Hello all! I'm so glad you decided to give the story a try! I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback as I go. It's been a little while since I've started a new project and I'm very excited about it! 

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Happy Reading!

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Yara didn't know how long she had been there. Weeks...months...maker she hoped it wasn't years. It didn't feel like years, but it all blended together in a nightmare of tests, blood draws and endless hours strapped down to the med cot.

She was beginning to have trouble telling the difference between memories of her past, new experiences and those strange flashes that were somehow neither. It was the flashes that they wanted. They were the reason she had been kept here. But she couldn't tell the difference no matter how much they hurt her. It all blended together in the drug induced haze they had hoped would make the flashes stronger.

The Imperial faction was in hiding, she knew that much, but she wasn't sure why they wanted her. Why the flashes of half forgotten dreams were so important to them. They had gone to great effort to take her and keep her however.

The very thing they wanted to study about her actually made her quite difficult to keep prisoner. It was hard to keep someone who seemed to have the uncanny ability to always guess correctly where the keys were being kept, or seemed to just know when and where the guards were without thinking about it.

Yara had been moved into the main lab when it happened. The whole place was buzzing, like insects under her skin. Even the bosses, still wearing their Imperial uniforms, perfectly pressed, as though it meant something, were excited. The troopers had even chatted about the new specimen when they had moved her from her cage to the lab.

She caught hazy flashes, somehow tied to their conversation, but it had been a while since she had been given the drugs that made them easier to see. She was glad to ignore them, the flashes were usually accompanied by a terrible headache. They laid her back down on the Med cot, strapping her down and left her there. A short time later the scientist came in with something in his arms.

It took Yara's tired brain longer than it should to realize it was a child wrapped in a blanket. A child was the last thing she had expected to see in the Imperial lab Yara frowned, looking from the scientist to the child. He was barely more than an infant. He had large, bat-like ears and green, wrinkly skin. He turned and met her gaze across the room, his eyes were inky black like the darkest reaches of space.

She couldn't explain it, but for the first time since Yara had been brought here, she felt a glimmer of hope. She frowned at the child, trying to decide what about it would make her feel that way. When they had taken her they had killed her family, her fiancé and all of her friends. Yara had been locked in knowing no one was coming for her. Hope had not been something she had felt for a long time.

The scientist placed the child on a cot next to her, humming excitedly to himself. The infant squeaked when he placed the IV, but was quiet once again once the drugs entered it's system. Not once in all the time she had been kept here had the scientist acknowledged she was a living, breathing human. It didn't appear he was about to change his behavior with the child. The scientist turned to her and administered the drugs that would make the world go hazy.

Her head fell back against the cot and when she turned her head towards the cot next to her the child was looking at her. It's wide black eyes met hers and there was a flash between one blink and the next that was too fast for her to be able to tell what it was or what it meant. The scientist left them then, the door sliding shut behind him. 

"It'll be okay," she assured the child. 

It shifted it's head so it could see her better. It's eyes beginning to droop with exhaustion, but it cooed softly in the back of it's throat. 

"We'll get out of here," she promised it and then she too gave into the drugs as they pulled her under. 

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It was late when Yara was awoken by a loud noise outside the lab. She jerked awake, fighting against the cloudy haze of the drugs they kept in her system to keep her quiet. It took her a moment to remember the reason she couldn't move was because she was tied down beneath the scanner. She had long ago dealt with the feelings of claustrophobia when she was trapped in the dark and couldn't move, but she shifted anyway against the he straps; always testing.

A blast shook the compound and her head snapped towards the door as she remembered something had woken her. She heard blaster fire outside a second before the lights went down. In the brief moment of pure blackness before the emergency lights came up Yara saw a flash behind her eyelids; a reflection of herself in something that wasn't quite a mirror. Then the lights came back and another blaster shot sounded. This one closer.

She shook her head. She had to work to push past the drugs. The door slid open and the scientist ran in. He stopped at the door and initiated the locks then ran deeper into the room. It took Yara a moment to realize he had a blaster in his hand. Never in all her time here had she seen him armed. Whatever was happening outside those doors just might be her chance to finally escape.

The scientist crouched down behind the cots she and the child were kept on, hiding in the shadows. Yara forced her body to stay perfectly still so he would think she was still asleep, but in the dim light he couldn't see that her eyes were open and her body was coiled. Her eyes flickered to the child, but he was still fast asleep. 

Another blaster shot and a shower of sparks exploded out from their side of the door lock. The door slid open and a menacing figure stalked into the room. It was a Mandalorian in full beskar armor, his cape swirling around him dramatically with a blaster in each hand. Yara blinked at the sight, it didn't seem real. Somehow this felt like a dream, like she had seen it all before. She slow blinked again and the feeling fled as rapidly as it had come.

A stormtrooper came running up behind the Mandalorian and without hesitating he whipped around and fired his blaster at the stormtrooper. While he was distracted the scientist slowly stood between the cots. Yara could hear his ragged, terrified breathing as he raised his blaster, aiming at the intruder.

"Behind you!" Yara called, her voice croaked from lack of use, but the Mandalorian heard her.

Yara didn't know what possessed her to try and help him. She didn't know him, didn't know if he was there to help them, take them, or kill them all. All she knew was that she couldn't keep going on like this. She wouldn't live like a lab rat another day. If she had a chance to get her and the child out of here she would take it.

The Mandalorian easily ducked the scientist's sloppy shot, and swung around towards the sound of her voice. A medical droid come towards him from within the shadows of the room with a needle outstretched. The Mandalorian fired a single shot and the droid dropped to the ground. A small fire starting as it's wires frayed and smoked.

"Drop the blaster," The Mandalorian ordered, turning his attention back to the scientist. The scientist immediately threw the blaster away from him. His eyes behind his glasses were wide with fear as he stared at the Mandalorian.

"Where is it? What did you do to it?" The Mandalorian demanded stalking into the room.

"No! No! No! Please don't hurt him!" the scientist wailed. "He's just a child."

The Mandalorian stepped up to the cot where the child was unconscious beneath the scanner. His helmet turned to where Yara was before he looked back down at the child. "What did you do to it?" The Mandalorian demanded angrily.

"I protected him! If it wasn't for me he would already be dead!" the scientist wailed.

"And the woman?" he asked, his eyes cutting to where Yara was trapped on her med cot. "What about her? Did you protect her?" he challenged.

The scientist paled and The Mandalorian shot him without hesitation. He slid his blaster away and turned to the cots. He pressed the release button on the scanner and then cocked his helmet to the side when he saw Yara was tied down in addition to being restrained by the scanner.

Yara followed his gaze. "I kept trying to escape," she told him, answering his unasked question.

"Good," he said stoically, his voice coming through the helmet modulator had a slightly robotic sound as it was distorted. He pulled a knife from his belt to cut her free.

On instinct Yara flinched back away from him. The only people who had come near her in the last few months had hurt her. She tightened all of her muscles, preparing to defend herself if necessary.

The Mandalorian noticed immediately. He froze for a second. "You're safe, I'm not here to hurt you," he intoned. He sliced through the binds that tied her to the bed and turned to free the child, picking him up in his arms with surprisingly gentleness.

Yara climbed to her feet, staggering slightly as her legs struggled to hold her weight, but she managed to stay upright.

"Why are you here?" Yara asked. 

When she was a little girl she remembered the gun runners in her father's business telling stories about Mandalorians. They all seemed to regard them with a mix of reverence and fear. In all her business and travels however, Yara had never seen one in person.

The Mandalorian turned his helmet towards her. "To rescue it," he said looking down at the child in his arms. "Is it okay?" he asked, frowning at the sleeping child.

"They give drugs in the evening to keep us quiet," Yara told him, her throat scratchy from lack of use.

"What about you?" He asked, his helmet moved slightly making her think he was looking her up and down.

"Me too," Yara told him. "But adrenaline is a beautiful thing," she told him with a grim smile.

"Can you walk?" He asked briskly.

Yara lifted her chin, her eyes glinting with determination. "Can I get out of here?" She countered.

"If you can walk," the Mandalorian replied emotionlessly.

Yara set her jaw and shoved herself away from the cot onto her own two feet. "I'll walk," she promised.

The Mandalorian nodded once and moved to the door. "Follow me and keep up if you want to get out of here."

Yara didn't hesitate. She bent down and took the blaster off of the scientist. The Mandalorian looked down at the blaster in her trembling hand. She tried to force her limbs to stop shaking, but she was weak, the drugs and small amounts of food they were permitted weren't helping matters. She wondered if The Mandalorian was going to argue about her being armed.

He didn't. He turned, the child under one arm, and led the way out into the hall. Yara was shaky on her feet, but she forced her legs to keep moving. She would not stay here. This might be her only chance to escape. She would crawl out of here if she had to. 

The two of them stepped out into the corridor. Yara reached out and grabbed the Mandalorian's back, jerking him back against the wall out of sight seconds before a door slid open and two more stormtroopers came out. They remained hidden and the Stormtroopers continued on their way. 

The Mandalorian tensed, as though expecting an attack but when he realized what had happened and that she actually protected him, he nodded his thanks to the small woman.

He pulled his blaster. "We'll have to fight our way out," he warned her.

Yara shot him an incredulous look. "That's your exit strategy? You came in here, but you didn't have a plan for getting out?"

The Mandalorian sort of shrugged. Unconcerned, he stalked off down the hall the kid in one hand and his blaster in the other. 

Yara jogged after him, trusting he knew the way out. It had been so long since Yara was out of the lab she had no memory of even how to escape. She kept catching flashes behind her eyes when she blinked. 

They were halfway across an open storage room when she caught a flash and her head snapped towards the door on the far side. "There, two of them," she called. She whirled around and slammed her palm against the lights half a second before the door slid open and two stormtroopers came into the room. The Mandalorian grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down. The two of them crouched together, hiding behind a large stack of crates.  

"Split up, flush him out," the first stormtrooper ordered.

The second stormtrooper hesitated and touched the side of his helmet. He cocked his helmet as he listened to his radio. "Copy that," he replied. "Maker," he half whispered, slowly turning to his companion. "He turned the girl loose."

The Mandalorian turned his helmet to look at the small woman crouching beside him. She looked perfectly ordinary. 

"Oh kriff," the other stormtrooper muttered in horror.

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