Mandalorian Lost

Chapter 23

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Cara says, frowning over at me. Fear pours over me like a bucket of ice and I can feel the blood drain from my face. Gideon is supposed to be dead. I kept tabs on his fate after the Second Death Star. I didn't rest until I received the reports that he was executed for war crimes. Now, as I stare out at his infuriatingly smug face, I know it was all for nothing.

"I have." My voice is barely functioning, so I'm not even sure she hears me. I don't bother repeating myself. My feet are glued to the floor, my gaze set on Gideon. I can't go back to the Empire.

"Alright, let's not get excited," Cara mutters, readjusting her grip on her gun. She narrows her eyes at Greef. "Is there another way out?"

"No, that's it," he says, sounding utterly deflated as he speaks. I want to chime in, offer myself as a sacrifice to buy the others some time, but my tongue feels like a block of lead in my mouth. I can't bring myself to move it.

"What about the sewers?" Mando offers. Greef gives him a confused look and he nods. "The Mandalorians have a covert down in the sewers. If we can get down there, they can help us escape."

As if things weren't horrifyingly overwhelming enough for me, now we're trusting our lives to a bunch of Mandalorian cultists. I start to shake my head, my vision spinning from the effort, and Mando walks against the wall he's pressed against until he reaches me. I can hear his frantic breathing through his helmet as he grabs my chin with two fingers, yanking my face toward his in order to tear my eyes away from Gideon.

"I know what you're thinking, but this is our only option that doesn't involve dying," he says quickly, tightening his grip on my chin when I try to look away. "You said you trusted me before. Time to prove it."

I look over his shoulder to catch Cara's eye, swallowing hard when she flashes me a pitiful look. She knows exactly what I'm thinking, far more than Mando could hope to, and somehow it's comforting. It gives me the strength to nod my head, and Mando releases me.

"Yeah, sewers are good," Cara says quickly.

Mando starts scanning the room, his head on a swivel. "Checking for access points," he murmurs. I imagine the scanning view in his helmet is helping with that.

As he works, I sneak a glance back out the cantina window to look at Gideon. He just stands there, staring straight ahead with a squadron at his back. "What's he waiting for?" I mutter under my breath, not really expecting an answer from anyone. Almost as soon as I say it, another cluster of stormtroopers round the corner behind Gideon, all of them carrying various parts of some kind of weapon. It takes me a second to register what the weapon is.

When I do, the blood drains from my face once again.

"They're setting up an E-Web," Cara groans, pressing the back of her head against the wall. I meet her hopeless gaze and sigh. We both have seen that kind of weapon in action plenty of times during the war.

Greef straightens, his entire face falling and twisting into a resigned, flat expression. "It's over," he whimpers.

"I found the sewer vent!" Mando announces, already pulling aside a few cantina benches. I rush over to help him and shove one of the benches aside to reveal a large, thick sewer grate.

"It's assembled!" Greef whispers harshly, his head swiveling back and forth between us and the E-Web outside. I freeze out of fear for only a moment before Mando subtly squeezes my arm to bring me back. "How long until that thing's cleared?"

"Blow it," Cara orders, gesturing to the grate.

Mando pats his belt and inner pockets. "I'm out of charges."