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The feeling of rust beneath her gloved fingertips threatens to crack the stoic resolve of Eden, the woman absentmindedly seeking out the comfort of her necklace to ease her rapidly beating heart through the immoral events to come. Unlike the times that had come to pass, not even her most valuable possession, nor the memories in which it bears, can ease the guilt brewing within her. Now, it stands only to highlight her mistakes, both past and present.
Beside her, Mando pounds upon the thick metal of the door, a familiar ball-shaped droid emerging from the wall next to it. The droid speaks in a garbled language Eden cannot understand, and she, along with her fellow bounty hunter, holds up a small chip for it to see, knowing what to do from experience. The droid scans over each of them for a few fleeting moments, before it utters another sentence, the door beside it sliding open as it retracts back into the wall.
From the veil of darkness that lingers within the hallway, two stormtroopers emerge, each armed and prepared to shoot if required. They eye each of the bounty hunters with suspicion, sizing them up, seeking out their weaknesses. Their eyes then land upon the small creature who lies within their pod, the child staring back at them with fear brewing within it's dark, doe-like eyes.
The tension threatening to suffocate all who linger within it, a stormtrooper finally nods, gesturing for the pair to follow them inside. Sharing an uneasy glance with Mando, Eden hesitates before breaching the threshold inside, yet does so all the same. As they come to approach the door leading into the main room of the Imperial base, one stormtrooper roughly tugs upon the child's pod. Trying her best to push back the instinct to attack the trooper, Eden snarks up, venom dripping from her voice. "Hey, Buckethead, take it easy with him."
"You take it easy," the stormtrooper challenges her, purposefully tempting her to attack. His grip upon the pod only tightening to spite the woman, he meets the gaze of the woman, her eyes alight with anger brighter than the planet's lava. Their eyes only break away from one another when a door in front of them slides open, allowing them full entry into the lion's den.
"Yes!" The client abruptly stands from his desk at first sight of the child, unable to hide his enthusiasm toward finally having the asset within his ice-cold grasp. Holding out a tracking fob toward the small green creature, he stalks toward it the way a predator would prey, the sickly smile painted upon his wrinkled lips growing as the fob's beeping grows louder with each step he takes.
A man dressed in doctor scrubs, with a pair of glasses resting upon the bridge of his nose, crouches in front of the child's pod. The tiny green creature whimpers as the doctor pulls out a tiny mechanical device, holding it out to the child. A red light scans over its small form, and when it beeps, the doctor reads the findings aloud. "Very healthy. Yes."
