Chapter 11: The Hunter Becomes Hunted
POV: Oliver
The alarms scream louder than the twin suns of Tatooine, their shrill cry cutting through the Razor Crest's hull like vibrosaws through bone. Oliver clutches Grogu's pram with white knuckles, his injured leg throbbing in time with the ship's wounded engines.
[HP: 145/210]
[MP: 55/92]
[STRUCTURAL DAMAGE: CRITICAL]
Through the cargo hold's small viewport, he watches TIE fighters dance death around them—angular predators against the star-field, their solar panels catching distant light like the wings of carrion birds. Each proximity alarm sends ice through his veins.
"Din!" he shouts toward the cockpit. "How many are there?"
"Too many!" comes the reply, strained through gritted teeth and the comm system. The ship lurches violently to port, throwing Oliver against the bulkhead. His shoulder explodes in pain.
[HP: 140/210]
Grogu whimpers from within his protective sphere, those impossibly large eyes reflecting the red warning lights that bathe everything in hellish crimson. Oliver reaches out, letting his fingertips brush the pram's edge.
"It's okay, buddy. We're getting out of this."
"If we don't get vaporized first," his mind adds unhelpfully.
The ship shudders again—this time from weapons impact rather than evasive maneuvering. Through his connection to the ship's minimal ecosystem of maintenance vermin, Oliver feels the Razor Crest's pain like phantom wounds across his own body.
POV: Cara Dune
Cara's hands move across the gun controls with the fluid precision of someone who's fought for their life more times than they care to count. The targeting reticle dances across her scope, tracking TIE fighters that move like angry wasps around a kicked nest.
"Got one!" she snarls as her shot connects, sending an Imperial fighter spinning into debris and flame.
But for every fighter she drops, two more seem to take its place. The Imperial remnants have committed serious resources to this hunt—more than just a routine bounty collection.
"They really want the kid," she mutters, swinging the guns toward another fighter. This one breaks off its attack run at the last second, forcing her shot wide.
The ship rocks under another hit. Warning lights cascade across her console like digital tears.
Din's voice crackles through the comm: "Cara, I'm making a blind jump. Hold on!"
"A what?" But even as she asks, she knows what he means. Her stomach drops in anticipation of the horror that's coming.
"Don't do it, Mando! We could end up in a star, or—"
The hyperdrive engages.
POV: Din Djarin
The moment stretches like molten beskar cooling in a forge. Din's hands hover over controls that could save them or kill them—his finger poised above the hyperdrive activation that every pilot is trained never to engage without proper calculations.
Behind him, he can hear Oliver trying to keep Grogu calm. The man's voice is steady despite everything, that strange gentle quality that first convinced Din he wasn't the monster his face suggested.
Trust the Creed. Trust your instincts.
The hyperdrive spools up with a sound like the galaxy holding its breath.
"Jumping blind. Hold on."
Reality tears.
The sensation is like being turned inside out and stretched across parsecs simultaneously. Din's HUD flickers and dies, then resurrects itself with angry red warnings about navigation errors and probability matrices exceeding safe parameters.
When the ship drops back into realspace, the silence is so profound it feels like a physical weight.
No pursuit alarms. No proximity warnings. Just the steady hum of damaged engines and the soft whisper of life support systems working overtime to compensate for hull breaches.
Din checks his sensors. They're in an unmarked system—a dying orange giant that bathes everything in the color of old blood, and a single artificial construct in stable orbit.
"Where the hell are we?" Cara's voice cuts through the relative quiet.
Din studies the readings. "Uncharted system. No Imperial presence. We're alone."
But that's not entirely true. The construct on his sensors is definitely artificial—angular, massive, and broadcasting no identification signals.
POV: Oliver
Oliver's datapad activates without him touching it.
The screen flickers to life, displaying coordinates that match exactly what Din is seeing on his sensors. File names appear and disappear like ghosts: "Imperial Research Station Kappa-7," "Project Chimera Auxiliary Site," "Classification: Abandoned."
His blood turns to ice water in his veins.
"Guys," he calls out, his voice barely above a whisper. "I think I know where we are."
The datapad scrolls through files that decrypt themselves as he watches. Medical logs, facility schematics, personnel records—all bearing the Imperial crest and dates from three years ago.
One file stops his heart: "Subject V-09: Elias Voss. Status: Terminated. Consciousness Transfer Attempt: Failed."
His hands shake so violently he nearly drops the device.
"Oliver?" Cara appears in the cargo bay doorway, her expression shifting from relief to concern as she sees his face. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Oliver laughs, and it comes out cracked and hollow. "Maybe I have."
[DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED]
The warning flashes just as Din's voice echoes through the ship: "That station—its automated systems are coming online. We need fuel and repairs, but something about this place feels wrong."
Oliver closes his eyes, extending his senses as far as they'll reach. The station radiates wrongness like heat from a furnace—not evil, exactly, but the lingering psychic stench of terrible science and failed ambition.
"We have to dock there," he says quietly. "The ship won't make it anywhere else."
"And you know this how?" Cara's hand drifts to her blaster.
Oliver meets her gaze steadily. "Because whoever brought me back to life—they've been using that station. And I think they left me a message."
POV: Din Djarin
The docking bay of Research Station Kappa-7 accepts the Razor Crest with the mechanical indifference of Imperial engineering. Emergency lighting flickers to life as their ship settles onto landing struts that groan under the weight.
Din performs his post-flight checks with methodical precision, but his attention keeps drifting to the readings on his environmental scanner. The station has breathable atmosphere, minimal artificial gravity, and power running through essential systems.
Someone—or something—has been maintaining this place.
"Fuel readings are critical," he announces to the others. "We're not going anywhere without scavenging what we can from this station."
Oliver has been quiet since docking, staring at his datapad like it might bite him. Grogu seems unusually restless in his pram, making small distressed sounds that tug at something protective in Din's chest.
"We split up?" Cara suggests, checking her rifle's charge level. "Cover more ground?"
"No." Din's response is immediate and final. "We stay together. Oliver's right—something's wrong here."
As they gather their equipment, Oliver suddenly looks up from his datapad. "Din, that medical bay we passed coming in—I need to check something there. It's important."
"What kind of important?"
Oliver's expression is haunted. "The kind that might explain why I'm alive when I should be dead."
POV: Oliver
The medical bay doors slide open with a whisper that sounds too much like a death rattle. Emergency lighting casts everything in sickly yellow, turning the rows of empty medical pods into tombstones in an electronic graveyard.
Oliver's [Danger Sense] flickers at the edge of activation but can't decide whether the threat is present or merely the echo of past horrors.
[MP: 45/92]
His datapad chirps, and a new file appears: "Bay 7 Access Granted. Welcome back, Dr. Voss."
"I'm not him," Oliver whispers to the empty air, but his feet carry him toward Bay 7 anyway.
The medical pod is larger than the others, surrounded by equipment that speaks of long-term life support rather than routine medical procedures. A nameplate beside the pod reads: "Subject V-09: Elias Voss."
Inside the pod, fluid traces still stain the interior walls.
"Someone was here," Cara observes, running her finger along the edge of the pod. It comes away slightly damp. "Recently."
Oliver accesses the pod's internal memory through his datapad. Security footage begins to play on the small screen—grainy, time-stamped three years ago.
Imperial scientists in clean white coats work frantically around a body in the pod. Oliver recognizes the face immediately—it's his own, or rather, Voss's. The man is clearly dead, but the scientists are attempting something.
Neural implants. Electrical stimulation. Chemical cocktails pumped directly into the brain stem.
Again and again, they try to restart something that has fundamentally stopped working.
Then the footage skips forward six months.
A figure in an environmental suit enters the frame. Oliver's heart stops—it's the same hooded figure he glimpsed on Nevarro, the one who's been watching from the shadows.
The Hooded Watcher approaches the pod and injects something into the IV line. The body convulses. Alarms begin to sound. The Imperial scientists scatter.
The footage cuts to black.
When it resumes hours later, the pod is empty. The lab is destroyed. And the Hooded Watcher is gone.
"They didn't resurrect Voss," Oliver says slowly, the pieces clicking together in his mind with horrible clarity. "They put someone else—something else—into his body."
"You," Din says quietly.
Oliver nods, unable to speak past the tightness in his throat.
Grogu suddenly makes a sharp, distressed sound. All three adults turn toward the pram, and Oliver's [Danger Sense] finally decides to scream.
[DANGER SENSE: IMMINENT THREAT]
[MULTIPLE HOSTILES DETECTED]
[THREAT TYPE: AUTOMATED SECURITY]
The medical bay's walls slide back, revealing alcoves that had been perfectly camouflaged. Security droids emerge like mechanical spiders, their optical sensors already locked onto the intruders.
POV: Cara Dune
Cara's first shot takes the lead droid center mass, punching through its chassis in a shower of sparks and liquified metal. But for every droid she drops, two more emerge from hidden alcoves throughout the medical facility.
"Move!" she shouts, grabbing Oliver's arm and hauling him away from the medical pod. "This whole place is waking up!"
Din's jetpack ignites, carrying him and Grogu's pram over the first wave of droids. His rifle spits precise bursts of energy, each shot calculated to disable rather than destroy—they need to conserve ammunition.
But Oliver—Oliver just stands there for a moment, staring at the chaos erupting around them.
"I remember this place," he says, his voice distant and strange. "Not Voss's memories. Mine. I was here before. Before the transfer. Before everything."
A security droid levels its weapon at Oliver's head.
Cara puts three shots into its central processor without conscious thought, the movement as automatic as breathing.
"Remember later!" she snarls, physically lifting Oliver and carrying him toward the exit. "Run now!"
The corridors of the research station have become a maze of laser fire and screaming alarms. Every security system Kappa-7 possesses has apparently decided that their presence constitutes a threat requiring lethal force.
Oliver stumbles, his injured leg giving out. Cara catches him before he hits the deck, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder.
"Stay with me, nature boy. Don't you dare bleed out on me now."
Through her earpiece, she can hear Din's voice: "Razor Crest is powered up. Get to the landing bay!"
Easier said than done. Between them and the ship, a squad of combat droids has formed a firing line that would make Imperial stormtroopers proud.
"Ideas?" Cara asks Oliver.
Oliver looks at her with eyes that are suddenly, startlingly clear.
"Yeah. Hold on tight."
[BASIC CREATURE CONTROL ACTIVATED]
[MP: 25/92]
[TARGETS: STATION VERMIN - MAINTENANCE CREATURES]
The attack comes from every vent, every service tunnel, every forgotten corner where life has found a way to exist in this sterile tomb. Maintenance creatures the size of housecats boil out of the station's infrastructure, their claws designed for stripping insulation and cleaning conduits now turned against droid sensors and power cables.
It's not enough to destroy the security forces, but it's enough to create chaos. Enough to give them a chance.
They run for the landing bay through corridors filled with the sparks of failing electronics and the inhuman screams of damaged machinery.
POV: Oliver
The Razor Crest's engines are already spinning up when they reach the docking bay. Din stands at the ship's ramp, laying down covering fire while they sprint across the open space.
Oliver's leg gives out again three meters from safety. He goes down hard, his vision graying at the edges as pain shoots through his entire left side.
[HP: 125/210]
[MOBILITY SEVERELY COMPROMISED]
Din appears beside him, beskar armor scorched from near misses. "Can you walk?"
"Don't think so."
Without hesitation, Din scoops Oliver up in a fireman's carry and makes for the ship. Behind them, Cara maintains a fighting retreat, her rifle speaking death to any droid that tries to follow.
They make it aboard just as the docking clamps release automatically. The Razor Crest tears away from Kappa-7 like an animal escaping a trap, leaving the research station to its ghosts and its failing machines.
In the cargo hold, Oliver collapses onto one of the supply crates, his datapad still clutched in shaking hands. The screen shows one final file that has just finished decrypting:
"Syndicate Internal Memo: Subject V-09 resurrection deemed success. Consciousness transfer stable. Begin Phase 2: Reclamation. Asset must not be damaged. Value: Irreplaceable."
Oliver deletes the file, but its implications follow him like shadows.
They didn't resurrect Voss.
They downloaded someone else into his body—someone the Syndicate considers irreplaceable.
But who was he before? And why can't he remember?
As hyperspace claims them once again, Oliver holds Grogu's tiny hand through the pram's opening and tries not to think about the symbol he glimpsed on the Hooded Watcher's ring in the security footage.
A double helix wrapped around a star.
The same symbol that appears in his dreams.
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