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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Images from the Film
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….
“IT’S MY HIGHEST bounty,” Greef Karga said.
From his side of the table, the Mandalorian looked back at him. It was never clear whether Karga was telling the whole truth. In the man’s role as a local agent for the Bounty Hunters Guild, he scattered half-truths, rumors, and outright lies the same way he used Imperial credits and bounty pucks—as tools of maintaining some uneasy, ever-shifting balance among the hunters he worked with and the shadowy figures he served. It was nothing personal, just business.
“Let’s see the puck,” Mando said, referring to the small holographic device that contained information about the bounty.
“No puck. Face to face.” Karga paused. “Direct commission. Deep pocket.”
The Mandalorian wasn’t surprised. Often the most profitable work came with the least amount of information, usually for the protection of the client, who didn’t want their business known to the public. “Underworld?”
“All I know is there’s no chain code,” Karga said, not bothering to hide his impatience. “Do you want the chit or not?”
The Mandalorian took it. It was never really a question. Even for an experienced hunter like himself, whose reputation preceded him, pickings were slim, from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim. After the fall of the Empire, the galaxy seemed to have lost its way. There was little economic stability or rule of law, and if the New Republic’s promise of peace and prosperity had yet come to pass, it hadn’t trickled its way down to a backwater planet like Nevarro. On those streets and a thousand others like them, smugglers and thieves, local warlords and thugs all conducted their business in the shadows, and sometimes even in broad daylight. More and more of the time, crime flourished, but for bounty hunters, the criminals themselves were worth less and less.
As he walked along the back streets, on his way to meet his new client, Mando thought about the immediate future—his next assignment, and the next, and the one after that. Countless faces, forgotten planets, their names reduced to credits paid and owed. These targets formed a chain of their own, an endless stream of bounties extending off into some uncertain future. The Guild expected hunters to bring their bounty in with no questions asked, and forgetting about it just as quickly afterward was part of the trade, which suited the Mandalorian just fine.
He already had too much he couldn’t forget.
The roar of explosions, the terrified faces of his parents, gleaming with sweat—all of it still vivid and jarring—as they rushed with him through the street, their entire world falling to pieces behind them in the Great Purge—
Beyond it all was the Creed.
Somewhere between the darkness of the past and the vague blur of the future, the road itself remained clear. Wherever he went, the skills and strength of the Mandalorians provided the path beneath his feet, a destiny that would always be waiting for him.
It was the Way.
“GREEF KARGA SAID you were coming.”
Mando stood in front of the Client, letting the silence play out around him. For a supposed safe house, the room didn’t feel particularly safe. Walking in, he’d found four stormtroopers in dusty, battle-scarred armor surrounding him, blasters at the ready. Like the Empire they once served, the troopers had been stripped of their official authority but not of their menace. These days, they worked, fought, and killed for whoever offered the highest pay.
“What else did Karga say?” Mando asked.
“He said you were the best in the parsec.” The Client’s expression didn’t change. He was a man in his seventies with white hair and an accent Mando couldn’t place, but his distinguished mannerisms hinted at a former life as a highly ranked Imperial officer. “He also said you were expensive.”
It wasn’t a question, and Mando didn’t bother to answer it. There was a muffled clink as he watched the old man unfold a piece of soft black fabric across the table in front of him to reveal a flat rectangular plate of metal lying at the center of the red lining. He was aware of the troopers behind him leaning in for a closer look. Even they couldn’t disguise their interest in such a treasure. The Mandalorian knew its name at once.
“Beskar?”
“This is only a down payment,” the Client said. “The rest will be waiting for you on delivery of the asset.”
“Alive,” added the anxious, bespectacled man standing next to him. The Client had introduced him as Dr. Pershing, and the doctor’s excited entrance into the room a moment earlier had nearly gotten him shot before the Client had asked Mando to put away his blaster.
“Proof of termination is also acceptable, for a lower fee,” the Client said, not bothering to acknowledge Pershing’s sputtering objections. “I’m simply being practical. Bounty hunting is an uncertain business.” The old man waited, allowing the meaning of the words to sink in. “The beskar belongs back with a Mandalorian. It is good to restore the natural order of things after a period of such disarray.” He raised his eyes upward. “Don’t you agree?”
Agree or not, the job was his, and the beskar with it. The Client had provided him with a tracking fob and the quarry’s last known location. The hunt awaited.
But first he needed to make one more stop.
He stepped through the hidden doorway and followed the steps down into the coolness and familiarity of the shadows that awaited him. The Armorer’s foundry was down a long flight of stairs, located deep beneath the surface, hidden away from the eyes of the enemies that had driven their sect underground. This was a secret place, its location carefully guarded. There in the gloom, the steady circle of blue flames burned brightly, and the clink of the Armorer’s hammer gave the darkness a kind of heartbeat all its own.
He and the Armorer exchanged nods, and when he gave the bar of beskar to her, she didn’t speak immediately.
“This was gathered in the Great Purge,” she eventually said. “It is good that it is back with the tribe.” She looked at him. “A pauldron would be in order. Has your signet been revealed?”
“No.”
“Soon.” As she melted the beskar down in the forge, the molten metal streaming through a series of heated troughs
to fill the waiting mold, her voice softened somewhat. “This is extremely generous. The excess will sponsor many foundlings.”
“That’s good,” Mando said. “I was once a foundling.”
“I know,” she said, and there was little more to add to the conversation.
Soon enough, he was on his way.
THE RAZOR CREST WAS HOME.
Where others might look at the gunship and see a simple means of transportation or escape, the Mandalorian knew the Crest as his haven, almost an extension of the armor and helmet that protected him. Programming the navicomputer with the coordinates provided by the Client, he felt the familiar rumble of thrusters taking hold, deepening through the gunship’s frame as it broke away from the spaceport, tilted slightly on its axis, and flung itself into space.
In many ways, the pursuit of his quarry was always the same. It was only a matter of time before he returned to Nevarro with his bounty in tow, he collected what was owed, and then the whole process began again.
And yet this time felt different.
Perhaps it was seeing the beskar, feeling its weight in his hands, and hearing the Armorer’s prediction that his signet would soon be revealed.
The ship flew on for some time, arcing across space, until a proximity beacon began to pulse on the console in front of him. His senses sharpened as he leaned in to switch the navigation back over to manual. Arvala-7 was the name of the planet—its rocky landscape spreading out before him in barren, jagged peaks as he dropped his altitude and began his initial descent.
The desert rose up to meet him, gradually then all at once. Extending the landing gear, he brought the ship down in a flat canyon surrounded by reddish-brown foothills, then stepped out and walked down the boarding ramp to survey the land, the tracking fob blinking in his hand. After hours spent inside the ship, it felt good to stand on solid ground, even if the soil itself felt muddy and soft beneath his boots.
He raised his rifle, activated the scope, and took his time scanning the wide-open landscape, tracking the line of the horizon until he settled on a pair of squat, two-legged creatures wandering across the plain. The things were almost absurdly ugly, round-backed with blunt heads like primitive fish and mouths full of teeth that looked like they could easily crush whatever they could catch. No doubt they were dangerous up close—although the Mandalorian was determined to keep his distance. For the time being, he only saw two of them.
The third was standing right in front of him.
—
The creature attacked him with a snarling bellow. Mando screamed as it clamped its jaws around his arm, jerked him off his feet, and threw him to the ground. When he managed to break free and blast it with his flamethrower, the beast squawked and released him just long enough for him to realize that he’d only made it angry. Within moments, another of its kind had arrived and would almost certainly have finished him off if not for the tranquilizer darts that suddenly dropped both creatures to the ground.
Mando looked up and saw another one of the creatures lumbering forward. Unlike the others, this one carried a rider—an Ugnaught in flier’s goggles and helmet who seemed unsurprised to find a Mandalorian sprawled on the ground with his leg trapped underneath one of the beasts.
Mando nodded at the tranquilizer darts embedded in the creatures’ skin. “Thank you.”
The Ugnaught observed him for a moment with the gaze of one who was used to spending his days alone. “You are a bounty hunter.”
“Yes.”
“I am Kuiil,” he said. “I will help you.”
I didn’t ask for your help, Mando thought, but the Ugnaught had already nodded.
“I have spoken.”
KUIIL INFORMED the Mandalorian that the creatures that had attacked him were called blurrgs. They were ugly and smelled horrible, but if the Mandalorian was going to travel on Arvala-7, he would not only need to ride one but also must learn to do so with some degree of mastery.
“Many have passed through here,” Kuiil told him as they sat in his encampment, discussing the trip. “They seek the same one as you.”
“Did you help them?”
“Yes.” The Ugnaught poured water into a cup and held it out, offering it to him. “They died.”
“Then I don’t know if I want your help.”
Kuiil didn’t bother to argue.
Later that afternoon, Kuiil took the bounty hunter out to the paddock behind his compound and watched patiently as his new guest mounted a blurrg and was thrown off, over and over again. Kuiil wondered how much the Mandalorian’s armor cushioned the blows. From where he was standing, Mando’s struggles looked brutal and didn’t seem to be getting any better. The blurrg was the first one Kuiil had shot earlier with a tranquilizer dart, and he had to admit the beast seemed to be in an even worse mood than before, determined to exact revenge for the Mandalorian’s attempt to roast it with his flamethrower.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so quick with that weapon, Kuiil thought, but he decided to keep his opinion to himself. Standing on the other side of the fence, he didn’t need to see the Mandalorian’s face behind the visor to know that the hunter was growing more exasperated every time the blurrg threw him off. His patience had clearly worn thin.
“I don’t have time for this,” Mando said. “Do you have a landspeeder or a speeder bike that I could hire?”
Kuiil shook his head. “You are a Mandalorian!” he said. “Your ancestors rode the great mythosaurs! Surely you can ride this young foal.”
The Mandalorian staggered to his feet and looked across the paddock, where the blurrg was glaring back at him with baleful yellow eyes, already preparing for their next match. Kuiil, who knew the creature’s expression well, felt as though he could almost read the blurrg’s thoughts. I will defeat you, her eyes said. I have thrown far better men than you to the ground, bounty hunter, and I will do so again, long after you are gone from this place. Unless of course you choose to die here.
Kuiil waited to see what the bounty hunter would do—give up and walk away, or make another attempt to subdue the blurrg by force?
But the Mandalorian did neither. At first, he seemed to do nothing at all. Kuiil watched as he took one tentative step toward the blurrg, arms at his sides, hands slightly outstretched in a gesture of peace, and then another step. “Easy,” he said, and this time, instead of throwing himself at the creature, he moved toward her slowly, allowing her time to adjust to his presence. “Okay.”
The creature snuffed and grunted at him, but didn’t charge. By the time he reached her, she had allowed him to place his hand on the top of her head. “All right,” Mando said, and pulled himself up onto her back. She growled but didn’t try to throw him, and by the time they’d left the paddock, heading into the open desert, he’d begun to find his balance.
Leaving the camp, Mando and Kuiil rode single file upward into higher country, along a series of peaks and narrow ridges interspersed with crevasses so deep they couldn’t see the bottom. The blurrgs leapt over these gaps in the earth with surprising agility, never losing their footing. Moving down into flatter terrain, the two riders advanced across vast baked plates of dirt that seemed to have fractured, broken in a way that would never heal, as they dried under the remorseless eye of the sun.
Finally, reaching a high plateau, Kuiil brought his mount to heel and pointed down. “That is where you’ll find your quarry.”
Gazing at the compound below, Mando reached into the side pouch of his harness and pulled out a small bag of credits. “Please,” he told Kuiil. “You deserve this.”
The Ugnaught shook his head. “Since these ones arrived, this territory has been an endless stream of mercenaries seeking reward and bringing destruction,” he said. “I grow weary of it.”
Mando looked at him, not understanding. “Then why did you guide me?”
“They do not belong here,” Kuiil said. “Those that live here come to seek peace. There’ll be no peace until they’re gone.”
�
��Then why did you help me?”
Kuiil didn’t respond right away. Years of having no one to talk to had made him mindful of his words, and he chose them with care. “I have never met a Mandalorian,” he said. “I’ve only read the stories. If they are true, then you will make quick work of it. Then there will again be peace.” Tugging at the reins of his mount, he raised one hand in a gesture of finality. “I have spoken.”
THE CAMP WAS a U-shaped arrangement of flat-roofed buildings around a dusty open plaza. Looking down through his viewing scope, Mando observed the Nikto mercenaries and guards passing time in the late afternoon sun. Accustomed to the desert environment, the Nikto were scaly-skinned and imposing, their faces and heads studded with horns and spikes. To him, they looked dangerous in the way the renegade stormtroopers at the safe house had been dangerous—like bored soldiers, heavily armed and looking for trouble.
He was still watching them, planning his approach, when an immediately recognizable mechanized figure walked into the compound and made the situation worse.
“Attention,” the bounty droid said to the mercenaries. It was an IG unit, designed for combat. “Subparagraph sixteen of the Bondsman Guild protocol waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.”
“Oh, no,” Mando muttered. Down below, the IG was still moving forward when the guards around the plaza reached for their blasters—and simultaneously signed their death warrants. Without hesitating, the droid snapped into action, spinning around and opening fire on the gunman directly in front of it, its body turning effortlessly with blasters in either hand, firing nonstop with precision-tooled accuracy. Not once did it falter, even when a blaster bolt ricocheted off its processor plate.
As Mando made his way down the escarpment and into the compound, he was aware that the blasting had ceased. Silence filled the open space. By the time the last echoes had faded and the smoke and dust had settled, he saw that the ground was covered with the bodies of the hired Nikto. In the quiet, the droid’s voice sounded exactly the same as it had before, completely unflappable, as it repeated its mission.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian Junior Novel Page 1
