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In the control room, Zero had said they had twenty minutes before the New Republic ship arrived. It had taken them three to get to Qin and get betrayed and locked into his cell. Mando had seventeen minutes to get them out of this cell and off this ship. He glanced behind him. Yara's expression was grim but calm. He was forever thankful that she wasn't one to panic. Instead, she was looking around the smooth walls of the cell trying to find them a way out.

He moved closer to the door and crouched, gazing out through the slats. It was less than two minutes before the first patrol droid went by. Mando waited for it to get just past their door before firing his grappling hook. He retracted it and turned around, using his entire body weight to bash the droid again and again against the outside of the cell door. The sounds of pieces clattering to the floor as they feel off and the smell of fried circuitry filled the small space. 

Finally, the droid raised it's blaster arm through the slats and fired several shots into the cell. The blaster bolts began bouncing off the walls once more. Yara let out an uncharacteristic squeak of surprise and moved as close to him as she dared. It had been what he wanted, but he hadn't anticipated so many shots. Mando grabbed the arm and, with all of his strength, wrenched it off the droid. Then, he whirled and grabbed Yara, pinning against the door, once again shielding her body with his own armor. He didn't like that she didn't have armor of her own, but that was going to be a problem for a different day.

Yara felt it through Mando's body when the blasts hit him. He absorbed them with a grunt but didn't say anything. They had to hurt, he so rarely reacted anything. Though Beskar was incredibly strong she was sure the percussion of the impact was painful.

Once the blasts had stopped Mando fired the Droids blaster straight at the droids head, destroying it. With quick hands he jerked the blaster loose from the arm unit, dropping it to the ground at his feet. He jerked off a bit of plating and manipulated the wires until the internal code cylinder slid out. Grateful it hadn't been damaged, he held the arm back through the slats and slid the cylinder head into the locking mechanism. The locks holding the massive door closed all began to disengage and as the door rose he pulled the arm back. He was about to toss the arm away from him but Yara took it from his hand and slid it into her bag that rested across her body. Just in case. Another minute had elapsed.

"You all right?" Mando asked as he set a brisk pace towards the control room. He was so furious he had to fight to keep his voice steady.

Yara opened her mouth to say something a little funny but caught herself. Luckily, she saw and felt with more than just her eyes. Though his tone had the usual monotone buzz of his vocoder there was something else. She could feel it like shimmer in the air. Pure rage. Her eyes snapped up in surprise. She wasn't sure she had ever felt him this angry before.

"I'm not hurt," she finally settled on telling him because she was fairly certain that was what he needed to hear. He nodded curtly and kept walking so fast she nearly had to jog to keep up with his longer legs.

Mando led the way into the control room. He stepped around the body of the young man Xi'an had killed. Yara seemed to hesitate for a moment, blaming herself for his death. He wanted to kill them all for making her feel badly.

He went to a control board below the row of video monitors and silently pressed several buttons and flipped a switch, killing the lights throughout the ship.

Yara stepped up next to him with a frown. She had expected them to just escape, but Mando had something else in mind. She stared at the video feed and she could almost feel it in the air. The keenness of a hunting hound, the desire to chase and catch and kill. She shivered as she touched the controls and began sifting through the video feed to find the quarry.

"Found them," she told him seconds later and her fingers flew over the key board.

He had lost another two minutes. There was just twelve minutes left. He studied them on the video with a cool detachment he didn't feel. He wanted to kill them all. He could do that in twelve minutes. "Funnel them into hallway junction 8C," Mando said.

Yara nodded and the blast doors surrounding the group dropped, giving them only one escape route. She could have turned on the sound to hear their outrage and surprise, but honestly she didn't care. They were all shouting at one another and looked panicked. Even Qin's face was drawn with concern. He glanced up towards the nearest camera with a thoughtful frown.

Yara swallowed. Qin had said he and Mando had been friends once. Friends. Mando didn't have friends, at least not any more, but he could have had associates. For him to run with this crew for so long, they would have had to be competent. 

Xi'an was competent, she was just also crazy. Not really her fault. Ran had been competent, an asshole, but competent. Which left Qin. A crew like this wouldn't be loyal for loyalties sake, Qin was useful, competent, which in this line of work, meant dangerous.

Mayfeld had rounded the small group up and got them to stop arguing long enough to lead the way, running through the dark ship, headed exactly where Mando wanted them.

"Now, we separate them," Mando said coldly. "Wait until they get far enough apart," Mando told her.

"I got it," Yara promised him. As soon as there was enough room between them she entered the command and on screen she watched as a blast door dropped down between the group with Mayfeld and Quin on one side and Xi'an and Burg on the other.

She spit the screens, so they could keep an eye on the two groups, then slid the chair sideways to another screen and quickly went to work backtracking Zero's link to the ships systems and cutting off his backdoor access to the systems.

"Got him," she told Mando turning around with a sly smile. "Zero has no access anymore. Now we just pick them off."

Mando shook his head. "I will handle them. You head back to the ship," he exhaled and stopped for a moment as he remembered there was a droid on the ship. "I'll come with you and handle Zero first, then-"

Normally, Yara would have lost her patience with him just then. He was coddling her again. If she couldn't have felt his barely managed control hanging like thin gossamer threads in the air between them she would have shouted at him about it. Instead, she took a deep breath and recognized his need to protect her. This job had already gone sideways and he was equally as worried about the kid as he was about her. She could forgive him that.

Yara pushed to her feet. "We are running out of time. I can handle one droid," Yara promised him.

"They have no emotions, and nothing for you to read," Mando argued, debating. He was at war with wanting to keep her where he could keep an eye on her and knowing she could take care of herself. She had proven it time and time again and she hated it when he didn't let her stand on her own two feet. He was doing it again, but he couldn't seem to stop, not when he was so close to losing control of his rage. "All right, all right," he muttered, half to himself.

Yara didn't interrupt. She knew there was history there. She had never met someone who hated droids the way Mando did. Given what the battle droids had done to his family when he was a small child, she didn't blame him. His protective instincts would be hounding him right then.

"Get back to the ship, take out the droid and get ready to take off," he glanced down at his wrist. "We have eleven minutes left. If I'm not back in ten, take off and get as far away from here as you can before the New Republic shows up."

"What about you?" Yara asked him, but she knew. He wouldn't let this stand. The rage and pain radiating from him needed to be sated. They would answer for this. But, Mando also wouldn't allow his vengeance to put her or the child to be put in danger. She wanted to kiss him. She knew that with rage burning through him and barely any control over his urge to hunt and kill he wouldn't think so, but he truly was a good man.

She stepped up in front of him. He tilted his helmet down to watch her. She could almost feel the wariness. He expected her to fight him on this. There was a time and place for fighting, but it wasn't in the middle of a mission that had gone sideways. She pushed up on her tiptoes and placed the tips of her fingers over his heart, as though she needed them to balance and pressed her forehead against his.

There was a buzz through his vocoder and his hand encircled one side of her waist as he pressed his forehead back against hers. It was a struggle to keep his movements smooth and gentle, but she gave him this. It shocked him that she could bring him peace when he wanted nothing but to kill and destroy. He tightened his fingers in her side. "Be safe," he told her and he pushed her gently towards the door.

Mando watched as Yara left the control room, jogging off into the blinking red lights alone. He stood over the fallen body of Davan, the man Yara had tried to save. He frowned down at the blinking red tracking beacon. The source of the trouble. Of course, maybe Qin would have left him for dead regardless. He stooped down and picked up the tracker, tucking it into his belt. Just like the droid code cylinder Yara had saved, it could prove useful later.

Mando watched the screens. He used the controls to open and close blast doors, opening up a path for Burg to follow and bring him straight into the control room. He was the strongest, stronger than Mando, so a trap would be the best way to subdue him quickly. Mando got in to position and waited. Burg stupidly followed the path without hesitation. He stepped into the control room, his blaster pointed out in front of him warily. Mando watched him from above, where he held himself among the ducts and support beams in the ceiling.

"Where are you, little mouse?" Burg grumbled.

Mando shot his grappling hook down, catching Burg around the throat. He pulled it tight, trying to pull him up and hang him, but Burg just glared up at him, straining against the tension. Finally, Burg gave on last defiant jerk and Mando swore as the ceiling gave out beneath his feet and he fell to the floor at Burgs feet. He tried firing the whistling birds, but Burg blocked his arm with a powerful strike that made his arm go numb form the elbow down.

Burg picked him up by the chest plate and mando pulled two blasters, pointing them at his head. To avoid the shot Burg threw him straight down onto his back, knocking the wind out of him. Mando grunted as he fought to regain his air, and Burg picked him up like a toy and tossed him across the room into the control panel. Mando turned and fired his flame thrower straight into Burg's face but it did nothing to stop the Devonian.

Burg advanced into the flames and slapped Mando's hand away. Then he backhanded Mando hard enough he saw stars. Burg pulled Mando with him and slammed his helmet covered head down against the control panel, dragging it along the rough metal. Mando gritted his teeth against the pain, noise and sparks that were popping all around him. Burg picked him up and drop kicked him in the chest as though he were a ball. Mando flipped across the room, slamming painfully into the floor.

Mando groaned.

"Let's see your face Mandalorian," Burg growled. He picked Mando up with one hand around his neck and reached for his helmet with the other. Mando twisted and managed to flip him over into the doorway. Mando tossed a knife into the controls and the control room doors dropped shut on the back of Burg's neck. Burg hit the floor and just as Mando thought he had him down, Burg stood, raising the door on the backs of his shoulders laughing. Mando reached beside him and casually slammed his fist down on the blast door controls. The stronger doors slammed closed and there was nothing Burg could do to stop them.

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Yara moved swiftly and silently through the dark prison ship. Many of the prisoners surrounding her called out when they saw she was alone, but she ignored them. Mando was depending on her to get to the Crest before Zero could reinstate his access. If he did that, then Mando would lose his advantage over the four individuals still on board.

She had her blaster free in her hand and as she approached the base of the ladder she froze. She closed her eyes for a moment but there was no help for her. Above her, the hatch to the crest was still open. Grateful the crest was too old to have internal life sign detectors and alarms she silently climbed up the metal ladder. She sidestepped into the rack where Mando would store bounties frozen in carbonite. From there, she peered around the side of a large block and spotted the droid. He was moving around the doors of the living quarters with his blaster drawn.

Yara felt a flare of panic as he reached out to touch the controls that would open Mando's door. The kid cooed softly, but she couldn't see him from where she was. The droid pulled back in surprise and very slowly lifted it's rifle to it's shoulder and aimed it at the child.

Her shot should have been sloppy, she barely aimed, and when she pulled the trigger she knew it was no good. She stared at the droids central processing until in dismay and flinched in surprise when her shot hit it in an explosion of sparks. The droid collpased like a puppet with it's strings cut, sparks flying everywhere as the wires burned.

The child was looking down at his hand in wonder. Then he lifted his eyes up to her and giggled. Cooing happily at the sight of her. Yara rushed forward and picked up the child and hustled up to the cockpit to re-establish comms with Mando and the ship. She dropped the child into his chair and took the controls.

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Mando went after Xi'an next. She would be the most trouble, other than Qin, she knew him the best. She knew he was free and was hunting him. He came around the corner behind her, his blaster drawn. She whipped around and her first dagger caught the blaster sending it skidding away from him. He looked at it and turned back to her. She hissed and charged. She flipped off four, five, six daggers as she ran. Mando blocked them with his forearm and let them bounce off the beskar harmlessly. Xi'an was good, but he was faster. Always had been, and they had trained enough together that he knew how she would move.

She pulled herself up and threw her seventh dagger on flat feet. That one he missed and it slid through the gap in the armor at his shoulder. He gasped in pain and her eyes glimmered with excitement and a sexual heat that made his stomach churn. He wondered if she had always been this broken and he just hadn't cared. She pulled her last two knives and charged him. He slapped her hand away and swung around, the opposite of what she was expecting and he got a knife against her throat in exactly the same place she had bloodied Yara. She hissed at him angrily. Mando didn't forgive that sort of thing.

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Mando smirked beneath his helmet as the blast door in front of Mayfeld opened eerily. Yara was back on the ship and had tapped into the controls. He recognized her work. She was playing into the man's fear.

Mayfeld may have doubted Mando before, but he was moving cautiously through the ship now. The lights turned from the steady red backup to the flashing white warning lights giving him an edge to move through the darkness between flashes. He watched as Mayfeld stared down at a droid and chuckled to himself. Mando advanced on him in long, silent strides. Mayfeld turned in a small circle, fear on his face. Mando slid to the side in the darkness, using the flashing lights to his advantage. Once Mayfeld was facing the direction Mando had come from he advanced towards him once more.

"NO!" Mayfeld screamed as he turned to see Mando inches away from him. He raised his blaster, but at that range, he didn't stand a chance against Mando.

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Mando finished up on the ship, wiping their tracks and making sure everyone was in order before he headed back to the Crest. They had three minutes left.

He knew Qin well enough to know that was where he would go. He would leave everyone else to do his dirty work and clean up after him. He was terrified of Qin getting there before he did. He trusted Yara to have taken care of the droid, but Qin was another matter. Qin was a particularly brutal bastard, as was evidenced by the fact that he had left his own sister behind without thought.

Qin was just at the base of the ladder when Mando came up behind him.

"Qin," Mando called to him, his voice a rough growl through his modulator as he stepped around the corner, his hands hanging empty at his sides.

Quin stopped one foot on the ladder hanging his head in defeat. Mando didn't miss the fact that he couldn't see Qin's other hand and it happened to be his blaster hand.

"You killed the others," Qin accused in a low tone.

Mando cocked his head to the side. "They got what they deserved," he told him emotionlessly.

Qin rested his forehead against the ladder, a snarl rising in his throat. He moved, whipping around to aim his blaster at Mando, but Mando had moved faster, his blaster already aimed at Qin's chest before he got halfway around. A blaster cocked loudly over his head and Qin looked up.

The door above them had remained open and Yara was sitting with her legs braced against the sides of the passage, a blaster aimed at his head. Qin froze, pinned between the two of them.

Qin looked up at her with appreciation in his gaze. "She's quite the upgrade," Qin said, speaking ill of his own sister without thought.

"She'll kill you as fast as I would," Mando promised.

"But you didn't kill me Mando, you left me behind," Qin lifted his eyes up to meet Yara's. "He'll do it to you too. Something will happen and it will violate his precious Code, you won't see it coming and he'll just leave you. This is the way," he growled. "We were best mates Mando," Qin reminded him, taking half a step towards him.

Yara uncocked and recocked her blaster. It was unnecessary and showy, just as it had been the first time, but it brought Qin's attention back to her. "Put your blaster down," she warned him. She wanted to shoot him. He was dangerous and his words had made Mando pause. She hated that.

Qin lowered his blaster to his side. "You kill me," he said turning back to Mando. "And you don't get your money," he said with a shrug. "Whatever Ran promised I'll make sure you get it, and more."

Neither Mando nor Yara had moved. "Come on Mando," Qin implored. "Be reasonable," he said and he very slowly moved to set his blaster on the ground. He leveled his gaze on Mando, fully ignoring Yara now. It was a potentially fatal mistake, but Mando was really the one he knew he would have to convince. "You were hired to do a job, right?" Qin asked. "So do it," he said and be brought his hands around together in front of them, offering his wrists to be cuffed. "Isn't that your code? Aren't you a man of honor?" he pressed, his disdain for the Mandalorian code evident in his voice.

Mando growled low in his throat. He didn't like it, but Qin wasn't wrong. He stepped forward and put cuffs on the Twi'leks wrists. Qin smirked at him. He then turned him around and shoved him towards the ladder, leaving Qin to struggle to climb with his wrists bound.

Mando tilted his helmet up to look at Yara, but her face was expressionless as she stepped back. When Mando followed Qin up, she was standing a few feet back and still had her blaster pointed at him. Yara didn't like the feelings she was getting off of Qin at all.

Mando moved Qin ahead of him and into the cockpit. He wasn't about to leave him down here with his family. To his surprise Yara followed with the kid in one arm and the blaster in the other. Mando shoved Qin down into the kids usual seat and took the controls. Yara sat down in her seat over his shoulder and adjusted the kid before pointing the blaster back at Qin.

Qin leaned towards her, a leering, ugly expression in his eyes. He watched both her and the child like they were merely tools he could use to manipulate Mando. "Must you keep pointing that at me? It's making me nervous you might get twitchy. If you aren't going to shoot me, would you put it away?"

"If I haven't decided if I'm going to shoot your or not," Yara told him honestly and then she flashed him a bright smile and the kid cooed happily.

Beneath his helmet, Mando smiled as he took them into hyperspace with one minute to spare.

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Mando guided the Razor Crest down to a smooth landing on the space station. Mando stood with Qin in front of him as the ramp lowered. Ran was waiting. Once it was down, Mando unclipped the wrist cuffs and stepped back from Qin, releasing him. Ran looked back and forth between the two of them but Qin flashed a smile and started laughing as he and Ran embraced.

Yara stood at the top of the ramp, her hip cocked, her arms crossed over her chest. A sexy badass air all around her. Ran looked past Mando and his gaze landed on her. He raked his eyes over her form but then frowned when no one else appeared. "Where are the others?" he asked Mando with a frown.

"No questions asked, that's the policy right?" Mando asked.

"Yeah," Ran said with a curt nod. "That is the policy."

"I did the job," Mando said.

"Yeah, you did," Ran agreed and he reached into his vest and pulled out a small bag of credits. He tossed it to the Mandoalorian.

Mando caught the bag and hefted it, weighting its contents. It felt right. "Just like the good old days," Mando said without a hint of nostalgia in his tone. He was done with these people. He just wanted to get his family as far from them as possible.

Ran nodded, but there was something in his eyes. Behind Mando Yara shifted, a small frown on her face. She didn't like the feeling she was getting, but it was almost impossible to tell if it meant anything or if it was still just the low level anger and chaos she had been getting off of Qin since he set foot on the ship.

"Yeah," Ran agreed. "Just like the good old days."

Mando nodded sharply and turned to head back up the ramp. He closed it and stood there, staring them down. Once they were sealed in the crest he made his way to the cockpit. The kid was sitting in his seat chattering away as Yara ran preflight. Mando gently touched her side and took over. He moved fast, knowing what was coming. They didn't have long to get distance between themselves and the tracker he had slid into Qin's belt.

He was just putting the coordinates into the hyperdrive when three New Republic X-wing fighters appeared. They were closing in on the base, and had just opened fire as he made the jump. Once they were in the swirling vortex of hyperspace he felt like he could breathe again.

He unscrewed the ball off the end of the steering column and handed it back to the child. His words were light and playful for the kid, but his eyes were locked on Yara's. "I told you that was a bad idea."

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