𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔡𝔲𝔠𝔦𝔫𝔤 . . .
FORTY ONE.
numb!
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Memories assault her senses. Fragments of an image of a young girl and a young boy running through dunes of dull golden sand, giggling and grinning when the other falls. Now older, training together underneath the light of the moon whilst their parents slumber away, unknowing that the reason why their children are so exhausted during the day is that they spar throughout the night. Older again, eyes darkened, the boy leaning down to hug her: he's taller now, just when she'd thought she'd beat him in height. He holds her tight, she doesn't cry, not until he's gone, and though she waits for moons, watching the constellations glitter, feeling the seasons change, he doesn't return.
And she runs.
She runs until her feet bleed and her eyes burn from all the tears she's shed. She runs until her ribs ache, until they pierce her heart and crimson spills across the ground before her. She runs until she can't feel anything anymore. She runs until she's thrown in a cell. Even when she escapes, it's still all she does, until a man in glinting silver armor and a voice like a tumble of waterfalls in an emerald forest asks her to stand still.
Frozen there, hiding behind the wall of the ruined cantina, listening to her actually not dead brother's voice, all Zoya wants to do is run—run until her bones shatter into piles of ivory and dust, until her legs give out and all that's left is the blood pumping in her veins, spilling from her eyes and mouth until she doesn't have to fight anymore.
"Be smart, Zoya," Ayaan calls. More tears pool on her cheeks, just as Din steps forward towards her, his hands raising as if to calm her.
"Zoya," Din says, his voice quiet, urgent. "It's okay."
He's close enough to set his hands on her shoulders, to squeeze gently, but he's calm, too calm, and something within Zoya's chest splinters at a realization that flickers on within her mind, glowing and neon and screaming for her attention.
He's not shocked. Why is he not surprised? Why is he not surprised?
Zoya's eyes widen even further as she stares at him, lips trembling. Harried breaths fall from her mouth, clawing from her lungs. Her shoulders stiffen beneath his hands, and his jaw clicks beneath the helmet, because she knows him better than anyone does, can read his body language in the time it takes to blink.
Her brows pull together, and she stares at him. "Tell me you didn't know."
Din can only stand there, silent as the grave, because he won't lie to her.
"Please." The word shatters on her tongue, so quiet that he almost doesn't hear it. "Tell me you didn't know," she repeats, voice rising.
"Zoya, I—" Din stops.
Her eyes harden, tone sharpening into a dagger's blade. "What? You what?"
"I knew," he admits.
Zoya pushes him away and looks at him as if she doesn't know who he is. Cara, near the back of the cantina, steps back, as if she's in danger of being burned by her anger, even as Zoya turns away, fingers threading through her hair violently as the Imperials wait outside, weapons at the ready. Din has no doubt that Ayaan Vitaan knows the turmoil he's caused within the building.
"I didn't want to hurt you—I thought that maybe—"
She whirls on him. "I couldn't give less of a shit about whether you thought you were sparing me or not. I deserved to know!" Her voice cracks on the last word, and her eyes are glassy, full of tears she refuses to let fall.
Greef and Cara lock eyes across the space as Din and Zoya stare at each other wordlessly, her hurt fracturing the air with tendrils of sharp glass. The ex-shock trooper nods subtly as they come to a silent agreement, and Greef shifts towards the empty window.
"What do you propose?" he yells, and their attention is diverted.
Ayaan's partner replies, "Reasonable negotiation."
Greef scoffs. "What assurance do you offer?"
"If you're asking if you can trust us, you cannot. Just as you betrayed our business arrangement, I would gladly break any promise and watch you die at my hand. The assurance I give is this: we both will act in our own self-interests, which at this time involves your cooperation and benefit." There's a short silence, then the man continues, "I will give you until nightfall, and then I will have the E-Web cannon open fire."
It's his final words. Zoya looks out the window in time to see the man and Ayaan move back through the ranks of Stormtroopers. Her brother doesn't even turn back to look, even though she knows he can feel her eyes on him. Ice curls sharp tendrils around her heart, and her nails cut deep into her palms.
"I say we hear them out," Greef says. With a sideways glance at Zoya, simmering by the window, he looks at Din and Cara. "With Zoya here, they wouldn't fire upon us. Not if that is truly her brother."
Cara shakes her head. "The minute we open that door, we're dead. They wouldn't have brought the damn cannon if they wouldn't use it regardless of who was in here." She casts a quiet look Zoya's way, which Zoya doesn't bother returning, eyes fixed blankly on the shattered window, salty tracks drying on her cheeks.
Greef shakes his head. "We're dead if we don't. At least out there, we've got a shot."
"That's easy for you to say," Cara says. "I'm a Rebel Shock Trooper. They'll upload me to a Mind Flayer."
"Those aren't real," Greef disagrees, shifting his blaster to his other hand so he can flex his fingers. "That was just wartime propaganda."
"Well, I don't care to find out," she snaps. "I'm shooting my way out of here."
Zoya hefts her blaster and turns, eyes cold. "So am I."
Greef turns. "What about you, Mando?"
Din, staring at Zoya—who doesn't bother acknowledging him, something aching in his chest, looks down at the floor, speaking past the tightness in his throat. "I know who the other man is. It's Moff Gideon."
"No," Cara says immediately. "Moff Gideon was executed for war crimes."
"It's him. He knew my name."
Greef's shoulders lift. "So? What does that prove?"
"I haven't heard that name spoken since I was a child—from anyone other than Zoya," he adds tightly, casting a glance her way, one she doesn't meet. Her mouth tenses, and her jaw hardens as she looks towards the window, the only sign that she's heard him.
"On Mandalore?" Greef prompts.
"I was not born on Mandalore," Din replies.
Greef frowns. "But you're a Mandalorian."
Cara steps in. "Mandalorian isn't a race."
"It's a Creed," Din finishes. Silently, he recalls the death of his parents, the Mandalorians that had descended from the heavens, the one that had carried him into the unraveling skies, cerulean and shattered without his parents by his side, lifting him away from the blossoms of sweltering fire curling into the air. His mouth tightens. "I was a foundling. They raised me in the Fighting Corps. I was treated as one of their own. When I came of age, I was sworn to the Creed. The only record of my family name was in the registers of Mandalore. Moff Gideon was an ISB Officer during the purge. That's how I know it's him."
"That's how he knows who we all are," Cara mutters.
Din nods. "He says he needs us, which means the child got away safely. I was worried when the Ugnaught didn't respond, but if they'd captured the kid, we'd already be dead."
"Hail them again," Cara says as she rises, brushing past Zoya with a comforting touch to the curve of her shoulder.
Din digs the commlink from his belt, pressing a button as he raises it to his helmet. "Come in, Kuiil. Kuiil?" He clenches his teeth together. "Nothing."
"They might've jammed the link," Cara replies, pressing against the wall with her heavy blaster raised.
The comm beeps suddenly, and the room is filled with the sound of the child's gurgling. Zoya steps forward, the cool relief swelling in her chest overwriting her anger for the briefest of moments.
"Kuiil has been terminated." IG-11's mechanic voice comes through the link.
"What did you do?" Din clips, voice hard.
"I am fulfilling my base function," the droid replies.
"Which is?" Din says tensely.
"To nurse and protect."
"Nurse and protect what?" Cara asks, staring at the commlink. "What the kriff is it talking about?"
Din shakes his head mutely, staring at the comm. "No idea, and I don't fucking like it."
"Did you consider that maybe the droid is doing something good and honest? Or is that something you can't even comprehend?" Zoya says coldly, the ice chips in her eyes sharpened into dangerous, crystalline points.
"O-kay, Zoya, maybe—" Cara begins.
"Why would you say something like that to me?" Din says softly, and there's no anger in his voice, just quiet tones and remorse. "After everything."
Zoya clenches her jaw. She wants him to shout back at her, fight with her, do something other than stand there quietly and take it. "You didn't tell me my fucking brother was alive!" she yells. "You should have told me! How could you—how could you keep something like that from me?" Through her anger, hot tears rise against her will, burning at the corners of her eyes. She swipes at them furiously, wishing that this anger was dry and unfeeling, but it's hurt and upset and everything she doesn't want to let show.
"I thought you were better off not knowing," Din breathes, and though Zoya doesn't scream at him, when he takes a step towards her, she stumbles back, keeping him at a distance.
He doesn't know that it's because she fears if he gets too close, she'll collapse into his arms and release everything that's building up in her chest. "You were fucking wrong," she says instead, flat and cold.
"I know, and I'm sorry." Din's hands hang limply at his sides, and he longs to hold her close, to apologize over and over because he's so sorry, he thought he would be saving her from the knowledge that her brother was alive but allied with the Imperials; he's sorry, but he loves her with every bit of his beating heart, and he hadn't wanted to see her hurt.
But this, this is worse than he'd ever imagined: Zoya looking at him as if he's a stranger, pain and fury and something shattered lying within her eyes.
Then, before anything else can be said, a barrage of blaster fire echoes from outside, though not immediately in the square with all the Stormtroopers. It sounds further away. The four inside the cantina whirl, searching the area outside. Both the Death troopers and the Stormtroopers turn in confusion, raising their blasters suspiciously.
"Look!" Cara says.
Bewildered, Zoya steps up beside Cara in time to see a speeder careen at full velocity through the ranks of troopers, sending them diving out of the way. IG-11 leaps off its seat, immediately firing at the soldiers and wielding double blasters. The speeder explodes in a cloud of flame against one of the other buildings, sending bodies and debris catapulting through the air.
And in a pouch on its chest is the child, wide-eyed and green and alive, and Zoya squeezes her eyes shut, relieved.
"Cover me!" Din yells.
Zoya's behind him before Cara jumps up on the table, spraying blaster fire through the window. The door slides open, and he puts a bolt through a Stormtrooper's head, slamming his foot square into the chest of another rushing towards them. Zoya and Greef spill through the doorway after him, blasters at the ready.
She fires randomly into the crowd of troopers, fury staining her vision a mottled crimson. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a Death trooper throw Din to the ground, and anger explodes in her chest.
Just fucking kill each other!
The thought careens through her mind on steel tracks, skating out into open air. And, as she watches, a Stormtrooper near the Death trooper that's shoved Din down freezes. Moving mechanically, he pivots, raising his blaster to the head of the black-armored trooper. Without hesitating a beat, the trooper fires upon his own, his bolt burrowing through the Death trooper's skull.
Zoya stumbles back in shock, eyes wide as bolts zip past her head. Din's back on his feet in an instant, unaware of what's just happened. He shoots the Stormtrooper that's just saved him, turning to spray more bolts upon the others.
Holy shit.
Without allowing herself to dwell on the bizarre moment a second longer, Zoya hefts her blaster once more, releasing a barrage of shots upon the Stormtroopers that swarm the square.
And as she watches them fall, Zoya mutters, "Eat shit."
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am i spacing out these updates bc i don't want to let go yet? ʸᵉˢ