Chapter 4: The Client
POV: Oliver
Nevarro rises from the volcanic plains like a monument to industrial ambition, its towers and refineries stretching toward a sky choked with smoke and ash. The very air tastes of sulfur and burned metal, making Oliver's borrowed lungs constrict with each breath.
His datapad vibrates against his chest—another message decrypting itself. Oliver pulls it out with shaking hands, dreading what he might find.
"Project Chimera subjects unstable. Terminate on sight. Including Voss."
The words blur as his hands begin to shake harder. Whatever Project Chimera is, whatever Voss did, people want him dead for it. And they don't seem to care that Oliver isn't really Voss, that he's just wearing the man's face like an ill-fitting mask.
They found you. Run.
The first message echoes in his memory as the Razor Crest begins its descent through Nevarro's polluted atmosphere.
"Don't trust—" Oliver starts, then stops as the familiar scrambling takes hold. "Tasty grandmother magnificent!"
Din's helmet turns toward him. "What?"
Oliver tries again, concentrating harder. If he could just get one clear warning through, just make Din understand the danger they're walking into...
"Dangerous sparkly betrayal!"
"Oliver." Din's voice carries the particular kind of patience reserved for children and the mentally impaired. "Either speak clearly or shut up."
The words hit like a physical blow. Oliver's face burns with shame and frustration. He grabs the datapad's stylus and tries to write, but his hand cramps the moment he attempts to form letters. The words come out as meaningless scribbles, like the ramblings of someone who's forgotten how to communicate.
"I'm trying!" The words burst out of him, raw and desperate. "Something's wrong with me!"
Din's response is cold, clinical. "I noticed."
POV: Grogu
The small green child watches the exchange between his protectors with ancient eyes. Through the Force, he can feel Oliver's anguish like a physical weight—confusion and fear and desperate love all tangled together in a knot that hurts to touch.
The metal man—Din—carries his own pain, carefully hidden behind walls of steel and tradition. But underneath, Grogu senses the same protective instinct that drives Oliver's frantic attempts at communication.
Both trying to keep me safe, Grogu thinks in concepts too complex for his apparent age. Both afraid of failing.
He coos softly, trying to project comfort toward both of them. Oliver's system still makes the Force feel strange and disconnected, like looking through dirty transparisteel, but the man's intentions shine through clearly enough.
The ship settles onto Nevarro's landing platform with a gentle bump. Through the viewport, Grogu can see figures approaching—beings whose presence in the Force feels oily and wrong.
Danger, he tries to project toward his protectors. Bad people coming.
But Oliver's scrambled words mean he can't voice the warning, and Din's armor makes him difficult to reach through the Force. Grogu settles back into his pram, tiny hands clenched with frustration that he can't communicate the depth of his concern.
POV: Oliver
The Client's facility squats in Nevarro's industrial district like a metallic tumor, all hard angles and tinted transparisteel. Oliver's danger sense screams warnings as they approach, but every attempt to voice his concerns comes out as gibberish about singing dewbacks and mystical porridge.
[DANGER SENSE: ACTIVE]
[MULTIPLE HOSTILE ENTITIES DETECTED]
[THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME]
The warnings cascade across his vision, but they might as well be written in ancient Sith for all the good they do him.
Inside, the facility reeks of antiseptic and old fear. The walls are too white, too clean, sterile in a way that suggests things being scrubbed away rather than kept pure. Oliver's skin crawls as they're led through corridors that trigger memories he can't quite grasp.
The Client waits in an inner chamber that serves as both office and laboratory. He's human, elderly, with the kind of refined features that speak of wealth and privilege. But his eyes...
His eyes are the color of winter storms, and they hold the casual cruelty of someone who's grown comfortable with other people's suffering.
"Ah," the Client says, rising from behind his desk. "The Mandalorian. And you've brought the asset."
Din sets Grogu's pram on the examination table with obvious reluctance. The child stirs, wide eyes taking in his surroundings with an alertness that seems beyond his apparent age.
"Dr. Pershing will examine the specimen," the Client continues, gesturing to a nervous-looking man in a white coat who hovers at the edge of the room. "To ensure it meets our requirements."
Oliver's blood runs cold at the word "specimen." He tries to step forward, to object, but catches Dr. Pershing staring at him with an expression of dawning recognition.
"Have we... met?" Pershing asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
Oliver's throat constricts. The doctor's face triggers something in the depths of his borrowed memory—white corridors, the smell of bacta and sterilization, the sound of machines keeping things alive that should be allowed to die.
"No," Oliver manages, the word coming out clear for once.
But Pershing doesn't look convinced. His gaze lingers on Oliver's face with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces.
The Client opens a case that gleams with polished metal. Beskar ingots, enough to forge a full suit of armor. Payment that represents more wealth than most bounty hunters see in a lifetime.
"Your compensation, Mandalorian. As agreed."
Din accepts the case without visible emotion, but Oliver can feel the tension radiating from him like heat from a forge. This isn't right. None of this is right.
Grogu makes a small sound—not quite distress, but something close to it. Dr. Pershing approaches with a medical scanner, his movements careful and precise.
[QUEST COMPLETE: DELIVER ASSET]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +1000 XP]
[LEVEL UP! LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]
[STAT POINTS AVAILABLE: +3]
[SKILL POINTS AVAILABLE: +1]
The notifications appear just as Pershing activates his scanner, and Oliver nearly vomits. The experience points feel like blood money, a reward for participating in something fundamentally wrong.
Blood money. That's exactly what this is.
POV: Din Djarin
The beskar case weighs heavy in Din's hands—not from the metal, but from the implications. This much beskar could forge armor for an entire covert, could protect dozens of foundlings.
But the cost...
He watches Dr. Pershing examine the child with clinical detachment, noting the way the little one's eyes track every movement. There's intelligence there, awareness far beyond what any normal infant should possess.
The stranger—Oliver—stands beside him, pale and shaking. Whatever recognition passed between him and the doctor has left him looking like he might collapse.
"The specimen appears healthy," Pershing reports, his scanner beeping softly. "Midi-chlorian count is... exceptional."
"Excellent," the Client purrs. "Begin extraction procedures immediately."
"Wait," Din says, the word slipping out before he can stop it.
The Client's pale eyes fix on him with predatory interest. "Is there a problem, Mandalorian?"
Din looks at the child, then at the beskar, then at Oliver's stricken face. The foundling reaches up with one tiny hand, and something in that gesture reminds Din of another child, long ago, reaching up through fire and smoke toward safety that would never come.
"No problem," Din says finally. "Just making sure we're clear on the terms."
"Crystal clear," the Client agrees. "The asset will be properly utilized. You need not concern yourself with its fate."
The casual dismissal grates against every instinct Din has developed over years of protecting foundlings. But the job is done. The client is satisfied. The beskar will outfit a dozen warriors.
So why does it feel like the worst mistake of his life?
POV: Oliver
The walk back to the Razor Crest passes in a haze of self-recrimination. Every step away from that sterile chamber feels like betrayal, like abandoning Grogu to whatever horrors await him in the name of science and Imperial ambition.
[SENSORY SHARING AVAILABLE]
[SKILL UPGRADE: ADDITIONAL SENSE UNLOCKED]
[STAT DISTRIBUTION PENDING]
The notifications pulse across Oliver's vision, but he ignores them. He can't celebrate gaining power when he's just helped deliver an innocent child to people who call him a "specimen."
Din disappears into the city, presumably to visit this Armorer and convert their blood money into armor. Oliver stays aboard the ship, curled in the cargo hold with his knees drawn up to his chest.
I have to know, he decides. I have to see if he's okay.
Oliver reaches out with his enhanced senses, searching for the small creatures that inhabit every urban environment. He finds a voorpak—a small, furry scavenger—prowling near the Client's facility.
[SENSORY SHARING ACTIVATED]
[TARGET: VOORPAK (URBAN SCAVENGER)]
**[MP: 35/91] (Level 2 MP boost)
The connection establishes smoothly, Oliver's consciousness flowing into the creature's simple awareness. Through its eyes, he sees the facility from ground level—guards at every entrance, stormtroopers in white armor patrolling the perimeter.
The voorpak's enhanced hearing picks up sounds from within the building. Machinery humming. Dr. Pershing's voice, tense with suppressed objection:
"Sir, the extraction process is extremely dangerous for a subject this young. The survival rate—"
"Is irrelevant," the Client's voice cuts through. "We need the midi-chlorians, not the host. Proceed with the protocol."
And then, cutting through Oliver's heart like a vibroblade:
Grogu's terrified crying.
The sound is small, helpless, filled with confusion and fear. It's the cry of a child who doesn't understand why the people around him have stopped being gentle.
Oliver rips himself out of the connection so violently that he nearly blacks out. Blood streams from his nose as he scrambles to his feet, system warnings cascading across his vision.
[FORCED DISCONNECTION]
[PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
[HP: 160/200]
When Din returns an hour later, his armor gleaming with fresh beskar plating, he finds Oliver waiting at the ship's ramp.
"We have to go back," Oliver says without preamble.
Din pauses in the act of stowing his weapons. "The job's done."
"He's scared, Mando." Oliver's voice breaks on the words. "I can feel it. They're hurting him."
For a long moment, Din stands frozen in the ship's corridor. Oliver can see the war playing out behind his visor—duty against conscience, pragmatism against the protective instincts that define his people.
Finally, Din's shoulders drop in something that might be surrender or might be acceptance.
"Get your blaster."
Oliver blinks in surprise. "I don't know how to use it."
Din is already moving, checking his ammunition and priming his weapons with mechanical efficiency.
"Then stay behind me and try not to die."
As they gear up for what amounts to a suicide mission, Oliver feels something like hope blooming in his chest. Maybe they're walking into certain death. Maybe the Client's forces will cut them down before they get within a kilometer of Grogu.
But they're going to try.
And sometimes, trying is enough.
[QUEST UNLOCKED: RESCUE THE FOUNDLING]
[PRIORITY: MAXIMUM]
[WARNING: EXTREME DIFFICULTY]
[RECOMMENDED PARTY SIZE: 6-8 COMBATANTS]
[CURRENT PARTY SIZE: 2]
[SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 12%]
Oliver dismisses the warnings with a thought. Some things are worth impossible odds.
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