WHAT THE EMPIRE LEFT BEHIND | The Mandalorian

I was six years old when the Empire took me.
They didn't ask for my name.
They gave me one.

Asset Six.

Every year, the number changed.

Asset Seven.
Asset Eight.
Asset Nine.
Asset Ten.
Asset Eleven.
Asset Twelve.

That is who I am now. Asset Twelve. A number. A project. Something they kept behind locked doors and bright lights, waiting for the moment they decided I was useful. Not a person. Definitely not a kid.

And maybe that would have been my whole life, numbers and orders and cold rooms and people who never looked me in the eye, if the mission had not gone wrong.

It was not even my fault. (Which is impressive, honestly. They usually blame me before anything even happens)

One moment I was where they put me. The next, I was not.

Someone else got to me first. Someone who did not care about numbers or orders or what the Empire wanted. Someone who saw me as cargo, not a weapon.

I was kidnapped. Then sold. Then sold again. Niktos this time. They did not bother learning my number. They did not care enough.

And just when I thought that was it, that this was the part where my story ended quietly in some back room on some forgotten planet until the lights went out for good...

A Mandalorian walked in.