I drag my feet through the sand, imitating someone who's close to death and searching for any help she can find in a vast, hot desert. I hold the cut on my left arm with my right hand and walk with a slight limp. With each step I let out a fake whimper.

"Please," I wail exhaustedly, "S-someone help me." I try to sound breathy and tired, barely willing myself to continue on. The sun beats down on my back, making me sweat feverishly. I'm almost to the center of the opening to the camp, now. Din can surely see me by now.

I can't see him, though. I would expect to be able to see him easily with the sun reflecting off of his suit, but he's hidden himself well in the rocky terrain up there.

"Help," I whine, "I need help." I haven't seen single guard yet, or really anyone. If Din didn't tell me there were people here, I would've assumed it was empty by the looks of it. The breeze jostles the burlap tents ever so slightly, adding to the illusion that it's abandoned.

"Is there anyone," I raise my voice, now, trying to project it into the camp. Maybe I was acting too exhausted before and nobody heard me. "Please, is there anyone-"

"Stop."

An unfamiliar voice booms across the desert. I'm not sure how, but it's amplified. Maybe over an intercom, or something? I stop in my tracks.

"Help me," I call out to the disembodied voice. I raise my arm to wipe the sweat from dripping in my eyes.

"I said stop."

I halt all movements, but look up at the edge of the cliff. Still no sign of Din anywhere.

"Turn around and leave," the voice booms.

"Please, I'm going to die out there," I plead with the faceless being.

"Do not move."

I stand as still as I can possibly stand, afraid that Din's warning of an on-sight sniper might become reality if I move a muscle. I watch as ten men, all holding blasters, come out of the shadows of the camp before me.

"Turn around and get on your knees," the voice commands me. I follow the orders and face the sun as I drop to my knees. I hear the footsteps of the men approaching me. They say nothing, but I can hear their grip on their weapons as they get closer and closer.

Then, an idea strikes me. Should I fake pass out? If I 'pass out', would they bring me in their camp, or would they leave me out here to die? Are they going to search me? What if they find the pistol in my belt, or the transponder in my waistband, or the knife in my boot? If I pass out, would they bring me to some kind of med center in their camp? What if they hand cuff me?

Before I can make a decision, the men have caught up to me. 

"Stand," the voice booms. I do as they say and get up from my knees and stand up as wobbly as I could make it look. I think I'm a good actor.

The lead man comes up to me and spins me around to face the camp again. When I face him, he looks me up and down, examining the damage.

"It's just a girl. At ease, boys," the lead man says. At his command, the rest of the men drop their weapons.

"How did you get all the way out here?" he asks me. I didn't think this far ahead in my fake story.

"I was jumped by some guys. They took everything I had and dropped me in the middle of the desert." I try to conjure up some fake tears, but unsuccessfully so. 

"Start walking." He grabs me by the shoulder and leads me toward the camp. I scan the top of the cliff, but still no sign of Din. So, I start walking, keeping up the fake limp.

The lead man brings me into the camp and past several of the tents. Soon enough, he steers me to the center of the camp to a tent larger than the other ones. He opens the burlap 'door' on the tent and pushes me inside. He follows me in. The others stay outside.

Inside, there is another man completely surrounded in piles and piles of credits. He's sat at a desk seemingly counting the credits and organizing them into smaller sacks.

"We found this one at the mouth," the lead man tells the credits man. "Looks injured, but not a threat. What do you want with her?"

The credits man looks like the hologram Din showed me earlier. He's got the large ears and beady eyes that I remember seeing. None of the other men I've seen here yet look like the hologram. He's got glasses on, however. He brings his chin to his chest and looks over the glasses at me.

"Ohhhh," he draws out his initial assessment of me, "What have we here?" He puts the credits down that he was counting gingerly on the desk. He pushes himself up from his seat at the desk and stands at a whopping three-ish feet tall. 

I just need someone to say his name to know if it's who we're looking for.

"We rarely get any visitors here," he speaks in an accent I'm unfamiliar with, "Since we're so far out in the desert... Mostly just people who want what I have." He walks around the desk and up to me, then does a circle around me, looking me up and down.

"I'll take care of her. Take thirty men and make sure there's no one else on the cliffs like the last ambush we had," the man tells the lead man from earlier. 

My heart drops into my stomach. Thirty men?  I thought there was only a few.

"Yes, sir," the man says before he exits the tent, leaving me alone with the boss guy.

Fuck, he didn't say the boss's name.

"Now, what ever shall I do with a little girl like you?" the boss says, trying to sound intimidating. He's super small compared to me. I could probably take him if the need arises.

As he walks around me, I can get a full view of what he looks like. He's short and stocky, with thick, short legs underneath his round body. He looks almost like a humanoid version of a meerkat, but without fur. The closer I look at him, the more I notice. He has large talons on all four of his limbs. Talons large enough to sink into his prey and end its life instantaneously. Maybe I can't take him all alone.

I'm beginning to panic. Din's fearsome, but he can't take on thirty men by himself. And I'm not even 100% certain this is the man we're looking for. He looks like the image, but I don't know his name.

"You see, the last time this happened, a small boy came to the mouth of our camp and whined and wailed about his poor mother being eaten by a rabid qartuum out in the desert. Then, once we brought him into the camp, we were ambushed from above on the cliffs by a platoon of hunters looking to have my head. Apparently I'm worth a good chunk of change."

This must be Seggor Ki.

He stops walking around me and stops in front of me, looking up into my eyes. He grabs my left arm and rotates it, looking at the cut on my outer tricep. My body goes rigid.

"To me, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks self-inflicted. It's at the perfect angle for someone who's right handed to do to themselves to then beg for help out in the desert. It's classic!" I rip my arm out of his grasp and cross my arms over my torso. "And completely unoriginal."

With my arms crossed I use my right arm to cover my left hand searching for the transponder. I feel it tucked into my waistband through my shirt and push it as many times as I could, trying to tell Din that we need to get the fuck out of here.

"So, please tell me, did I get it all correct?" he smiles deviously, "You must have a crew on top of the cliffs ready to pounce when the moment is right."

"Fuck you," I spit in his face. He jumps at my unexpected action and wipes his face gently.

"Ah, I am correct." He smiles again. 

Gunshots. All around. It sounds like there's an army outside shooting at something. I dive to the ground in the opposite direction from Seggor Ki on the other side of the desk.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

I have to just kill him myself, right? FUCK, I hope Din is all right. I fumble with my belt as I try to pull the mini pistol out from it. I pull it out finally and grip it in my palm hard, ready to fight.

Seggor comes out from behind the desk, talons drawn. He sees me on the ground on the other side of the tent and climbs over the desk toward me.

I click the safety off of the pistol and aim it at the alien. He pounces off the desk at me, and I pull the trigger, but I miss as I roll out of the way. He lands on the ground and turns to face me again. He charges me as I shoot another shot in his direction, but I close my eyes out of fear and miss my shot.

Seggor leaps at me and knocks the pistol from my hand, letting it bounce away from me. I manage to throw him off of me and get back to my feet. As I stand up, I pull the switchblade from my boot and brace myself, keeping the blade hidden from him. He charges again, this time on all four. He vaults himself up at me and knocks me back onto the ground. His talons scratch my arms deeply as I push him away from me.

He repeats his move and attacks me again, this time with me on the floor again. I open the blade and grab onto Seggor with both arms once he makes contact with me. I drive the blade into his back as deep as it can go. He lets out a loud blood-curdling scream, probably heard by everyone in this camp.

My hearing rings, now muffled by the screech he just let out. He struggles against me as I pull the blade out and drive it into his flesh over and over again until his body stops moving. 

I didn't realize at the time, but I was screaming as well. I toss the body aside and take deep breaths, trying to calm myself. There are still blaster shots everywhere.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

I stand up and run over to my pistol laying in the floor. I pick it up and exit the tent. My gaze finds the cliff above me, searching for the blaster fire. I see several men on top of the mountain all pointing their guns to my right. I follow their shots to a sheer face in the mountain side where I can finally see Din on top of. There certainly aren't thirty men up there. 

I catch my breath a little, but not for long. I push the hair out of my face and start sprinting toward the men. I lift my pistol and starts shooting at them from the camp. I miss a few of my shots from this far away, but I land a few. One of the men I shot comes tumbling down the mountain toward me. 

His body lands in a ditch at the edge of the camp, as well as his larger blaster. I run over and grab it from him. I've never used a blaster this large, but it can't be that different from my pistol, right?

I copy the stance of the men and put the stock of the gun on my right shoulder. I peer down the scope at them and begin shooting. One-by-one, Din and I finish off the last of the men on the top of the cliff.

Silence.

I look to the right and see Din coming out from behind a rock near the edge of a cliff. He looks okay, unharmed from the chaos. He wipes his shoulders from the soot that covers him head-to-toe.

"You all right?" he calls down to me.

"Fine, you?"

"I'm good. Where's the quarry?"

"Dead in the big tent."

"Great. Let's get out of here before-"

A blaster shot rings out from a location unbeknownst to me. I watch as Din's body goes limp and he falls to his knees. It feels like slow motion watching his body begin to tumble down the side of the mountain. He tries to stop himself from rolling, but the face of the mountain is too steep. 

"DIN!" I scream.

Out of instinct, I raise my blaster and start shooting behind where Din was previously stood. The idiot who shot Din stupidly stuck his head out from behind the rock just enough for me to dome him in the head. I drop the blaster and sprint to Din's body.

He's moving, but barely. He groans in pain, using every last bit of energy he has to avoid screaming.

"Where is it?" I ask him. His hand reaches around to his back side. I roll him over to inspect it. Just under where his armor ends, there's a blaster wound on his left side near his hip. Blood spills out of it rapidly.

"FUCK. Din, can you walk? I need to get you back to the ship. Din? DIN?"

He doesn't answer me, but continues to groan in what I assume is excruciating pain. I put my hands on the wound and push down as hard as I can. He groans even louder.

"We have to keep pressure on it," I tell him. My heart is so loud in my chest, Din can probably hear it. My hands shake and tears well up in my eyes. I breathe heavily, panicking.

I unclip the back plate off of his armor and lift the shirt underneath to see the real damage. It's honestly not the worst thing I've ever seen, but its bleeding profusely. It looks like it could have hit a kidney, but there's a good chance it didn't hit any organs. An inch farther to the left and it would've missed him entirely.

I turn him over back to his front to check for an exit wound. None. That's good, right? Only one wound to deal with. And internal bleeding. And the gallon of blood that's already escaped him.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

"Come on, we're gonna get up. Put all of your weight on me. I just need you vertical."

I take hold of his left arm and throw it over my shoulders. I put his weight on my back and try my best to lift him up off the ground, but fuck, he's heavy.

"Din, work with me. I know it hurts, but I need to get you back to the ship to fix it. Come on, ready, one... two... three!" I heave him as hard as I can onto my back to help him up. He holds on to me and gets his feet underneath him. He groans, loud, and borderline screams in my ear. But he's standing.

"Good, now just move your feet. Keep your weight on me," I instruct him. He follows what I say and moves his feet one at a time. I can feel his blood gushing down the backside of him, soaking his and my clothing. I put my right hand on the wound to try to stop the bleeding, but he's losing a lot of blood fast.

"The ship is just up this hill, you can do it," I tell him. His breathing starts to slow and he slowly becomes heavier and heavier. "Din?"

His grip softens on me and he starts to fall to the ground, halfway up the hill to the ship. 

"Din?" His legs stop moving, and he slides down the side of me, now laying on the ground.

"DIN! Wake up, dammit!" I scramble to try to get him back onto me, but I'm too weak to do it on my own. His armor alone must weigh as much as I do, and I can't take it off of him here. 

"FUCK! What the fuck am I supposed to do? Din?" A puddle of blood starts to pool around him on the ground, and he's completely unconscious from blood loss.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck