Predators
Posted on Sun Jul 12th, 2026 @ 4:53pm by Darth Serus & Bomoor Thort
5,456 words; about a 27 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Central Dunio Rainforest, Öetrago
Timeline: Day Ten, Late Morning (After "Two Memories as One")
The descent from the mountain proved gentler than the climb, though scarcely easier. Ancient stone steps, softened by centuries of moss and creeping roots, soon surrendered to little more than narrow game trails winding beneath the towering canopy. Here, the sunlight reached the forest floor only in scattered shafts that drifted slowly across the undergrowth as the jungle shifted overhead, whilst the humid air wrapped itself around every breath with an almost tangible weight. Every surface seemed alive; broad leaves gathered beads of water despite the absence of rain, vines hung from impossible heights like the rigging of forgotten ships, and great trunks disappeared into crowns so distant they might well have belonged to another world entirely.
For a time, they walked without urgency, neither eager to disturb the quiet that had settled upon them atop the mountain. The conversation they had shared lingered more comfortably than either expected. It was no longer merely words between them but something understood, the bond now opened in a manner neither had ever truly permitted before. Darth Serus felt satisfaction that Bomoor would hopefully no longer questioning whether Serus sensed the same things he did, whilst he, though robbed of so much by Sleheyron, carried an unfamiliar certainty that his oldest friend now understood losses words alone could never have conveyed.
The jungle remained restless around them, all the same. Brilliant insects drifted lazily between enormous ferns. Somewhere high above, unseen creatures called across the valley in strange, musical cries that echoed through the humid air before fading into the endless murmur of flowing water and rustling leaves. Every few moments, another sound replaced the last, as though the forest maintained an intricate conversation that had begun long before either former Jedi had set foot upon Öetrago.
Gradually, however, that conversation began to lose its rhythm. Bomoor probably noticed it first. One birdcall failed to receive its usual answer. A distant chorus of chittering insects seemed to cease all at once before resuming again from another direction entirely and even the breeze felt oddly inconsistent, carrying the scent of wet earth one moment before becoming strangely still the next. Nothing had disappeared and nothing had announced itself. Yet, somewhere within the vast tapestry of the Force, tiny threads had begun slipping quietly out of place.
Serus slowed almost imperceptibly. His remaining eye drifted across the undergrowth whilst the photoreceptor of its cybernetic counterpart contracted and widened of its own accord, adjusting to shifting light beneath the canopy. The respirator continued its measured hiss as environmental systems quietly catalogued moisture, airborne spores, pollen density and airborne contaminants without conscious thought. More often than not in the past few days, he sought to ignore the stream of information. Here, one fragment refused to settle.
He frowned as much as his face would allow, his sneer almost invisible beneath the mask.
"What is-"
The warning never reached his lips as something screamed through the foliage.
Instinct, Force and raw experience moved together before conscious thought could catch them. Serus twisted violently to one side as a dark metallic projectile tore through the space his head had occupied scarcely a heartbeat before. It struck the trunk behind him with a deafening crack, punching deep into living wood before erupting into a burst of crackling blue energy that sent arcs of electricity racing across the soaked bark.
The jungle then exploded into motion. Birds burst screaming from the canopy, and great winged creatures scattered into the humid sky. Leaves and broken branches rained through the air as the silence shattered all at once.
Across a rocky outcrop perhaps sixty metres away, visible for no longer than a heartbeat before dropping back into cover, stood a lone armoured figure.
Blue armour, scarred almost white by countless impacts, and T-shaped visor fixed unwaveringly upon them.
Bomoor had already shifted aside, his reaction only marginally preceding Serus' own. His head was already turning, his senses already reaching outward through the trembling lattice of the Living Force. When he spoke, it was already mid-thought, as the pair had already begun sensing the environment as one and gathering their strategy.
"Mandalorians," he said, voice low but steady, "One up high..." he nodded toward the rocky outcrop where the blue helmet had vanished, "...and several more in the trees."
He shifted his stance, one hand already brushing the hilt at his side as he motioned sharply for Serus to stay low. The jungle’s cries echoed around them: birds scattering, branches snapping, the lingering crackle of the discharged projectile still dancing across the wounded trunk.
Bomoor’s gaze locked on the smoking crater carved into the living wood. Serus saw the anger tightening around the muscles in his powerful neck as he allowed the emotion to flow through him into a tight focus.
"Those uncaring scum," the Ithorian growled, "This is sacred forest for my people."
Another ripple of disturbance shuddered through the canopy; not a sound, but an intent. Serus felt it like a faint but unmistakable brush of contact against his body. Bomoor must have felt it first as he turned and stared off into the dark tangle of trees.
"They’ve lost the element of surprise," he continued, already stepping sideways to widen their angle," So now we take it back.”
His eyes flicked to Serus, the understanding between them immediate and wordless.
"Left flank is yours," he said, “I’ll try to move around to the right and box them in.”
Serus offered no reply - there was no need. The bond between them had already carried Bomoor's intention before the words themselves were spoken, and even now he could feel the Ithorian's presence slipping away through the dense vegetation to widen their field of engagement. They would divide their quarry's attention exactly as their unseen attackers had hoped, but not upon the hunters' terms. Whilst Bomoor sought to work with the abundant life that surrounded them, Serus' focus settled elsewhere entirely. Beneath the overwhelming tide of the Living Force, he reached instead for the quiet signatures of machinery, power cells and artificial systems that sat awkwardly amongst the ancient wilderness. The jungle breathed in perfect harmony; the hunters did not.
He moved without haste, his boots finding purchase upon damp roots and slick stone with quiet certainty. Every measured breath of the respirator merged with the countless natural sounds surrounding him, whilst the cybernetic photoreceptor within his ruined eye continuously adjusted to the shifting gloom beneath the canopy. Moisture levels, thermal gradients, airborne particulates and subtle electromagnetic fluctuations flowed ceaselessly through the implant's processors, information that only days earlier had felt intrusive now becoming another extension of his own perception. The body that Sleheyron had forced upon him remained unfamiliar in many respects, yet here, amongst the tangled undergrowth, its peculiar strengths revealed themselves with startling clarity.
There he then felt it. Not life, but a machine. Barely larger than one of Öetrago's broad-winged carrion birds, it drifted silently between the vines some thirty metres ahead, its dull-grey chassis broken by tiny optical sensors that constantly adjusted their focus as they searched through the jungle. It had almost certainly been watching them long before the opening shot was fired, patiently observing every step of their descent whilst transmitting targeting data back to its operators. Serus watched it for scarcely a heartbeat before extending his partially-prosthetic hand, fingers parting with deliberate restraint.
The drone halted so abruptly that its repulsors shrieked in protest. For the briefest instant it fought the invisible grip closing around it, tiny thrusters firing desperately in opposing directions before the durasteel frame began collapsing inward under impossible pressure. Armour plates folded like parchment and sensor lenses burst from their housings. The repulsor assembly imploded beneath its own strain with a shower of sparks before the entire machine compressed into an irregular sphere of twisted alloy scarcely larger than a clenched fist. Only then did Serus close his hand fully.
The ruined drone shot sideways with such violence that it vanished almost immediately into the foliage. A fraction of a second later the jungle echoed with the splintering crack of heavy timber followed by the unmistakable detonation of overloaded power cells. Somewhere beyond the trees, concealed camouflage netting and a hastily constructed observation perch erupted into fragments.
A burst of encrypted chatter immediately came alive upon the hunters' secured, encrypted comm frequency.
"Nest Two compromised."
"Drone telemetry lost."
"Negative... telemetry didn't fail."
A brief pause followed before another voice, calmer than the rest, interrupted.
"It was stopped."
Silence lingered for scarcely a second.
"...Telekinesis."
Another pause.
"...Confirmed."
The blue-armoured Mandalorian lowered the macrobinoculars from his visor, remaining perfectly still amongst the dense foliage despite the destruction of the neighbouring observation post. Even from this distance he could see the crimson blade now illuminating drifting vapour beneath the canopy, its glow flickering between the enormous trunks like some predatory creature announcing its presence. The dossier had described Thane of Caanus as an accomplished Jedi Knight, dangerous certainly, but still bound by the instincts and limitations of the Order.
The figure now walking unhurriedly through the jungle bore little resemblance to that assessment.
"Maintain spacing," the Mandalorian transmitted calmly across the encrypted channel. "No-one closes inside twenty metres. Drones maintain pressure. Force him to keep moving. We hunt him exactly as Rezer taught."
Far below, Darth Serus continued his advance through the sacred forest without breaking stride, the crimson blade held low beside him and the steady hiss of his respirator carrying quietly through the humid air. Somewhere ahead, more machines waited. Beyond them, disciplined hunters prepared their next ambush.
In the other direction, slow steady Ithorian steps pressed into the forest floor. Bomoor had chosen to walk this trek without the specially-shaped sandals he often wore on his galactic travels and he was pleased to feel more at one with the natural world as many of his kin experienced this world as they migrated across its great and varied soils.
His footsteps were not silent, but they did not need to be as he stepped in synchrony with the other creatures in the forest so his movements were no more noteworthy than the other fauna. Across the valley, he also could feel himself at one with Serus; as he summoned the Force, so too did Bomoor. He used the energy to launch himself upwards into the canopy of trees where he spread his weight across several powerful tree branches. His body was not designed for the trees like a Wookiee or a Yuzzem, yet he perched here without effort like he was born to it.
Easing his wide head forward so his dark eyes could focus into the dark tangle of undergrowth, he opened his senses to feel for the intruders. He knew they were down there - he could sense them but they were doing well to mask their presence. They were not blocking the Force with Ysalamiri; that would have been too clean. Too obvious.
These assassins were trained to shield themselves from the detection of Force sensitives.
Bomoor knew they would reveal themselves eventually and he trusted in Serus to position himself strategically to draw them into view for him. For a moment, with just the gentle buzz of the jungle, he remained crouched among the branches: a broad, unmoving shape suspended in the canopy. The forest wrapped around him, accepting him as a part of the world, yet asking nothing from him at the same time. He felt more alive in this place, with Serus, than he ever had. Together, they would hunt.
Down in the undergrowth, the Mandalorians kept their formation tight. Their visors tracked Serus' distant silhouette through the foliage, the soft blue outline of his respirator pulsing with each measured breath.
"Where’d the hammerhead go?" one of them muttered, adjusting the focus on his macrobinoculars.
"Still around," another replied, older, voice filtered through a more worn helmet, "Ithorians don’t move fast, even Jedi ones. We’ll pick him up again."
The first warrior paused, visor tilting upward, "Thought I saw something in the trees."
He raised the binoculars, scanning the canopy. A thick shape, broad and hunched, seemed to cling to a branch for half a heartbeat. Then it was gone.
His senior spared a glance up, only to see a vine gently swaying from the branches.
“Don’t start seeing shapes in the trees,” the senior said, though his visor lingered a moment longer than necessary, “Stick to your sensors; they don't make kark up."
He brought two fingers up to adjust his helmet to a different spectrum, "The Jedi’ll show himself when he’s ready."
The younger warrior lowered the binoculars, but his posture tightened all the same.
Serus neither quickened nor slowed. The bloodshine blade remained low beside him, its glow bleeding across damp roots and broad leaves alike as he continued his deliberate advance through the sacred forest. Every measured breath issued from the respirator in the same steady cadence as before, the sound strangely subdued beneath the distant cries of disturbed wildlife. Around him, moisture drifted through shafts of muted sunlight whilst his ruined eye and cybernetic photoreceptor continued their quiet labour, separating the living harmony of the jungle from the artificial signatures concealed within it.
The next attack came exactly where he expected.
The forest floor vanished beneath his leading foot as camouflaged latticework burst upward from the earth in a violent eruption of weighted cables and compact repulsor anchors, the mechanism unfolding with brutal speed as its concealed projectors ignited simultaneously. Invisible gravitic force struck him from every direction at once. The durasteel mesh wrapped itself around his limbs and torso whilst the field compressed violently, multiplying its own restraint with every attempt at movement. Four anchor pylons, each buried deep amongst roots and stone, drove themselves harder into the ground as warning lights flashed across their housings.
High above, hidden amongst the canopy, several Mandalorians held their breath.
"Restraint confirmed."
"Field stable."
"He's caught."
"Are you sure that's the Caanan? His face..."
"It's him."
The blue-armoured commander watched through his macrobinoculars as he issued the comment. Sev's teachings had always been clear. Jedi escaped because hunters panicked after the trap was sprung - patience won hunts.
Below, Thane of Caanus simply stood within the tightening web, but they could not track the Ithorian.
The crimson blade remained active at Serus' side. His head lowered fractionally as though studying the mechanism wrapped around him. The respirator released one slow, measured exhalation as he drew the Force heavily into himself, controlled rage bleeding out from his core in a cold, contained fury. And, then, he stepped forward.
Every gravitic emitter screamed and the field intensified immediately, invisible pressure multiplying until nearby branches bowed beneath the strain. The cables bit deeper across his robes, skin and prosthetics alike, their motors desperately compensating for resistance that should have been impossible to overcome.
Yet the Sith continued walking and metal groaned somewhere beneath the earth.
As he took yet another step, the nearest anchor pylon lurched violently sideways as the enormous force travelling through the restraint system exceeded what the bedrock beneath it could withstand. Roots tore free from the soil, clods of damp earth bursting upward as the entire assembly ripped from the ground and skidded helplessly behind him.
A second anchor followed and then a third. Warning sirens shrieked from the remaining projector as its gravitic core overloaded attempting to compensate for three missing restraints. It lasted scarcely another heartbeat before Serus closed the fingers of his partially-prosthetic hand and te final pylon imploded.
Every remaining cable snapped taut before collapsing inward with explosive violence. Twisted lengths of alloy folded around themselves as invisible pressure compressed the entire restraint system into a dense sphere scarcely larger than a travel case. The gravitic core flashed white and Serus cast it aside.
The compacted mass vanished into a rocky outcrop where it detonated with enough force to shower the surrounding undergrowth in harmless fragments of glowing metal.
The Sith never broke stride.
The encrypted comm frequency erupted.
"Trap failed."
"Impossible!"
"No structural failure... he walked through it."
"...Repeat?"
"He... IT... walked through it! "
Silence answered for a moment, before the commander's voice finally returned.
"All hunters. Fire."
The jungle exploded.
Blaster fire converged from six concealed positions almost simultaneously, red, blue and green bolts crossing between trunks in carefully staggered patterns designed to deny every avenue of escape. The hunters had rehearsed such volleys against Jedi dozens of times before. Every dodge led naturally toward another firing line and every defence opened another angle.
Serus advanced directly into it. His lightsaber rose and three bolts disappeared against the crimson blade in rapid succession. He neither spun nor flourished; each interception occupied scarcely more movement than required, the blade travelling only inches between impacts before lowering again.
The fourth bolt he avoided entirely, leaning his upper body aside by the narrowest margin whilst his boots continued carrying him forward, his reinforced spine allowing the motion well enough.
The fifth bolt vanished as the Force tore a curtain of damp earth upward from the forest floor. Rich black soil and broad fallen leaves burst into the bolt's path, absorbing its energy before drifting harmlessly back amongst the roots from which they had come.
No living trunk was touched and branch broken.
The Mandalorians adjusted instantly. Another disciplined volley came from fresh angles.
Serus' free hand opened and a discarded length of dead timber lying half-submerged beneath moss lifted from the forest floor and swept sideways through the air with terrifying speed. It crossed directly through the newest firing lane, forcing two concealed riflemen to duck behind cover as the ancient fallen trunk shattered harmlessly against stone beyond.
Already, he was closer. Close enough, Serus realised, that their blue-armoured leader finally moved within sight again.
"Collapse!" he barked. "He's inside engagement distance!"
Armoured figures burst from concealment together. One descended from the branches above on a grappling line, beskad already drawn as he sought to occupy the Sith's blade. Two more emerged from opposite flanks with cortosis-edged electrostaves crackling into life, whilst another pair remained behind to maintain disciplined suppressive fire.
It was textbook.Against almost any Jedi, it probably would have worked.
Serus met the descending Mandalorian first. The beskad crashed against crimson plasma in a shower of sparks. Rather than disengage, Darth Serus stepped directly inside the warrior's reach with frightening decisiveness. His offhand struck the Mandalorian squarely across the chestplate, fingers clamping around beskar with enough force that servomotors within the armour squealed in protest.
The hunter's boots left the ground and for one suspended instant he hung there, held effortlessly before the Sith.
The next volley arrived and the Caanan simply turned. Blaster bolts hammered into the captured Mandalorian's armour instead, scattering brilliant sparks across beskar as the unfortunate hunter became unwilling cover for the fire of his own comrades.
Only when the barrage ceased did Serus release him. The body flew sideways through dense ferns before crashing heavily into the forest floor, broken and crippled, no longer able to fight and not long left to be alive.
The electrostaff wielder lunged immediately, driving the crackling weapon toward Serus' exposed side. His blade moved once and the staff separated cleanly into two smoking halves.
Momentum carried the Mandalorian onward regardless and Serus caught the warrior's forearm with his other hand, twisted sharply and redirected the entire body into another advancing hunter. Armour collided with armour in an explosion of momentum before both disappeared together into a thicket of broad jungle ferns. With a twist of his hand and careful application of the Force, the two pieces of staff impaled the backs of both downed enemies, cutting their hunt short.
Again, nothing living broke beneath the impact. He would not harm Bomoor's world willingly.
The commander felt it then.
Not victory slipping away, so much as control. Their whole ambush had become reactive. The former Jedi was no longer fighting through the trap - trap was trying desperately to survive him, with little even known about the location of Thort.
Ahead, the red lightsaber continued its measured advance between the ancient trees, every quiet hiss of the respirator drawing nearer, barely audible. For the first time since the hunt had begun, several Mandalorians found themselves doing something their masters had always forbidden.
They began looking over their shoulders.
They were no longer hunting Thane and Bomoor.
Thane and Bomoor were hunting them.
Though he wouldn't have needed it, the sudden focus on Serus gave the stalking Ithorian all the cover he could have asked for as he closed the final distance between him and the slowly fracturing Mandalorian warriors.
With a dull thud that was muted by a nearby blast, Bomoor leapt onto a sturdy branch and peered down at the volley of laserfire directed towards his partner's position in the forest and traced it all the way back to a pair of blue-clad figures ducking and firing from an entrenched position behind a great root.
Silently, Bomoor stepped forwards and let the planet’s weight gather beneath his leading leg. Like a swinging log trap, the blunt force impacted one of the warrior's heads and sent it ploughing into the ground at an angle that was sure to irreparably sever the spine, even under all that plating.
As though it were a fluid movement, he ghostly viridian saber erupted forth as Bomoor's hand swept across his body and the other warrior experienced a cleaner departure of his head from his shoulders.
In his mind, Bomoor had no issue with taking these men's lives. Not only were they an active threat, but they had chosen to come and bring this conflict to this place of peace and spirituality. There was no grey area - they had forfeited all rights to walk this mortal plane.
His blade snapped shut and the shimmering light that clung to the moisture in the air and the waxy leaves around him also vanished, bring him once again into the invisible dark. He launched off towards the next group huddled between the trees a little further down the mountainside.
The commander watched the crimson glow continue its slow passage through the jungle, every instinct earned through years of hunting Jedi warning him that distance alone would not preserve them now. They had prepared for speed and they had prepared for acrobatics, misdirection and sudden violence. What advanced towards them instead possessed none of those qualities - it simply continued walking, each measured footfall carrying it closer whilst their carefully rehearsed engagement dissolved around it.
"Suppress him," he ordered, voice remaining level through force of discipline alone. "Continuous fire. Make him defend."
The jungle answered with another storm of blaster bolts. Fire converged from every quarter of the clearing, bolts crossing through gaps between trunks that had been measured before the ambush was ever sprung. Every avenue ahead of their Human target became a lattice of crimson, blue and emerald plasma intended to force him either backwards or into the open where heavier weapons waited. It was the culmination of years spent studying Jedi engagements; no individual marksman expected to strike the killing blow, but together they denied possibilities until probability itself became a weapon.
Darth Serus continued forwards.
The bled lightsaber blade rose no higher than his shoulder. Its movements were astonishingly restrained, scarcely leaving the space immediately before his body as it intercepted only those shots that truly required interception. One bolt disappeared against the plasma with a hiss. A second passed so close to his robes that it singed loose fibres without touching flesh as he allowed a single shoulder to drift backwards. Another passed before his face where, a fraction earlier, his head had occupied the space. His steps never altered in length nor cadence. He did not appear to dodge so much as simply decline to remain where danger intended him to be.
To the Mandalorians watching through magnified optics, the effect became deeply unsettling - he was not fighting the barrage, but was simply advancing through it. Each adjustment was minute, like a slight inclination of the torso, or a turn of the hips measured in degrees rather than strides. A subtle shift of weight from one foot to the other that allowed entire firing lanes to pass harmlessly around him whilst his blade dealt with the handful of bolts whose trajectories genuinely could not be escaped. Nothing was wasted. Every motion served two purposes at once, preserving his own advance whilst placing him a little nearer the next concealed position.
"Keep firing!" their commander snapped.
Another volley came immediately, heavier than the last. Serus' left hand rose briefly from his side and several blaster bolts simply ceased to exist.
The invisible Force caught them before impact and drew their momentum aside by scarcely perceptible degrees. They streaked harmlessly between ancient trunks before vanishing into bare stone beyond, leaving bark, moss and living foliage untouched. His hand lowered again before the next step carried him onwards.
"Stunners," came the next command.
Two hunters immediately changed weapons. Compact launchers barked and a pair of electromagnetic grenades skipped through the undergrowth before erupting ahead of Serus in overlapping spheres of blinding white discharge. Violent arcs of ionised energy leapt from vine to vine and danced across damp air, filling the forest with a crackling cage of electrical interference intended to overwhelm nervous systems and cybernetics alike.
The respirator hissed softly and the nascent Dark Lord neither retreated nor accelerated. He stepped through the collapsing edge of the field at precisely the moment its greatest intensity had already discharged elsewhere. Residual arcs crawled harmlessly across his partially-cybernetic hand and wrist and along sections of exposed machinery beneath his collar before grounding themselves into the damp earth. The photoreceptor flickered once as internal systems compensated.
Something new was muttered, barely audible to Serus, and there was the slightest hesitation before one hunter acknowledged the command.
A pale cylindrical grenade arced through the humid air, spinning end over end before striking an exposed root scarcely five metres before Serus.
The cryoban charge detonated without flame.
Instead, impossible cold erupted across the jungle floor. Moisture crystallised almost instantly into jagged sheets of white frost. Moss blackened as ice expanded through its delicate structure. Broad emerald leaves became rigid and translucent before fracturing beneath their own weight. Tiny insects dropped silently from branches where they had clung only moments before, whilst creeping vines split apart with brittle cracks as sap froze within them. The humid air itself seemed to recoil from the sudden violence inflicted upon it.
Serus stopped. He had stepped aside from its heart with little more than a measured turn that left the freezing wave to expend itself across empty ground. His gaze settled instead upon the patch of dying forest and the respirator drew one slow breath.
Across the bond, far beyond sight, Bomoor would have felt it immediately. The golden eye lifted from the ruined vegetation and found the Mandalorian who had launched the grenade, who had already begun relocating. He managed three hurried steps before the Force reached him.
His body left the earth so abruptly that loose leaves spiralled beneath his boots. For a heartbeat he hung suspended amongst shafts of filtered sunlight, armour servos whining as every instinct compelled him to struggle against an enemy he could neither see nor strike. His rifle floated from his grasp of its own accord before dropping harmlessly amongst the roots below.
Serus regarded him without expression.
His fingers closed slowly.
The beskar itself endured, but everything contained within it did not. The armour contracted by almost imperceptible degrees as overlapping plates drove inward against one another with immense, methodical pressure. Servomotors screamed and seals ruptured. The breastplate bowed fractionally before locking against the abdomen beneath it. Then came the dull succession of internal fractures, muted beneath the armour yet unmistakable to the few remaining warriors listening through helmet microphones. One rib gave way, then another. The shoulders collapsed inward under their own plating. Finally the spine failed with a heavy crack that silenced every remaining movement.
The lifeless body then fell heavily amongst the frost-blackened undergrowth beside the damage its weapon had caused.
Silence spread through the Mandalorian frequency.
The commander found himself staring not at the dead hunter but at the crimson figure already advancing once more. There had been no flourish, no shouted threat, no indulgence in cruelty for its own sake. The execution had been as restrained as every movement of the supposed former Jedi's blade.
"He..." one warrior began uncertainly, "...he stopped because of the forest."
The implications settled across the surviving hunters with a weight that years of experience could not easily dismiss. They had expected even a former Jedi to probably unleash a degree of necessary destruction indiscriminately in defence. Instead, every tree they themselves had scarred still stood as witness that the only deliberate wound inflicted upon the jungle had come from Mandalorian hands.
The crimson glow advanced another few metres through the ancient forest.
For the first time since the engagement had begun, the commander understood that every additional exchange favoured only one combatant.
"Withdraw by teams," he said quietly. "No more direct engagement. We are abandoning the contract."
Around him, disciplined hunters who had arrived to stalk a wounded Jedi Knight and his gentle Ithorian companion now began melting back into the rainforest with the caution of prey attempting to escape a superior predator.
Around him, armoured figures began peeling away through the rainforest with disciplined speed. No one fired unnecessarily now. Every warrior understood that survival depended upon movement rather than victory. The hunt had failed.
Despite this, the target they had known as Thane continued walking.
He neither accelerated nor sought dramatic pursuit. The sinister lightsaber remained low beside him, its crimson light drifting across damp roots and ancient stone whilst the quiet cadence of the respirator carried between the trees with unnerving regularity. He simply followed.
Yet, every measured footstep collapsed the distance they had fought so carefully to preserve.
One Mandalorian glanced over his shoulder whilst bounding across a fallen trunk. The masked warrior had somehow become closer.
He had not heard pursuit; he had not heard crashing undergrowth nor hurried footsteps. There had only been that same measured mechanical breathing that was almost inaudible and, each time he looked back, the crimson glow seemed to have advanced another several metres through the forest.
The warrior tore his gaze away and pushed harder. Ahead of him another pair disappeared between enormous roots before vanishing entirely into the vegetation. He altered course to follow them.
A fresh volley burst from somewhere to his left as two remaining hunters attempted to delay the advance. He scarcely looked back before a flicker of crimson reflected briefly between the trunks, followed almost immediately by silence where disciplined blaster fire had existed moments earlier.
The young Mandalorian swallowed. He knew that silence now and his breathing grew quicker inside the helmet.
Training demanded discipline.
Training demanded cohesion.
Training demanded trust in the man beside you.
But every instinct inherited from generations of warriors screamed something older.
Run.
He broke formation.
The commander heard it happen before he saw it.
"Hold your line!" he barked across the encrypted channel.
No acknowledgement came.
The younger warrior crashed blindly through hanging vines and broad ferns, abandoning every carefully measured route the squad had established before the ambush. Branches whipped across his armour as he forced his way down a narrow animal trail, desperate only to place distance between himself and the relentless figure behind him.
For the first time since childhood, he no longer cared where he was going - only that he was no longer where this warped Jedi was.
He burst through one final curtain of hanging moss, but then stopped, but not because he wished to - but because something stood before him.
Broad and motionless, half concealed amongst immense tree trunks whose moss-covered bark almost seemed to grow around the towering silhouette itself. For one impossible heartbeat, he mistook it for part of the forest.
Then, the great shape shifted ever so slightly.
Somewhere beyond him, carried faintly through the jungle, came the quiet hiss of that respirator drawing steadily nearer.
The Mandalorian realised, with a cold certainty settling into the pit of his stomach, that he had not escaped one hunter - he had merely reached the other.
TBC
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