Hunt for Grogu

In 5 ABY, the Galactic Empire collapsed, giving rise to the New Republic based in the Core Worlds, though fractured remnants of the former regime comprised of lawless gangsters, ex-Imperial warlords, ragtag armies of mercenary remnant stormtroopers, and fleets of warships and starfighters remained, clinging on to what power they could on distant worlds, while other former territories of the Empire continued to be led by ex-Imperial governors and Moffs. Imperial holdouts continued to resist the New Republic even after the fall of the Empire as scattered Imperial forces persisted.

One such Imperial remnant was led by Moff Gideon, a soldier who had risen through the ranks as an officer of the Imperial Security Bureau during the Empire's Great Purge of Mandalore of the Mandalorians. Gideon's remnant consisted of some of the remains of the Imperial Army as well as a fleet. Gideon's remnant had established a presence on Nevarro, a planet in the Outer Rim Territories, by 9 ABY. The Bounty Hunters' Guild also operated on Nevarro, as did an underground Mandalorian tribe that remained in hiding following the Purge. On Nevarro, scientists under Gideon's remnant secretly carried out experiments involving high M-count blood transfusions in an abandoned Imperial base.

Gideon and his forces eventually sought to acquire a mysterious alien child called Grogu, who was in fact a member of the same species as then-deceased Jedi Masters Yoda and Yaddle. Grogu was likewise capable of wielding the Force, having received some training in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant by several Jedi Masters before the purge of the Jedi Order by the Empire, in order to harvest its blood for their experiments. With a high reward waiting for anyone who could bring the child to him, many bounty hunters jumped at the opportunity to capture the child and bring him to "the Client," who Gideon used as a figurehead for his presence on Nevarro.

Upon his return to Nevarro to collect his most recent bounty, Din Djarin, a Mandalorian bounty hunter known to most as "the Mandalorian," collected his reward at the cantina in the local town from an agent of the Bounty Hunters' Guild, Greef Karga, and received his next bounty, one that Djarin accepted when he learned of the high reward being offered by the patrons. After receiving the chit to enter the meeting location, Djarin left the cantina to meet with the Client.

Djarin met with the Client, who wore Imperial attire and was being guarded by remnant stormtroopers, at a facility and realized that they were an Imperial remnant. The Client paid Djarin with a down payment of beskar, an alloy important in Mandalorian culture, and offered him a camtono of beskar for returning the Asset dead or alive, though Imperial Doctor Penn Pershing protested the former. The Client could only provide Djarin with a tracking fob instead of a standard holopuck and the last four digits of the chain code: the target's age, fifty years. Djarin returned to his tribe where "the Armorer" forged him a pauldron using the beskar before he departed Nevarro on his personal starship Razor Crest.

Djarin's tracking fob led him to Arvala-7, where he met an Ugnaught moisture farmer and blurrg tamer named Kuiil. Kuiil, who had met previous bounty hunters who came for the same bounty, trained Djarin in blurrg riding, and the two used blurrgs to cross the desert to the compound where the asset was being held. Djarin stormed the compound being defended by a Nikto mercenary company with the help of an assassin droid, IG-11. The two recovered the asset, which they realized to be a child despite being fifty years old. Djarin blasted the assassin droid when it moved in to terminate the Child. The Razor Crest was later torn apart by a local Jawa tribe, but with Kuiil's help, he was able to recover the scavenged parts by helping the Jawas in an acquiring egg; during the mision, Djarin was saved from a mudhorn by the Child, who Djarin later recounted to have "moved objects with its mind," believing it to be inherent to his species. Kuiil then helped Djarin repair the Razor Crest before he departed.

Djarin returned to Nevarro and handed over the Child to the Client and Doctor Pershing; when Djarin questioned what their plans were for the Child, the Client chastised the question and reminded him asking such was against the Bounty Hunter Code before handing him the camtono of beskar, which Djarin brought to the Armorer to forge him new armor in their underground covert. Djarin later asked Greef Karga what he believed the former Imperials were planning to do with the Child as Karga provided him with a new puck. Before departing Nevarro, Djarin had a change in heart and returned to rescue the Child from the Imperials and Pershing. Djarin was then cornered in the town by Karga and the bounty hunters, whose fobs alerted when Djarin recovered the Child. He was nearly gunned down but saved by the Tribe, who moved in to cover Djarin as he made his way to his ship. He was confronted by Karga, but he blasted Karga off his ship. Djarin then fled off world on the Razor Crest with the Child in his care.

Djarin roamed around the galaxy looking for places to hide while taking work for credits, during which time he met Cara Dune and assisted her in defending a village. Djarin was eventually reached out to by Karga over hologram; the guild expeditor revealed that more Imperials had moved into the town and taken it over since Djarin left. Karga cut a deal with Djarin; for his help in liberating the town, Karga would clear his and the Child's names. Djarin gathered Dune from Sorgan and Kuiil and a rebuilt IG-11, whom Kuill had reconstructed and reprogrammed for nursing and protection, from Arvala-7. On Nevarro, the group met with Karga and his bounty hunter escort outside the town and traveled with them to it.

Just outside the town, Karga gunned down his escort and revealed their original plan was to ambush Djarin and take the Child, but Karga had a change in heart after the Child healed a mortal wound of his from an attack the night before. Djarin, Karga, and Dune walked into town with an empty hovering pram while Kuiil rushed back to the Razor Crest, where IG-11 remained behind, with the Child. Inside the cantina, they met with the Client, who questioned Djarin as to why Mandalore resisted Imperial expansion and demanded to see the Child. The Client was then contacted by Moff Gideon over hologram, who had his escort kill the Client and his stormtrooper guards.

Gideon and his escort cornered Djarin, Karga, and Dune in the cantina. A pair of scout troopers killed Kuiil and took the Child, but it was saved by IG-11, who then rode into town atop a speeder bike and regrouped with the others. The group eventually escaped into the sewers underground, where they found the Armorer and the remains of the armor of the Tribe members, who had been wiped out by the Imperials after revealing themselves. After seeing the Child and learning of its powers, the Armorer told Djarin that legend spoke of battles between Mandalore the Great and an order of "sorcerers" called Jedi. She provided Djarin with a jetpack and tasked him with reuniting the Child with its "people;" until then, Djarin would serve as its caretaker, and she named them a clan, Clan Mudhorn. She remained behind while the others escaped.

The group eventually made it out of the tunnels by traversing across a lava river, during which IG-11 self-destructed to defeat a band of stormtroopers that awaited them. They were confronted by Moff Gideon in an Outland TIE fighter, but Djarin flew up with his jetpack and destroyed the TIE fighter, causing it to crash in the distance. Taking the Child with him, Djarin then parted ways with Karga and Dune, who remained behind on Nevarro as Karga's enforcer. However, unbeknownst to them, Moff Gideon survived his crash and escaped his ship's debris with the Darksaber, having come into possession of the Mandalorian lightsaber.

Having been quested by the Armorer to reunite the Child with its people, Djarin sought to find other Mandalorians who could guide him in his search for the Jedi. Djarin obtained information from Gor Koresh on a Mandalorian allegedly on Tatooine. There, Djarin found Cobb Vanth, who was not in fact a Mandalorian himself but had acquired a set of Mandalorian armor. Djarin demanded the armor, and Vanth ultimately relinquished it after the Mandalorian helped him kill a krayt dragon that had been terrorizing his town. However, the Mandalorian was seen by the original wearer of the armor, Boba Fett.

Upon leaving Tatooine, Djarin agreed to transport "Frog Lady" to the estuary moon of Trask, where her husband, "Frog Man," was located with information on a Mandalorian covert located there. During the trip, however, Djarin's ship Razor Crest sustained heavy damage after crashing on Maldo Kreis. On Trask, the frogs reunited; elsewhere, Djarin encountered former Mand'alor Bo-Katan Kryze and two other Mandalorian warriors of the Mandalorian resistance who fought during the Purge; Kryze informed Djarin that he had been raised in a Mandalorian splinter cult, the Children of the Watch, that adhered to the ancient way. Nevertheless, the four worked together to defeat Imperial forces under Moff Gideon, who were transporting weapons from Trask aboard a Gozanti-class cruiser. After Kryze confirmed that Gideon was in possession of the Darksaber, which she had been searching for, Kryze informed Djarin that he could find a Jedi named Ahsoka Tano in the city of Calodan on the planet Corvus.

In order to repair his ship, Djarin returned to Nevarro, where he reunited with Greef Karga and Cara Dune, who had since worked together to rebuild the planet's town, as well as a Mythrol previously captured by Djarin who had since taken up working for Karga to pay off a debt. While his ship was repaired, Djarin agreed to help Karga, Dune, and the Mythrol destroy a leftover Imperial base on Nevarro in order to completely free the planet from the remnants of the Empire. Although they destroyed the old Imperial base, they discovered during their mission that the base had still been active under Moff Gideon's forces. Djarin subsequently departed from Nevarro, but a tracking beacon was placed on Djarin's ship by a Mimbanese repairman in cahoots with Gideon's holdout, which Gideon sought to use to track Djarin down and capture Grogu for his genetic experiments.

Djarin found Ahsoka Tano on Corvus and helped her liberate the city of Calodan from magistrate Morgan Elsbeth; Elsbeth had been working under a master, Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose location Tano sought. Tano divulged the child's name, Grogu, and upbringing at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to Djarin. After sensing Grogu's memories, Tano explained to Djarin that he had been taken from the temple and hidden away by someone when the Empire rose to power at the end of the Clone Wars. However, she refused to train Grogu any further due to his strong attachment to Djarin, which Tano stated left Grogu vulnerable to his fear and anger. With the Jedi Order having fallen by the Empire's hand, Tano advised Djarin to instead take Grogu to the ruins of an ancient temple on Tython, where Grogu could reach out with the Force, allowing his presence to be sensed by the few remaining Jedi in the galaxy, who could then come searching for him.

On Tython, while Grogu reached out through the Force, Djarin was confronted by Boba Fett and Fennec Shand, who had been tracking Djarin for some time. Fett offered to assist Djarin in protecting the child in exchange for returning his armor. The Razor Crest was tracked by Moff Gideon's forces, however, and stormtroopers deployed in a skirmish against Djarin, Shand, and Fett. Gideon's light cruiser destroyed the Razor Crest with a blast from the sky, though Fett was able to acquire his armor from Djarin's ship beforehand. As the three drove away the last of the stormtroopers, four Dark Trooper battle droids deployed from Gideon's light cruiser and seized Grogu before returning to the cruiser with the child. Fett and Shand remained in Djarin's debt for allowing Fett to keep the armor, and they agreed to help Djarin rescue Grogu from the Imperial forces.

On Nevarro, Djarin learned from Cara Dune, who had since become a marshal of the New Republic, the location of a Republic prisoner, Migs Mayfeld, an ex-Imperial sharpshooter whom Djarin believed could help him locate Gideon's light cruiser. After recovering Mayfeld, Djarin, Dune, Fett, Shand, and Mayfeld flew to the planet Morak in order to access an Imperial terminal with the coordinates to Gideon's light cruiser. There, Djarin and Mayfeld, disguised as Juggernaut pilots, infiltrated an Imperial remnant base and recovered the coordinates; Mayfeld subsequently destroyed the base by blasting rhydonium, and Dune let him go.

From the Slave I, Djarin, Dune, Fennec, and Fett captured the Lambda shuttle Shuttle 2743 in space while it was transporting Doctor Pershing. The four then flew to desert world Lafete where Djarin and Fett recruited Bo-Katan Kryze and fellow Nite Owl Koska Reeves for their mission to rescue the child. Kryze agreed to help Djarin rescue the child from Gideon in order to reclaim the Darksaber, thus allowing her to lay claim the Mandalorian throne, and capture his light cruiser as part of her effort to take back Mandalore, the homeworld of the Mandalorians. On the Slave I, Pershing informed the team that Gideon commanded a platoon of third-generation dark trooper droids that were stored in a cargo bay. The team then devised a plan of attack.

The team emerged out of hyperspace in the shuttle near Gideon's cruiser; Fett fired on the shuttle from Slave I to make it seem like an attack. The shuttle crash landed into the cruiser through its launch tube while Fett destroyed three TIE fighters and jumped to hyperspace. Having boarded the cruiser, Dune, Shand, Kryze, and Reeves made their way to the bridge, eventually seizing it from its crew, while Djarin made his way to the cargo bay to disable Gideon's platoon of Dark Troopers. Djarin shut the doors with Pershing's code cylinder, though one Dark Trooper escaped; the two fought, but Djarin eventually destroyed it, and opened the cargo bay's back doors, dragging the rest of the Dark Troopers into space. Djarin then made his way to Grogu's cell, but found Moff Gideon in it holding the Darksaber over the child. With his beskar spear, Djarin dueled Moff Gideon and eventually defeated him, taking the Darksaber and freeing Grogu.

On the bridge, Djarin brought Gideon and the Darksaber to Kryze. However, the platoon of Dark Troopers used their foot-mounted rocket boosters to fly back to the cruiser and board it again. The team sealed the blast doors, but two Dark Troopers began to pound the doors in order to punch through. Before they could knock down the blast doors, however, a single X-wing emerged out of hyperspace and docked in Gideon's cruiser. The Jedi Luke Skywalker descended and fought against the Dark Troopers with his lightsaber, destroying the entire platoon. Gideon grabbed a blaster pistol, repeatedly shot Kryze, and pointed it at Grogu, but Djarin threw himself in front of the child, shielding him with his beskar armor. Gideon attempted to shoot himself, but Dune punched the pistol out of his hands and knocked him out.

Djarin opened the blast doors for Skywalker, who confirmed he was a Jedi to Djarin upon his asking. Djarin gave his permission for Grogu to go with Skywalker, and removed his helmet to look on the child and give his farewells. Skywalker promised to defend the child with his life; he picked up Grogu and left with him. Thus, Djarin fulfilled his quest and reunited the child with his kind.

In the non-canon comic strip included in Star Wars Insider 196, Grogu was hunted by a bounty hunter named George and their Jawa associate, only for the hunters to cease their attack against Djarin and the Child upon seeing Grogu and deeming him to be adorable.

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