#mandolorian

You remain in the cockpit a moment longer, gloved fingers resting against the controls as the cooling systems hiss and click around you, metal ticking softly as it sheds the heat of the journey. Through the viewport, the station sprawls in layers of corroded durasteel and exposed piping, a jagged maze of patched-together corridors and shadowed overhead bridges. Amber maintenance lights flicker weakly along its spine, too sparse and too tired to push back the haze that clings to every surface. 

It is the kind of port that exists because law does not. The sort of place where smugglers came to vanish, where bounty hunters came to trade names they did not ask for, where pirates drank hard and slept lighter than they should have. A forgotten knot of metal at the edge of civilization, half-lit and half-broken.

The sort of place a Mandalorian could disappear inside.

Which is exactly why you came.

The station beyond the cockpit churns with constant motion and noise. Cargo lifters drift overhead on whining repulsors, dragging massive freight containers through the haze while chains rattle somewhere above the docking lanes. Dock workers bark at one another in clipped bursts of Basic and half a dozen other languages you recognize only in fragments- harsh Rodian chatter, the low growl of Trandoshan, the rapid mechanical stutter of binary from overworked service droids weaving between moving shipments.

Somewhere off to your left, a voice rises loud enough to cut through the industrial noise. Angry. Drunk, maybe. Another voice answers just as sharp. Metal scrapes against metal.

The kind of argument that usually ended with somebody reaching for a blaster.

Normal.

Your helmet display scrolls silently across the edge of your vision, filtering local transmissions and heat signatures automatically. Exit routes illuminate in faint overlays across the station interior. Movement patterns. Weapons pings. Structural weak points. Your visor processes the station faster than any ordinary pair of eyes could hope to.

Nothing immediate.

No active threats.

Still, your hand brushes the blaster holstered against your thigh before you rise from the pilot’s seat, thumb grazing the worn grip for half a second.

The boarding ramp lowers with a deep hydraulic growl, chains clunking somewhere beneath the hull as locking mechanisms disengage. Warm air floods into the ship immediately, thick with the scents of fuel exhaust, machine oil, overheated wiring, and the sour trace of stale alcohol drifting from somewhere deeper within the station.

Your cape shifts lightly behind you as you descend the ramp. Boots strike the docking platform with a heavy metallic clang that echoes through the bay.

Several nearby workers glance at your direction immediately. Then glance away just as fast.

Even now, after the Empire’s collapse, after the glassing fires of the Purge, after Mandalorians were reduced to rumors traded in bounty dens and scattered across sealed Imperial reports, the armor still means something. Beskar carries a reputation heavier than its weight. Entire worlds remember what Mandalorians once were: warriors descending from the sky in burning drop packs, clans marching through blaster fire without slowing, helmets staring emotionlessly through smoke and flame while armies broke around them. 

The Empire tried to erase that history.

Instead, it turned it into myth.

And myths survive longer than empires do.

You move through the dockyard at an unhurried pace, cape trailing softly behind you while the station swallows the sound beneath machinery and distant engines. Your helmet remains angled just enough to catch reflections in darkened transparisteel windows and polished cargo containers as you pass. Distorted shapes slide across the edges of your vision: workers, drifters, armed guards, scavengers.

A pair of dockhands fall silent as you pass. A gambler near an open doorway subtly shifts his blaster farther beneath his coat. Two Nikto standing near a freight lift glance toward you once, then immediately decide they have somewhere else to look.

One mutters quietly to the other.

“Another one.”

Another one. As if Mandalorians are suddenly multiplying from the cracks in the galaxy.

Then notorious Mandalorian is supposedly here.

That is all you know.

You descend deeper into the station until the cleaner docking levels give way to older corridors where the walls sweat condensation and exposed wires hang from ceilings like vines. Neon signs buzz overhead in mismatched colors. Music rattles faintly through thin walls.

The cantina waits at the far end of the corridor beneath a sputtering blue neon sign missing half its letters, the remaining symbols flickering erratically enough to paint the walls in uneven pulses of electric light. The doorway breathes noise into the station- bursts of laughter, shouted arguments, the sharp clink of glasses against metal tables.

You slow as you approach, stopping just outside the doorway. The corridor suddenly feels quieter here, as though the station itself is waiting to see whether you walk inside.

To your right, dark transparisteel lines the wall beside the entrance, scratched and clouded by age. Your reflection stares back at you through the haze.

Scarred beskar dulled by years of hard travel and harder fights.

A weather-worn cape hanging heavy from your shoulders.

A helmet marked by old blaster scoring near the brow line, the metal warped slightly where a shot once came close enough to kill.

Not ceremonial armor. Not polished clan-forged pride displayed for glory or honor. For a brief moment, your hand tightens slightly at your side.

You almost turn back.

Because this is foolish.

Not the meeting itself. Mandalorians sought one another out sometimes, especially now, scattered like fragments after the Purge. But coming alone? Walking willingly into a place full of strangers because of rumors and half-spoken stories?

That feels less like strategy and more like the beginning of a cautionary tale told over drinks by bounty hunters who survived when someone else did not.

And then the cantina door slides open.

Conversation inside drops immediately. Not fully silent. But enough.

Your helmet turns slowly as you scan your new environment.

At the far end of the room, seated alone beside the wall with clear sightlines to every exit, sits another Mandalorian in unpainted beskar armor. And beside him, small green ears peek over the edge of the booth.

The foundling looks directly at you, then makes a curious little noise.

The other Mandalorian turns his head afterward, visor settling on you with unreadable stillness. For several long seconds, neither of you moves.

The armor is real. Not imitation plating hammered together by scavengers pretending to be something they are not. Beskar.

Then the man finally speaks, voice low beneath the helmet.