𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 ── ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀɴᴅᴀʟᴏʀɪᴀɴ ✓

1.3

THIRTEEN.
preparing for war

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"About 15 or 20 of them came through here on foot." Mando announced, walking around the forest with me and Cara. He pointed at a couple of broken trees, "And something sheared off those branches."

As we kneeled near the large footprints imprinted onto the ground, Cara mumbled, "AT-ST."

"Imperial walker." I chimed in, standing up. "What's it doing here?"

"I don't know." Cara replied, shaking her head. "But this is more than what I signed up for."

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"Bad news." Mando announced to the citizens of the farm with no hesitation. "You can't live here anymore."

"What?! Why?" All the citizens shouted, angrily.

"Mando.." I sighed as I pinched the bridge of my nose, elbowing him in the side gently. He looked at me with his head slightly tilted to the side.

"What?"

"Nice bedside manner." Cara whispered over to him.

He scoffed, turning to look at me. "And you think you can do better?"

"Probably." I replied, taking a step forward on the front porch to face the citizens. "I'm sorry that this isn't the news that you expected to hear.. but there's no other options."

"You took the job!"

"Yeah!"

"That's before we knew about the AT-ST."

"What is that?"

"The armored walker with two enormous guns--"

Cara interrupted, "That you knew and didn't tell us about."

"Help us, please!"

"You're supposed to help us!"

"But we hired you! Please!"

"We have nowhere to go." Omera said, holding Winta close to her side. I turned to look at Mando as he looked at me.

"Sure, you do!" Cara shrugged with a moderate expression. "This is a big planet. I mean, I've seen smaller."

"My grandparents seeded these ponds..!"

"It took generations!"

"Yeah!"

"I understand, I do." Cara snapped. "But there are only three of us."

"No, there's not." A man said as my eyes landed on him. "There's at least 20 here..!"

"Yeah!"

"I mean fighters!" Cara rolled her eyes, giving out an airy laugh. "Be realistic--!"

"Hey," I whispered to her, sharply. "They're not wrong."