Enigma | The Mandalorian

XVIII

A smile made its way onto my face when I saw the familiar farm come into view. Kuiil was standing, waiting at the entrance as we walked off the ship. He looked at Din and the child before looking over at me, I smiled at him causing him to nod his head before turning around and walking into his hunt. It feels like it was only yesterday that Din and I landed on this planet in search of the child. Look at how far we've gotten. The child reached over at the familiar face causing Kuiil to speak.

"It hasn't grown much."

"I think it might be a strand-cast."

"I don't think it was engineered. I've worked in the gene farms. This one looks evolved. Too ugly." Kuiil said referring to the child.

"He is not ugly. He's cute." I said as I rubbed the child's cheek.

"You haven't change much." Kuiil said while looking at me before turning his gaze to Cara.

"This one on the other hand looks like she was farmed in the Cytocaves of Nora." Cara smirk at his comment causing Din to introduce the two.

"This is Cara Dune. She was a shock-trooper."

"And is practically my best friend." I said causing Cara to roll her eyes at my comment.

"You were a dropper?" Kuiil asked.

"Did you serve?"

"On the other side, I'm afraid. But I'm proud to say that I paid out my clan's debt and now I serve no one but myself." Kuiil said as he sat down across from us.

I turned my view away from Kuiil when I heard something approach from the entrance of the hut. I looked up to see an IG droid coming through the door. But not just any IG droid, this was the same droid Din and I ran into when we were trying to get the child. Din, Cara, and I pulled out our blasters to aim at the droid. The last time we saw this thing he was going to kill the child.

"Would anyone care for some tea?" The droid asked holding a tray.

"Kuiil," I said sternly waiting for an answer.

"Please lower your blasters. He will not harm you."

"That thing is programmed to kill the baby." Din said not lowering his blaster.

"Not anymore." Kuiil said as the droid walked forward before setting down the tray that contained four cups of tea. Kuiil got us to lower our blasters before telling us how the droid got here.

"It was left behind in the wake of you two destruction." Kuiil said looking between Din and I.

"I found it, laying where it fell, devoid of all life. I recovered the flotsam and staked it as my own in accordance with the Charter of the New Republic. Little remained of its neural harness. Reconstruction was quite difficult, but not impossible. It had to learn everything from scratch. This is something that cannot be taught with the twist of a spanner. It requires patience, repetition. I spent day after day reinforcing its development with patience and affirmation. It developed a personality as its experiences grew."

"So you're telling me that during these past couple of weeks you've been teaching and taking care of this droid." I asked.

"Correct."

"Is it still a hunter?" Din asked still staring at it.

"No. But it will protect."

Din and the droid continued to stare at each other before the droid held up a cup. "Tea?" Cara grabbed the cup out of its hand causing it to pick up another cup before looking at Din. I knew that Din wasn't going to trust the droid anytime soon so I decided to intervene, "I'll take his." I said causing the droid to nod before putting the tray down and walking out the door.