship. Just as they had arrived on the freighter, they left the freighter. With Mando flying the two back to the ground. Mando noticed Celeste's worried face. "What's wrong?" He asked her as they walked to the frog lady's home, where the child stayed.

"I have to tell you something," she announced.