My heart starts pounding, trying to get myself to panic. No, no. We're staying calm. It's just a storm. We don't need to panic over a little bit of rain. There's been worse.

"Din? Just give me a beep if you can hear me," I plead with the transponder clutched in my fist. I stare at the shiny metal gadget, just waiting for any indication of acknowledgement. It remains quiet.

Calm down, Koda. Maker, you're acting like the ship just blew up or something. It's just rain.

I lay back in my seat to try to ease my nerves. Realistically, the coms probably just lost connection because of the storm. The energy waves of the storm tend to wipe out wireless electronics quite easily. There's no reason to assume the worst. I'm overreacting.

But I can't help myself. My heart races and my mind wanders to every possibility.

Is the connection just lost, or is he in trouble?

Did my com-link break?

Did he get captured and can't respond to me?

No, Koda. Stop it. Thinking like this will help nobody. I should find something to occupy my mind with. He's capable of doing missions on his own. He did it for far longer before I came into the picture. 

I move around the ship, looking for something to do. I already cleaned everything and everything is put away in its rightful spot. Unfortunately, I didn't stumble upon any board games or decks of cards in my search inside the cabin. Definitely nothing for entertainment. 

I mean, what does he do to entertain himself? Is he just always on a mission so that he doesn't have to find entertainment? There's no way he's that busy all the time.

I rummage around my brown bag to look for something to do in there. I swipe around coins, snacks, my weapons. I could give my weapons a good wipe down, I guess. It's always good to maintain them, or else they may fail you when you need them the most.

I pull my itty bitty blaster and my saber from my big bag and set them down on the floor before me. I can take apart a saber to clean it in my sleep by now, but I've never taken apart a blaster before. It can't be that difficult, can it?

The wind outside smacks against every side of the ship.

I take apart my saber in just a few seconds. I've barely had a chance to use it in the few weeks I've been travelling with Din, so it's nearly spotless on the inside. No dirt, no dust, no grime. 

I sigh and put it back together, fruitless in my efforts to find something to do.

The storm slams gallons of rain on the ship over and over again. I sway in my seat side to side as the ship jostles me back and forth from the wind. The sky above me has become a dark grey color, ominous and foreboding.

I hope he's okay.

My heart rate doesn't cease its race. It pounds against the inside of my chest powerfully, unyielding in its panic.

I turn the blaster in my hand a few times, arguing with myself on the pros and cons of attempting to take this thing apart. I have absolutely zero experience doing it, and I don't know if now is a great time to try.

I lift the com-link back up to my mouth and try again.

"Din?"

Nothing.

"Can you hear me?"

Silence.

"Please..."

THUD.

My eyes shoot to the hatch above me. Two heavy boots land on the top of the ship with a loud bang right above me. The figure above is shrouded by the heavy downpour; it's like my vision was blurred by the water.

"Open the hatch!" the figure yells down at me. That's definitely Din's voice. He lifts a blaster and shoots at something out of my view.

"Open the hatch!" he yells again.

I fumble with the items in my lap and rush to the button that opens the hatch from the inside. Din shoots a few more shots at his target before the hatch hisses open for him. He wastes no time swinging it open and jumping down into the ship.

"Buckle up," he commands.

He's sat in his seat with the hatch shut and ship turned on faster than I can blink. Before I know it, we're ascending up into the storm. I sit back into my seat and fasten the buckle over my lap.

The ship shakes violently against the rain as we try our best to escape it. I hold onto the edge of my seat with as much grip as I can until my knuckles turn white. 

Din is focused on his flying. He sits in his seat leaned forward with one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other flicking switches and hitting buttons left and right. He doesn't say a word, and I don't dare attempt to distract him.

"Come on baby," I hear him say under his breath, presumably to the ship itself. He steers us up and around some particularly nasty parts of the storm effortlessly, like he's done this many timed before.

Suddenly, a thunderous boom echoes through the ship, like an explosion has impacted with us. The ship stutters violently, reeling from the attack.

"Dank Farrik!" Din yells. He frantically flips more switches, trying to recover from the impact. I sit as far back into my seat as I can, trying to manage my fear as best I can so as not to become a distraction to Din.

He whips the ship to the left hard. We slide in our seats as the ship corrects itself, stabilizing its path. Whatever ship is pursuing us misses our move and shoots right past us, finally giving me a view of what's going on.

It's a small ship in pursuit of us. Small, but fast. It's painted black on the outside, with no insignia on it that I can see. Unaffiliated, I guess. It looks very plain and unmenacing. 

"Hold on," Din tells me, as if I wasn't already holding on like my life depended on it. 

I watch as the enemy ship swings around to follow us again. Din continues our left turn while looking down as what looks like a weather radar. The direction that we are now headed looks clear in terms of weather. You can see the enemy ship on the radar as well, now directly behind us.

Din swiftly pulls on the steering wheel with both hands, dragging the nose of the ship upward, toward the sky. My body is pushed even further into my seat as the forces of the steep upward climb shoves me into it. Din continues until we're completely upside down, watching the enemy ship fly right beneath us, unable to anticipate our moves. We complete the vertical 360, and now follow behind the enemy.

"Nice try," he says before pushing on the red buttons on the steering wheel. Shots fire out from the front of the ship and land on the enemy ship with little hassle. It only takes four shots before their ship explodes gratifyingly. Din flies directly through the debris, then pulls the lever to activate hyperdrive. We shoot forward, now safe from enemies.

Din releases his grip on the steering wheel and sits back in his seat with a satisfied sigh.

I'm finally able to let air back into my lungs after holding my breath for so long.

"Two down, one to go," Din announces.

"Two bounties?" I ask.

"They must have been business partners. Easy money."

"The guy who kidnapped that girl?"

"He got what he deserved," Din says with an ominous satisfaction in his voice. I can only imagine what kind of torture he put the bounty through...

Din continues, "I didn't even know the other one would be there. Their files said nothing about them working together. They were wanted for similar crimes, though."

"You finished it pretty quickly," I recall. Din was gone for only a few hours, and he managed to eliminate two of the bounties in that short amount of time.

"They weren't very well guarded. I slipped in silently and took care of it without being noticed by anyone... Until that one guard saw me leaving and decided to follow me. Bad idea."

I reach down to find the transponder on the ground near my feet and open the mic. I say, "hello?" into it.

"What are you doing?" Din asks.

"Seeing if the com-link was broken just from the storm."

"Broken?"

"You didn't get any of my messages?"

"I don't think so."

"I tried to tell you the storm was getting bad, but I got no response."

"I didn't get it."

"So it was the storm that knocked out our connection."

"Must have been."

Well, at least I got my answer. I never experienced a storm like that prior to today. That stuff is scary.

"I was a little annoyed when I came back outside that you didn't tell me the storm was that bad," Din remarks.

"Well, I tried to."

He chuckles softly, amused by the strange circumstances. He reclines his seat to a laying position and shifts around, trying to get comfortable. I watch him, happy that he's back here with me, unscathed.

"Next bounty is nearly across the entire galaxy, so we have some time to kill," Din informs me. "File says this one is more dangerous; heavily guarded. Best to get some rest now." 

His helmet tilts up to look at me for a second before he returns to his neutral position. The fear and worry must still be visible in my eyes and facial expression.

"I'm fine. Stop worrying. You're safe with me."

I smile.