"Mara?! Mara?!"
My eyes slowly opened. My vision was blurry and my ears were ringing. Everything was cold. My shoulder throbbed, my body felt frozen.
When my vision finally cleared enough I noticed Mando kneeling over me, his armor was covered in frost.
"Come on verd'ika, say something?"
"Mando?" I whispered.
He sighed in relief and helped me sit up.
I was in the hull, a giant hole was ripped through the middle. Cold air was blowing into the ship. I shivered and I jolt of pain surged through my shoulder. I hissed in pain and grabbed it.
"What happened?" Mando asked, after wrapping a blanket around me.
"I don't know, I think a crate hit it."
Mando sighed and examined my shoulder. "I think it's dislocated, I'm going to have to pop it back in."
"Will it hurt?" I asked.
He was silent for a moment before answering. "Yes, but only for a moment."
I nodded and close my eyes, bracing myself for the pain. I felt Mando press his hands onto my shoulder then the next thing I knew I was gritting my teeth to stop myself from yelling out.
Mando quickly made a sling and helped me place my arm in it.
~🌗~
I sat with the Child in my lap, leaning against the wall close to the space heater Mando found. A blanket wrapped around us. We both had already eaten the rations Mando had given us.
"If you hadn't guessed, we're in a tight spot. The main power drive is not responding, and the hull has lost its integrity. I suspect the temperature will drop significantly when night falls." Mando sat down next to me. "I'll have a better idea of our prospects at that time."
The Frog Lady croaks and points at her eggs.
"I'm sorry, lady. I don't understand Frog. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning. I recommend you get some sleep." Mando leans back and crosses his arms.
I grab the child with my good arm, bringing him closer to me, and lean into Mando's side. He uncrosses his arms and wraps his arm around me, pulling us both closer to him. Trying to use his own body heat to help warm us up.
"Sleep verd'ika."
I close my eyes and try to sleep. The pain in my shoulder still there but I eventually fall asleep.
~🌓~
"Wake up, Mandalorian." I jolt awake at the sound of a droid, Mando presses us closer to his side and pulls out his blaster. "This cannot wait until morning.
The Frog Lady stood next to the droid from the prison job and spoke into a microphone. "Do not be alarmed. I bypassed the droid's security protocols and accessed its vocabulator."
"What the hell are you doing?" Mando shoves his blaster back into its holster. "That droid is a killer."
"These eggs are the last brood of my life cycle. My husband has risked his life to carve out an existence for us on the only planet that is hospitable to our species. We fought too hard and suffered too much to resign ourselves to the extinction of our family line. I must demand that you hold true to the deal that you agreed to."
"Look, lady, the deal is off. We're lucky if we get off this frozen tomb with our lives."
"I thought honoring one's word was a part of The Mandalorian code. I guess those are just stories for children."
Mando looked over at me and the Child. I silently pleaded with him to help her. Everything she said I believed was true.
Mando sighs and stands. "This was not a part of the deal." He climbs out of the ship.
~🌓~
I woke to a small and cold hand on my face. When I opened my eyes the Child was standing on my chest gurgling and pointing. I picked him up off my chest and looked around. The frog lady was gone.
"Where did she go?"
He gurgled and pointed outside.
"You get Mando, I'll find her." I set him on the ground and walked out of the ship.
I wrapped my light weight jacket tighter around myself and followed her footprints in the snow and into a tunnel of ice.
I found her sitting in a hot spring with her eggs. I walked closer and felt the heat radiating out of it. I sighed and dipped my frozen hands in the water, then I took off my boots and placed my feet inside.
She croaked and smiled at me. I smiled back and enjoyed having feeling in my toes and fingers again.
After a few minutes Mando found us.
"There you are. You can't leave the ship. It's not safe out here." Mando sighed. "Mara I thought you knew better then to wonder off?"
"Hey I was just following her, I told him to find you." I retorted.
"Let's gather these up." He sighed, setting the Child down and gathering the floating eggs.
The Frog Lady croaked at him.
"But it's warm here..." I whined.
"I know it's warm. But night's coming fast, and I can't protect you out here."
I sighed and helped gather the eggs and put them back inside the canister.
I noticed the Child also reaching for the eggs but Mando stopped him. "No. No!"
He whined and walked away. I went back to gathering the eggs.
Then the sound of cracking and the Child crying reached us. We all turned around to see a person with Arachnophobia worst nightmare. Spiders were hatching out of what I originally thought were rocks. They were not rocks.
My eyes widened and I quickly shoved my boots back on and stood up, grabbing the Child in my good arm. Mando backed up and pushed us behind him.
The spiders arriving kept getting bigger and bigger. The ground shook a bit as a loud roar was heard. The biggest spider in the galaxy crawled out of the cave.
If I wasn't scared of spiders before, I am now.
"Go, go, go! Back to the ship!" Mando yelled.
"Don't have to tell me twice!" I bolted.
I grabbed the blaster, that Mando had given me after that night of target practice, and started to shoot the spiders following us. Whom I kidding, all of the spiders were following us.
The giant momma spider shot webs at us, blocking one of the tunnels. We kept running, well me and Mando ran the frog lady started hopping, until the Crest came into view. Mando pushed us forward into the ship and up to the cockpit.
I screamed as Mando tried to shut the door while spiders crawled through. I gripped my necklace and the Child tightly, from where we stood behind the Frog Lady. She grabbed my blaster and shot a few of the spiders who got close.
Mando used his flame thrower to push back the spiders so he could shut the door.
The spiders climbed around the outside, trying to find a way to get to us.
"Strap yourselves in." We all sat down in our seats. "This better work. I've got limited visibility. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."
Mando started the ship and we started to lift into the air.
"We're gonna make it!"
But Momma spider jumped onto the ship, pushing it back down.
"I need to learn to shut up!" I yelled at myself as the spider tried to brake in.
As it went to attack again, it was blasted with lasers from outside the ship.
"Stay here." Mando told us and headed outside.
I watched from the cockpit window as the two x-wings from before apparently were our rescuers.
~🌒~
Mando walked back into the ship. "All right. I'm gonna repair the cockpit enough for us to limp to Trask. There's nothing I can do about the main hull's integrity, so we're gonna have to get cozy in the cockpit. It's the only thing I can pressurize. If you need to use the privy, do it now. It's gonna be a long ride."
Me and the Child watched as Mando fixed up the cockpit. With only having one working arm Mando made my job, babysitting duty. More specifically, keep the Child away from the eggs.
"Okay, repair's all done. Let's see if we can get this thing going once and for all."
I held the Child in my lap as Mando started the engine. Thank the stars it worked and we flew away from that frozen death trap of a planet.
"Wake me up if someone shoots at us. Or that door gets sucked off its rails."
The Frog Lady croaked at him. I glared at the back of his helmet.
"I'm kidding. If that happened, we'd all be dead. Sweet dreams."
"I'll be lucky if I don't have nightmares for the next month." I grumbled, snuggling up with the Child in the seat.
If I would have been able to see under his helmet, I would have seen Mando smirk at my remark.
——————————————•—————————————
AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter because I didn't. This episode gives me the creeps each time.
Wc:1502
Love y'all!
K out!