OPEN SPACE-𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕝𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕟

N I N E

The ship ride was dull and boring for Laesy. She almost regretted going with Mando. She hated his guts and wanted nothing to do with him, ignoring him at every possible moment. But, she loved that cute little green baby too much to want to leave, and although she didn't want to admit it, she still had a soft spot for that man.

She had spent her time taking care of the baby. The Mandalorian seemed to be more focused on flying the ship than the kid anyway. Right now she was spending the time bowling this steel ball that the kid loved so much. She would bowl it towards the child and the child would fetch it. She had the ball in her hand, and started to bowl it towards the child. The joy in its face for the ball was unlike anything else. The ball was heading straight for him, when all of a sudden it started to take a smooth turn to the right.

"Hold on!" Mando shouted up from above, the sternness from his voice sending shivers down Laesy's spine. She grabbed the child just in time for the ship to take an immediate banked turn. They slid until her feet had touched the wall, she slowly tried to make her way to the cockpit which meant she had to go up the ladder. Her hand reached out for the ladder when the ship started banking the other way, this sent both of them sliding until they hit the other side of the ship opposite to the ladder. The impact of metal against Laesy's back caused an immense amount of pain, but the adrenaline was keeping her up. She didn't have time to register pain right now.

"Hold the ship still, you idiot!" A sense of annoyance came out of Laesy's mouth. She would shoot Mando right now if she could. The ship banked again, Perfect Laesy thought to herself as she started to slide right for the ladder. She got her feet in position of a rung, hit the ladder and started climbing up.

Mando heard the anger in Laesy's steps when she reached the top. He leveled the ship and allowed a couple of seconds for her to reach the cockpit. Laesy stepped in, strapped the child in just in time for Mando to bank again. Laesy hit the wall and was about to yell at Mando when she saw a laser fly past the cockpit. Another one hitting the ship, causing a blaring noise to pop up on the dashboard of the ship. Mando disregarded the warning

"We're in a dogfight? Why didn't you say something?" Laesy questioned at the top of her lungs.

"Sit down, now!" She had never been in or even seen a dogfight in space before, and it was awesome but scary for her. She watched in awe as he effortlessly dodged and weaved the other ships fire.

"I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold." A man said over the intercom. A moment later Laesy was shot forward into her chair as the ship stopped all momentum. The other ship collided into the Razor crest and continued on.

"That's my line." The Mandalorian coldly said, before blasting the ship into pieces. The explosion was spectacular to Laesy, but what he said was not. She laughed, Mando looked over slightly puzzled.

"Did you honestly just say that?" The response to Laesy's question was met with a grunt as he turned back to look at the controls, making sure not to hit the other ships parts. He examined the ships hull on a screen, and from what Laesy could see it was met with a lot of red looking warnings.

"Looks like we're going to have to make an unscheduled stop." The Mandalorian spoke with disappointment, checking the starmap for the closest planet that could repair his ship. "Tatooine isn't far from here."

___

The ship sunk down, as the Mandalorian landed it and turned it off. Its hydraulics kicking in. Mando's chair swiveled and turned to Laesy.

"Stay here, I'm going to get whoever tends this docking bay to repair our ship. Don't make a sound, we can't let them know about the child." The Mandalorian stared at Laesy, his orders angered her as she wanted to explore the planet too. But she also wanted to keep the child safe.

"Fine...but you better get me something. And just so you know I'm doing this for the child, not because you told me to." Laesy barked back in response, mando sighed and walked off. A moment later, Laesy peaked up over the dashboard and could see Mando talking to a lady mechanic and then walked off through a door after they finished talking.

"Okay little guy, I think it's naptime for you." Laesy picked up the child, who cooed softly as she embraced him. She put him to sleep quietly downstairs making sure to not disturb the mechanic and letting them know we were here. She slowly crept back up and sat in the Mandalorians bed. She had been sleeping their while they were on the ship. She grabbed her blaster from her holster, inspecting it.

It was her dad's. The gun itself was matted black, with a nicely engraved wooden handle. The entire weapon shows signs of use from over the years. She rubbed her fingers over the engraving on the handle, Mando will not be happy if he ever figures out who owned this blaster she thought to herself.

The thoughts of her father soon crept to thoughts of her family. Her home planet, how it was taken from the Imperials. Her family was taken hostage, but only her father and herself made it out alive. The last time she ever saw her family. Ever since then, she vowed her life to make sure no other family had to share that same consequence. A tear rolled down Laesy's face, landing on the blaster.

She heard a commotion coming from outside. Shooting up she ran to look out of the cockpit window, she saw the mechanic holding the child. Swearing, she ran down the ladder, then kept her cool and jogged her way up to the mechanic.

"Sorry, kids you know?" Lying through her teeth, her heart racing "Put them down for one second and they run away before you even notice." She laughed nervously, staring into the mechanics eyes. Does she know about the child?

"Oh, are you the mother?" The mechanic looked confused "Uh, is this your actu-"

"Yes, thats me. The mandalorian and I adopted him. I'll be taking him back now." Laesy reached out for the child, he cooed and brought his arms out to be held.

___

After being spotted, for safety reasons we were told to not be inside the ship while she worked on it. So Laesy and the child sat outside on a crate, out of the sun's burning desert rays in a little outcove. The door to her left opened up, and in walked the Mandalorian. He stared at Laesy, and she responded with a shrug while pointing towards the child. He sighed and walked over to the Mechanic and Laesy followed closely behind.

"I started the repair on the fuel leak" She said, then started banging on a machine as it whirred. "I had a couple of setbacks I wanted to talk to you about. I didn't use any droids as requested so it took me a lot longer than expected. But I figured you were good for the money since you had a couple of extra mouths to feed." She motioned towards Laesy and the child, Mando had gone into the ship and out with a bag by the time she was done talking unaware if he was even listening to the rambling off that she was doing.

"Thank you!" The Mandalorian said after taking a moment to process what she had said. Laesy was taken aback, he was actually sincere for once and showed some emotions.

"Oh I guess I was right, you got a job didn't you?" The mechanic said, followed Mando as he walked towards an exit out of the hanger. Laesy followed closely behind. Laesy had to squint her eyes as they went through the door.

"Hey Mando, what do you think?" An unfamiliar voice said standing in front of two speeders. This seemed to be a man that Mando had gotten the job with. Laesy didn't know him, but looking at him and the way he behaved nonchalant and almost cocky like gave her a bad impression and she didn't trust him.

Mando and the man talked for a moment, before getting on the bike he looked at Laesy.

"I don't know how long I'll be, stay here." While what he said didn't mean much more than a command to the others, Laesy after being with him for so long could tell in his words this meant to be safe. She blushed slightly.

"I will." She responded, as the two of them got onto their speeders and sped off into the distance.