Chapter 10: The Guild's Offer
POV: Oliver
Nevarro rises from the volcanic plains like a fever dream of industrial ambition, its refineries and processing plants belching smoke into a sky the color of old blood. The landscape hasn't changed since their last visit, but everything feels different now—charged with menace, pregnant with the kind of tension that comes before violence.
[DANGER SENSE: ACTIVE]
[ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: MULTIPLE UNKNOWN HOSTILES]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: HIGH]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: EXTREME CAUTION]
The warnings scroll across Oliver's vision as they approach Greef Karga's cantina on foot, having left the Razor Crest at a discrete distance. His linguistic curse has been acting up again—stress, probably, or proximity to whatever Imperial remnants still call this place home.
Cara walks beside him with the loose-limbed grace of someone ready for trouble, her hand never straying far from her blaster. Din keeps Grogu's pram close, the child hidden beneath protective coverings that make him look like ordinary cargo.
"Remember," Din says quietly. "Karga's desperate. Desperate people make bad choices."
"Jellyfish motorcycle symphony," Oliver responds, and immediately wants to punch himself.
"Right," Cara says dryly. "That clears everything up."
POV: Greef Karga
Greef Karga has been expecting this meeting for weeks, ever since word filtered through Guild channels about Moff Gideon's... particular interests. The Mandalorian is valuable—skilled, reliable, possessed of certain moral flexibilities that make him useful for delicate work.
But it's the stranger accompanying him that makes Greef's pulse quicken with a mixture of excitement and carefully controlled fear.
Dr. Elias Voss. Imperial bioweapons specialist. Supposedly dead these past three years, but walking into Greef's cantina like he owns the place.
The bounty on Voss's head has grown considerably since Greef last checked the Imperial databases. Seventy-five thousand credits, marked for capture alive, priority classification from something called the "Imperial Science Division."
Greef does the math quickly. Seventy-five thousand for Voss, plus whatever Gideon is offering for the child, minus the cost of betraying one of his most effective hunters...
The numbers work out nicely.
"Mando!" Greef calls out, rising from his table with arms spread wide in theatrical welcome. "And friends. Welcome back to Nevarro."
His gaze lingers on Oliver's face, noting the weathered features, the gray eyes, the particular pattern of scars that match the Imperial files exactly.
"New crew member?" Greef asks casually. "He looks... familiar."
POV: Oliver
Oliver's pulse spikes at Greef's tone, but he tries to keep his expression neutral. The Guild boss is studying him with the intensity of someone comparing a face to a wanted poster, and Oliver has a sinking feeling he knows exactly which poster.
"We've never met," Oliver says carefully, relieved when the words come out in the right order.
"No," Greef agrees, settling back into his chair with predatory satisfaction. "But I've seen your face before. In some very interesting databases."
The man slides a holoprojector across the table's scarred surface. When activated, it displays Oliver's face alongside a bounty amount that makes his stomach clench with nausea: 75,000 credits.
WANTED BY IMPERIAL SCIENCE DIVISION DR. ELIAS VOSS BIOWEAPONS SPECIALIST REWARD: 75,000 CREDITS STATUS: CAPTURE ALIVE - PRIORITY ALPHA
Cara's hand drops to her blaster with mechanical precision. Din goes very still in that particular way that means he's calculating firing angles and exit routes.
"Dr. Elias Voss," Greef continues conversationally. "Imperial bioweapons specialist. Thought you died in a lab accident on Navarro three years ago."
Oliver's world tilts on its axis. Three years. He's been wearing this face, carrying these hands, speaking with this voice for weeks now. But if Voss died three years ago...
How long was I dead? How long was this body empty before I woke up in it?
"Are you Imperial?" Din asks, the question cutting through Oliver's existential crisis like a vibroblade.
Oliver's voice breaks on the answer. "I don't remember! I woke up in his body on Arvala-7 with no memory of how I got there!"
The truth sounds insane even to his own ears. Cara's expression suggests she's thinking the same thing.
"Convenient amnesia," Greef observes, his tone suggesting he's enjoying himself. "Very convenient indeed."
Oliver's [Target Intel] activates instinctively, his system scanning Greef for threats and motivations.
[TARGET INTEL ACTIVATED]
[MP: 35/92]
[SCAN RESULT: GREEF KARGA]
[THREAT LEVEL: MODERATE]
[INTENT: STALLING FOR BACKUP]
[EMOTIONAL STATE: ANTICIPATORY - EXPECTING VIOLENCE]
"You're stalling," Oliver says, the realization hitting him like cold water. "There are people coming."
Greef's smile widens. "Very good, Doctor. I always heard you were brilliant."
POV: Cara Dune
The ambush unfolds with the inexorable precision of a military operation. Guild hunters emerge from concealment throughout the cantina—behind the bar, from side rooms, even dropping from ceiling panels Oliver's danger sense somehow missed.
Cara's training kicks in before conscious thought. Her blaster clears its holster in a single smooth motion, the first shot taking down a hunter who was lining up on Oliver's center mass. The man crumples with a smoking hole where his chest used to be.
"Down!" she shouts, diving behind an overturned table as return fire fills the air with sizzling death.
Din moves like liquid violence in beskar casing, his rifle spitting precise bursts while he shields Grogu's pram with his own body. Every shot finds its mark, every movement calculated for maximum efficiency.
But it's Oliver who turns the ambush into chaos.
[BASIC CREATURE CONTROL ACTIVATED - URBAN WILDLIFE]
[MP: 15/92]
[TARGETS: MULTIPLE SPECIES]
The cantina erupts into biological pandemonium. Massive lava rats pour from hidden crevices, their heat-adapted claws seeking exposed flesh. Flying reptiles dive from the rafters, their leathery wings and needle teeth turning the air itself into a weapon.
Even a few larger predators respond to Oliver's desperate call—urban scavengers that have learned to hunt in the spaces between civilization's cracks.
The Guild hunters, prepared for a straightforward firefight against three opponents, find themselves facing a coordinated assault from dozens of creatures that know every hiding place, every weak point, every gap in their hastily-prepared defenses.
POV: Oliver
The battle is chaos incarnate, and Oliver is at its eye. Through his controlled creatures, he can see the entire cantina at once—every muzzle flash, every desperate scramble for cover, every moment where death balances on the edge of a microsecond.
A hunter breaks from cover, trying to reach the exit. A lava rat the size of a small dog leaps onto his back, claws finding the gap between helmet and chest plate. The man screams, stumbling into Oliver's line of sight.
Oliver tries to call out a warning to Cara and takes a blaster bolt to the leg for his trouble.
[HP: 145/210]
[INJURY: MINOR TRAUMA TO LEFT LEG]
[MOBILITY REDUCED 15%]
The pain is immediate and overwhelming, dropping Oliver to one knee behind inadequate cover. Blood seeps through his pants leg, warm and sticky against his skin.
"Move!" Cara shouts, appearing at his side with the kind of battlefield timing that speaks of long experience keeping wounded soldiers alive. "I've got you!"
She hauls him toward the exit with one arm while laying down covering fire with the other. Din follows, his jetpack igniting to carry him and Grogu over the worst of the carnage.
They burst into Nevarro's sulfur-tinged daylight, Oliver limping badly but still mobile. Behind them, the cantina continues to echo with the sounds of man versus nature, and nature is winning.
But it's not the sounds from behind that make Oliver's blood run cold. It's what he sees on a nearby rooftop.
A figure in an environmental suit, standing motionless against the volcanic sky. Watching. Waiting. Making no move to interfere, but clearly present for reasons Oliver can't fathom.
Their eyes meet for just a moment—or at least, Oliver thinks they do. It's impossible to tell through the suit's reflective visor. But something in the figure's posture suggests recognition, evaluation, perhaps even approval.
Then Cara is pulling him around a corner, and the figure disappears from view.
POV: The Hooded Watcher
From her vantage point on the cantina's roof, Agent Wraith watches the extraction with professional interest. The target—Oliver, though he doesn't remember that name yet—moves well for someone inhabiting an unfamiliar body. His tactical awareness is developing nicely, and his control over the biological interface has exceeded even her most optimistic projections.
The Mandalorian and the shock trooper are acceptable allies. Skilled enough to keep Oliver alive, principled enough to protect the child, pragmatic enough to run when running becomes necessary.
All according to plan.
Wraith activates her comm unit, sending a brief encrypted message to dead-drop coordinates scattered across the Outer Rim:
"Subject adapting well to neural integration. Protective instincts developing as predicted. Ready for Phase Two trials. Maintain observation. Do not engage unless target faces extinction-level threat."
She pauses, watching the unlikely family disappear into Nevarro's industrial maze.
"The investment is paying dividends."
POV: Oliver
Hyperspace feels like sanctuary after the volcanic hell of Nevarro, but Oliver knows the safety is temporary at best. Cara patches his leg wound with battlefield medicine and professional competence, her touch gentle despite the gruff commentary.
"You better not be Imperial," she says, sealing the wound with surgical tape that will hold until they can find proper medical facilities.
Oliver grits his teeth against the pain, both physical and existential. "I swear I'm not. I don't even know who I am."
Something in his voice must convince her, because Cara's expression softens slightly.
"Then figure it out. Fast. Because Mando and I are putting our necks out for you."
Din enters from the cockpit, his helmet reflecting the cargo hold's dim lighting.
"We have a bigger problem," he announces. "Gideon's Star Destroyer just entered the system. He's hunting us."
Grogu whimpers from his pram, the sound cutting through Oliver's heart like a vibroblade. The child's Force sensitivity means he can probably sense the approaching danger in ways none of them can fully understand.
Oliver's datapad chirps with another decrypted message. He opens it with trembling fingers, already dreading what he'll find.
"Project Chimera Final Log: Voss is dead. Interface prototype lost in explosion. All assets presumed destroyed. Case closed."
Oliver stares at the words until they blur. If Voss died three years ago, and the interface prototype was destroyed...
Then what am I? Who brought me back? And why?
The questions multiply like viruses, each one spawning a dozen more. But underneath the confusion and fear, one certainty remains unshakeable:
Whatever he is, whatever purpose he was designed to serve, he's chosen a different path. He's chosen to protect instead of destroy, to nurture instead of weaponize.
He's chosen to be human.
Even if he's not entirely sure what that means anymore.
[IDENTITY CRISIS: DEEPENING]
[TRUST ISSUES: SIGNIFICANT]
[PROTECTIVE INSTINCTS: INTENSIFYING]
[WARNING: PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE APPROACHING CRITICAL LEVELS]
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