Mando sat on his bed, which was tucked into a capsule-like structure for extra privacy, and examined the room he shared with Grogu (though he had wanted to move him into his own capsule over the past few months). A sliding door across from him led to the bathroom, and an emergency bacta station stood on the other side. Cool air from the vents washed over Mando, helping his head cool down.
He almost lost it—him, Mando, a man from a tribe that tried not to show emotion. He didn’t even realize how flustered he was until he removed his gloves and saw his bare, shaky hands (they were as sweaty as his face). Taking off the helmet before another living being ran the risk of him becoming an outcast again, so he hesitated, even though he was the only one in the berthing currently. He shook out his hands before resting them in his lap.
While he rested, the ship whined, its engines bursting into life, and jerked a little.
At once, Mando jumped to his feet and held his gloves in his left hand. He hurried out of the berthing compartment and rushed to the cockpit. “Grogu, Rotta, I told you not to touch—!” But Rotta was in the ship’s common area, and Grogu was in his seat, teething the familiar ball he enjoyed playing with. “Oh, right,” Mando included, remembering he had put the ship on autopilot. At least Grogu hadn’t messed with random buttons again.
Mando quickly sat in the pilot seat and turned off autopilot before Grogu could do something risky. The ship shook faster now, indicating that it was almost time for blast off.
Still holding his gloves, Mando rested his left hand on the throttle, and his right gripped the chair after he strapped Grogu in again. “Ready, kid?” he asked. “In three, two, one…” He pushed the throttle forward, and the Razor Crest gave off one last jerk. Mando pulled up the landing gear, and the ship lifted into the sky.
Grogu seemed to cheer as the Razor Crest headed for the stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and eventually, the exosphere and outer space. Before long, Adelphi was behind them, and they were now in a world of endless darkness and stars, with only a little traffic heading to and from it.
Inhaling, Mando relaxed his shoulders, but he jumped when he felt tiny fingers on his exposed right hand.
Grogu touched each digit and turned Mando’s hand over, swiping his fingers across the center of his palm.
Mando wiggled his fingers (he forgot that he was a little ticklish) and asked Grogu, “What are you doing, buddy?”
Rotta soon appeared at the cockpit’s entrance, grinning like a little kid. “I think he likes Human Mando, not Stoic Mando.” He gave Mando a gentle smile. “You don’t have to do it in front of others, but maybe you should consider showing your face to your son more often. After all, he can’t tell that you’re all right behind that helmet.”
Mando paused, considering his words, but then moved Grogu’s hand away from his own and put his gloves back on. He handed Grogu his ball, and he played with it some more.
“Anyway…” Rotta finally stopped getting into Mando’s head. “How long until we meet the famous Luke Skywalker?”
“Light speed first,” Mando explained, “and we’ll go from there.” He looked from Rotta to Grogu. “Do you want to jump us to light speed again, Grogu?”
His ears popped up a little, and he nodded.
“All right.” Mando moved Grogu’s seat closer to the flight deck, and he reached for the light speed switch. However, his arms weren’t long enough to touch it, so Grogu closed his eyes and seemed to enter a trance. After a minute or two, the switch flipped on its own.
“Whoa!” Rotta shouted when he was thrown back from the cockpit.
“Always wear your seatbelt, Rotta,” Mando jokingly said, touching Grogu’s. “Well done, kid.” He held his arm up to Grogu while the ship jerked forward and entered the blue light-speed wormhole. He now just needed a plan of what to tell Luke when they reached Ossus—and if he had any similar situations lately with disappearing ships.
After a few minutes, the Razor Crest dropped out of light speed, revealing a large planet up ahead, slightly red with mountains, green with forests: Ossus. If only Mando could remember the area where he found Luke before.
Rotta, rubbing his side, soon returned to the cockpit’s entrance and asked, “Is that Ossus, Mando?”
“Yes,” he stated, taking the ball from Grogu again. “All right, kid. Watch what I do to land the ship. You may have to do it yourself one day.”
Did the little guy talk? Something like a squeak escaped his lips. A warning, maybe?
Soon after Grogu spoke, something exploded outside beside the Razor Crest, jerking it so hard that Mando’s helmet hit the flight deck. White dots flashed before him, and pain pulsed behind his eyes, but he shook his head.
“What was that?” Mando asked, checking over both shoulders at space. He expected to see a meteoroid or Imperial ships, but saw nothing. Did something malfunction?
Mando ran a quick diagnostic test, saying, “This is weird. It doesn’t look like anything is wrong with the ship.” His mind returned to the disappearing ship, but he snapped out of his doze when Grogu warned him again, and a second jerk sent the Razor Crest spinning like a dreidel toward Ossus. Something was after Mando, but he still couldn’t see anything. Since when did the galaxy have the technology for invisible enemies? Something just wasn’t right, and it looked like Grogu felt the same.
“Mando, bud,” Rotta said, “what can I do?” He looked like he was having a little too much fun.
“Just return to the common room and strap in,” Mando explained, trying to straighten out the Razor Crest. “We’re going in hard.” His eyes rolled over to Grogu. “We’ll save the flying lesson for later.”
Whimpering, Grogu unbuckled himself and hopped into Mando’s helmet, hugging it with both hands.
The heat returned to Mando’s chest, and he said, “What are you doing? I can’t see.” He attempted to pull Grogu off his visor, but he only tightened his grip. “Now’s not the time to be clingy,” Mando added, trying to look past him at the flight deck. “I thought we discussed this last month.” He wasn’t going to yell, not at a child, but hell… It was getting difficult.
Mando’s ship spun all the way into Ossus’s atmosphere, and it wasn’t long until it free-fell toward a large lake within one of the mountain ranges.
Eventually, Mando found the switch for the landing gear and flipped it. With Grogu still hugging his helmet, he stopped the ship from falling, but the landing gear still splashed through the lake, and the ship hit a few trees, spinning again. That was when Mando ripped Grogu off him and hugged him to his chest, bending over him to brace for impact.
The Razor Crest soon hit the ground, the landing gear breaking off, and slid toward a cliff at the top of a high valley.
Well, there went another Razor Crest, but Mando continued to hug Grogu, enduring the constant bumps and jerks that sent waves of pain throughout his entire armor.
Finally, the ship came to a halt at the edge of the cliff: scratched up and with no landing gear.
Rotta whooped from the common room. “That was incredible, Mando! Let’s do that again!”
Oh, yeah, Mando was so done with young people interfering with his missions, but at least he and Grogu were on Ossus.
Everything ached, but Mando unstrapped himself, setting Grogu back in his seat. Where was the cockpit’s exit?
Holding his arms out, Mando shakily stood. He huffed and searched the cockpit for a few seconds. Was the exit this way?
Mando started one way, but only got two steps in before he crashed into the chair behind the pilot’s seat and landed on his face on the floor.
Did Grogu shout, “Papa”? He leaped off his chair and hurried to Mando, who sat, his world still spinning.
Crying, Grogu jumped onto Mando’s knees and reached for his helmet. Mando had never heard the little guy cry. It was high-pitched, followed by longer, more monotone sobs.
“Grogu, Grogu,” Mando said, picking him up and moving him toward his helmet. “I’m okay. Look, I’m okay.” He excluded the fact that he saw three Grogus instead of one.
Despite his encouragement, Grogu still cried.
Rotta’s words echoed in Mando’s mind: “You don’t have to do it in front of others, but maybe you should consider showing your face to your son more often. After all, he can’t tell that you’re all right behind that helmet.”
Would it be okay since Grogu was a Mandalorian foundling and Mando’s son? And would it be the only way to prove to him that he was all right?
Ah, hell. “Grogu, Grogu…” Mando checked to ensure Rotta wasn’t looking in. Once he concluded that he and Grogu were alone, he repeated, “Grogu, look,” and pulled his helmet off his head, revealing his tanned skin, curly brown hair, and deep brown eyes: the face of Din Djarin. He had shaved his stubble a little, but still had a mustache resting above his top lip.
Din Djarin lowered his voice. “I’m okay. See, bud?” Gosh, there came the memories of when he first met Luke—when he really fell in love with Grogu.
As expected, but also unexpectedly, the foundling stopped crying and touched Din Djarin’s nose, moving his hand to his cheek. Wow, it really worked.
The side of Djarin’s mouth twitched, and he gave Grogu a small smile. He finally saw only him, not two more.
“I’m okay,” Djarin said one last time, his smile growing when Grogu seemed to smile back. He set him down and picked up his helmet, slipping it on again. From there, he rested his arm over his knee and finished with, “That wasn’t one of our best landings, was it?”
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and then Add to home screen.