Chapter Text
Luke hits the ground running.
The Revenant looms, huge and imposing, over the hazy atmosphere of Corsin's tiny moon. Luke knows objectively that it's impossible for anyone on board to see him this far down, scrambling around haphazardly in the glassy dunes, but invisible eyes prickle along his spine anyways. Jagged rocks dig into his palms as he claws his way forward, forward and up and far away-
It is, he thinks distantly, so very different from climbing the sand dunes of Tatooine.
He shies away from the thought almost hysterically. He has no idea how long it's been- days and weeks bleed into months and years amongst the Empire- but Tatooine feels like a lifetime ago. The mere memory of it is like a shot of adrenaline under his skin, nervy and panicked. Luke crests the top of the dune, his breath coming fast and shallow, and stumbles-slides down the other side.
On his knees, hands bleeding, he looks ahead.
Corsin is a beautiful planet, Luke knows. He saw it through the transparisteel of his rooms aboard the Revenant, a blue-green sphere wreathed in white clouds set against the yawning black of space, a glimpse of more water than he's ever seen in his life. It was the most colorful thing he'd set eyes on since Yavin 4. The memory of it, jewel-bright in his mind, makes its volcanic moon seem like the darkest, loneliest place in the galaxy. Luke knows better- has seen far darker, far lonelier- but even he can't muster up much appreciation for the vast stretch of black igneous rock and gray sands. Nothing grows here. The landscape continues, unbroken by anything but the dunes, for ages-
Until, nearly two miles away, a squat little waystation rises out of the earth.
From this far away, Luke can only make out a few towering smoke vents and a tiny landing strip- but it's there, he can see it, and the relief flooding his chest is like a dam bursting.
He'd forgotten, after this long, what it felt like.
Luke picks himself up on shaking legs- maybe fatigue, maybe residual tremors- and starts forward.
"Incoming transmission, Mand'alor," Reeves says, standing tense and on edge at the comms console. She's usually relaxed- relaxed like a feral loth cat waiting to pounce, but relaxed- so the stiffness of her posture is jarring. Her helmet is on, but Din can hear the scowl in her voice. "Imperial shuttle T4-A76 requesting permission to land."
"Give it," Din says, shortly. He resists the urge to drum his fingers on the grip of his blaster. He's been Mand'alor long enough to have learned- for Bo-Katan to have beaten it through his helmet, more like- the impact of his body language on his people. He wants to draw his blaster, wants to stalk down to the shuttle landing on his planet and burn a hole through it with the Darksaber, wants to take his spear to every sentient on board, wants to slag the whole thing to glass- but he doesn't. Can't. He grits his teeth against the fury rising in his throat, feels it burn behind his sternum.
He crosses his arms instead.
"Landing now," Reeves says. She glances at Din quickly, furtively. There's a scattered group of Mandalorians in the room- two covering the landing pad controls, a few watching the holotable readings, guards at the doors, Bo-Katan and Axe and Korkie behind Din- and all of them are silent. Din hates it. Silence isn't their way.
None of this is the Way.
"Not a big ship," Axe mutters, low enough that only their immediate group can hear. "Could always test out those new cannons."
"Or the launchers," Korkie agrees. "Always wanted to see them in action."
"You speak of instigating a war," Din murmurs back, low and dark. He is in no mood for jokes. "What would your Lady say?"
"She would follow her Mand'alor," Bo-Katan says quietly at his shoulder. "Damn the consequences."
Din appreciates it. Really, he does. But he made his decision. This is what's best for Mandalore, even if it's not what's best for him.
"Enough. Let's go," he says, turning sharply towards the door. His guards step to attention, striking their vambraces to their chests in resonant salute. Beskar against beskar rings out loud and piercing in the small room. Bo-Katan falls in step at his elbow, Korkie and Axe shoulder to shoulder behind her, and his cloak- new, pristine, and the deep, venous color of blood- swirls at his feet like a hemorrhage as Din goes to meet his Imperial husband.
Luke waits, curled up tight and uncomfortable in the bottom of his shipping crate, for the ship to dock.
He'd made it to the waystation, creeping low and silent across the dark sand, terrified beyond reason that someone would see him coming. He needn't have worried. The building was run by droids and heavy machinery, the cloying smog too toxic for organic life. Luke had never been so glad to get a possible lung infection. He'd forced himself to scope the place out for a seemingly endless twenty minutes to make certain of the security- minimal- and the droids cycling through their repetitive unloading-loading-unloading work before moving in, darting onto the landing pad and between stacked crates like a terrified desert mouse. He couldn't afford to make any mistakes. A single slip-up, and it would have been over before it even began.
Once the single security droid- really just a modified TT-8L gatekeeper droid stuck on a rotating conveyor on the roof- made its loop around the far back of the waystation, Luke had slipped out from behind his cover and climbed onto a shipping container. They were top-loaders, the insides coated with a thick, grimy layer of oily grit- likely from the benzine-based solid fuel compound they'd carried in, which Luke assumed was used in the mines the moon held. On the way out, they mostly held trash. Luke hadn't dared to try sensing anything with the Force- wasn't even sure he knew how to use it without panic and agony and desperation to drive him- so he counted himself lucky that the container he opened up first contained primarily lightweight recycled materials. Luke had dropped inside without a second thought.
And now, here he is. He'd dragged a plastic tarp over himself, just in case the container was opened- it hangs dark and humid over his face, the smell of the benzine compound heavy in his nose. Luke's spine and hips, twisted into the smallest possible position, throb in time with his aching head from the strong chemicals. He's pretty sure everything in here is trash from a collapsed mine shaft- the wood surrounding him is splintering and damp, and every so often an exposed nail scrapes his skin from the jostling of the ship. All in all, it's been a rather unpleasant experience.
But so has the last five years. Luke could lie here, cramped and breathing noxious fumes for however long it took him to die, and he'd consider it a mercy in comparison.
The ship outside groans, shuddering in the telltale way of a tractor beam pulling it along. It takes another long moment for Luke to know they've entered the hangar- he can't say how he knows, other than feeling the empty, yawning void of space outside slowly grow muffled and distant- and yet another longer period for the ship to actually land and power down. Luke flinches as wood beams shift and splinters rain down on him and his barely protective tarp.
The hum of the ships engines fade. It's time to move.
Luke levers himself up slowly, slowly- his muscles scream in protest, his arms shaking as he props himself up. He gets more slivers than he cares to count as he hoists himself to the top of his trash pile, wood creaking ominously beneath even his slight weight- but there's no sound from outside. He hopes that's a good sign. He opens the shipping container.
Luke emerges into darkness, lit only by emergency stripes of reflective tape. The cargo hold. Good. On a ship like this, he knows it's fully automated- there's no one around to see him. He clambers out with a lack of grace that makes him glad there's no one else around for an entirely different reason- not that a total stranger seeing him fumble around in the dark like an idiot would be the worst thing he's ever survived, but still. Luke is pretty sure that if his sixteen year old self could see him escaping right now- clumsy, exhausted, terrified, filthy from trash and sweat, probably more than a little high from whatever fumes he's been inhaling for six hours- he'd be pretty bummed at how not thrilling it was.
Sixteen year old Luke was an idiot. He's never been more thankful to have a chance to be covered in trash in his life.
A memory comes to him- a different pile of trash, a different time, C-3PO, shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level-
No, thank you. Luke drops the rest of the way to the floor in a hurry, feeling his way along the side of the shipping container until he gets to the next one, and then the next, and the next. He can see the reflective square of an entrance hatch in the floor. He gets to it, crouching down to open it- he has to strain to spin the hand wheel, which might be more a testament to his physical state than to the actual tightness of it- but the rest of it is no trouble. Barely a creak escapes as he swings it open. Luke lays flat on the ground, shivering as the cold metal floor presses to his thin, soggy clothes, and cautiously sticks his head down to look out.
Nothing. Nobody.
Luke is down and out like a shot. Adrenaline serves him well as he leaps from the ship, then sprints right out of the hangar. As he skids around a corner, heart hammering in his chest, he turns his head just enough to catch a glimpse of the other side of the cavernous room- and the standard galactic time chronometer that's set in the wall there.
The Aurebesh numerals glow red. They read 0800-01.
The first day.
The clock starts now.
Din stands, motionless and impassive, at the edge of the landing pad.
"His Excellency regrets he could not attend the ceremony in person," says the Imperial lieutenant. Din didn't bother to remember his name. "He sends his regards and his congratulations, along with the express hope that you find your new spouse, personally mentored by His Grandness Himself, agreeable in every way."
A load of osik if he's ever heard it. Din bites back a growl. Agreeable.
"Let's see him, then," he says. If the Imperial lieutenant is bothered by his abruptness, he doesn't show it. He nods once, clipping his heels together before doing an about-face turn. He gestures to the guards at the lowered ramp of the ship, who nod once back and turn to stride, single-file, up into the belly of the ship to retrieve their charge. Din's to-be husband. His stomach roils.
A minute passes. Two minutes. Three. Four. Five.
Behind him, someone coughs quietly.
"Well?" Din asks. He wasn't planning on being impressed by the Imperials, but this is below par. "Did you lose him?"
The Imperial lieutenant glances back at him, brow furrowed just slightly. Din gives in to temptation and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning on one hip to the side.
"My apologies," says the lieutenant. "Perhaps he wasn't ready yet. Allow me to investigate, sir."
Din tilts his head towards the ship in unimpressed consent.
As the lieutenant walks briskly away, Bo-Katan leans forward. "Calling you sir is an insult," she hisses. "You are the Mand'alor. They should refer to you as such, or at the very least as Your Highness. "
"At least it's a nice day out," says Korkie brightly. By the metallic clank and the muffled oof that follows, someone elbowed him in the gut for that one. Din sighs, his vocoder barely picking it up.
"He's coming back," Bo-Katan says, straightening up. She gives Din an uncalled for glare. "Make sure he knows what to call you. Disrespect cannot be tolerated."
Din rolls his eyes, glad of the helmet covering him.
"My- my apologies," the lieutenant says when he returns, stuttering uncharacteristically. A pang of unease stirs in Din at the sound of it. "I- First, I must express my deepest of thanks that we have been allowed the honor of visiting your planet, especially during such precipitous times, and thank you profusely for the guardianship your people have shown us upon landing-"
"Spit it out," Din says.
The lieutenant presses his lips together tight. He looks nervous. Din's unease only grows at the sight. "Sir, I- I cannot apologize enough. There seems to be a mistake. Your future consort is not on board."
Luke is not on board the ship.
He abandoned the first one, then hopped onto a light freighter two hangars over that ended up somewhere near Myrkyr, then abandoned that one when it landed. Then he stowed away onto a ship in a different hangar from that station, which brought him, so far as he can tell, close to Alpheridies, or possibly Azure. None of the ships are taking a proper hyperspace lane- it takes longer, but it's less traceable. Luke knows which one he needs right now.
Now, he's on a spaceport. He's not following any sort of plan or map, only doing what feels right. Maybe it's the Force- Luke can't tell. He only had a day, maybe two if he's being generous, with Old Ben before he died. In the year that followed, Luke had been more concerned with fighting for Rebellion than figuring out some ancient old religious order he'd supposedly descended from- he'd taken to an X-wing like a womp rat to sandpit, with about the same level of joy and energy. He remembers, vaguely, the cramped cockpit with the leather seat that creaked, the laser configuration button that always stuck, the worn red and yellow paint- the memory makes his chest tighten, but he doesn't shove it away. The X-wing doesn't hurt to remember. He'd thought of those things often when he was so dazed and shaky from the Emperor's "training" that he could barely move, closing his eyes and returning to the cockpit in his mind. It had helped.
Luke slips from the crowd- if the trickle of sentients making their way through the port can be called that- and into a public fresher. It's dingy and poorly lit, much like the rest of the station, with plain metal fixtures and a grimy mirror over the sink. There's no public sonic- he'll have to make do with feeling filthy and uncomfortable until he gets somewhere he deems safe enough to stay, if there's anywhere like that in the galaxy- but for now he opens up the taps of the sink and pretends to not feel a jolt at the sight of the water that rushes out.
It's cold, when Luke puts his hands underneath the sputtering stream. The station is probably too cheap to have real water heaters. He scrubs his hands with a tab of cleanser deposited, scraping away grime with his fingernails. The sight and feel of being clean, even slightly, is heady. Luke glances nervously towards the door, then yanks his cloak off in a rush and starts to pull at his shirt.
It's the first nice thing he's had in two days.
Luke scrubs at his skin as best he can with just his nails and a wad of recycled paper towels, mindful of the fact that someone could walk in at any moment. His clothes are a lot cause for now- only a proper wash will help them, which he can't do- but he cleans himself up, and it's the best feeling in the world. His skin tingles where he's cleaned. He tosses the dirty towels in the garbage chute and grabs another handful, then decides better of it and bends down to stick his whole head under the tap. The cold soaking through his hair is phenomenal.
All in all, Luke takes maybe six, seven minutes- it feels like a lifetime, and he ends up shrugging back into his disgusting clothes before he really wants to- but it was worth it. Luke glances in the smoky mirror as he squeezes water out of his hair and for the first time in a while, he almost sees himself. Maybe a bit too thin, too pale, too tired-looking, maybe his hair a bit messier, maybe his eyes a bit more haunted- but more himself than he's been in years.
He leaves the fresher, and blends back into the sparse crowds.
"He's not on board," Din repeats. His voice sounds far away, even to himself. "So you did lose him."
"You what-" Bo-Katan starts to snarl, stepping forward with one hand on her blaster- Din shifts in front of her, blocking her with one pauldron. He has no idea if her rage is for him personally, or for the office of the Mand'alor- she has opinions about how royalty should be treated, which Din is fairly certain stems more from how she herself ruled than how she cares to treat him- but he doesn't have time for it. He watches the Imperial lieutenant cower back.
"There is no neutrality agreement without the consort," Din says.
"Of course not, Your Highness," says the lieutenant quickly. Din narrows his eyes- the man is quick enough to title him correctly when in fear of his life, then. His contempt grows. "I beg your forgiveness. There must have been a mistake with- with our ships, or our boarding procedures-"
Din shoulders past and strides to the ship.
He studies it briefly as he makes his way to the ramp, ignoring the stuttering protests of the Imperial lieutenant behind him- it's a standard make and model, Lambda class. There's no augments that he can see. The Empire tends not to have them- their ships are all identical by class, with very specific specs kept up to a very specific code, and this one looks no different. The guards at the ramp shuffle, clearly confused as to whether or not to let him pass, decide on the former when Din storms his way up.
The inside is a different story. Most Lambda shuttles are primarily used as troop transport, with the deck plan composed of bench seating and a tiny refresher, with the cargo hold below. This one has been refitted- or possibly made from the start- for more refined transport. There isn't a cargo hold so much as there's a hallway through to the upper level ladder at the other end. One either side of Din, there's a door. He steps forward. The door on the right whooshes open- it's a bunkroom, outfitted with little more than four beds stacked two-by-two in the corner, a tiny refresher, and an even tinier closet. The officers bunks, then.
Din slams a gloved hand onto the controls of the opposite door, and steps through.
This side is clearly meant for a single passenger. There's a narrow bunk, neatly made- underneath it, there are two utilitarian crates for personal storage. One wall holds a collection of completely empty shelves. There's another tiny refresher and another closet, both of which are also entirely empty. Din knows his spouse-to-be is a human male- there's nowhere large enough to hide for a sentient that size.
Unless.
His eye catches on a floor panel, just slightly uneven to the others. Din switches to heat vision- that section of the floor glows colder than the rest, a square of deep blue-purple.
He draws the Darksaber and ignites it.
The edges of the floor hiss and bubble an angry molten orange as Din cuts through, the uneven panel of the floor falling through with an echoing clang. The Darksaber hums at his side as he stares down. The floor shouldn't have fallen through- the floor should be filled with the twisted wires and complex mechanical insides of a vessel this size, solid and compact.
Instead, Din is looking through to a narrow hole, dark and vacant, through nearly to the bottom of the ship.
A steady thrum of anticipation starts to beat in time with his heart.
When he walks out of the ship, his cloak shifting behind him in the early morning breeze, Bo-Katan is waiting expectantly. The Imperial lieutenant- now cuffed and seated at her boots, silent and wide-eyed- darts glances from between Din and the ship. Both the Imperial guards are held at blaster-point by a seemingly equally pleased Axe and Korkie. Bo-Katan glares.
"Well?" she demands.
"He's not gone. He's escaped," Din says, a hot flash of visceral excitement lurching in him at the thought. His tension is only building. "So there is no neutrality agreement."
The Imperial lieutenant winces, but wisely does not speak. Bo-Katan narrows her eyes at Din.
"What is your will?" she asks. Din pauses. It wouldn't do to jump ahead- he's still not entirely settled as Mand'alor, still doesn't always know the right play- but no. That's not correct.
Right now, he knows exactly the move to make.
"It seems," Din says slowly, taking a moment to savor the heady mix of exhilaration and anticipation coursing through him. "That I finally have a hunt."