Predators, Part Two
Posted on Sat Jul 18th, 2026 @ 4:23pm by Bomoor Thort & Darth Serus
2,010 words; about a 10 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Central Dunio Rainforest, Öetrago
Timeline: After "Predators"
The Mandalorian froze beneath him.
Bomoor felt the fear in the warrior, like prey stunned in a bright light. Slowly, the Ithorian eased his wide head forward, peering down at the blue‑armoured figure who had just fled one predator only to fall into the maw of yet another.
For a heartbeat, Bomoor did not move. He simply looked.
Then, his gaze lifted; drawn toward the distant crackle of Serus’ blade and the patch of forest still dying from the cryoban blast. The wound in the Living Force pulsed like a bruise across the valley, and Bomoor felt it throb through his chest - a violation of sacred soil, a desecration committed by those who now cowered at the consequence of their own actions.
His eyes lowered again.
The Mandalorian flinched as Bomoor took a broad step in his direction. The warrior scrambled backward, rifle rising in shaking hands but Bomoor merely swept one arm aside and the weapon tore itself from the hunter’s grip and vanished into the undergrowth with a clatter.
The Ithorian reached out.
Invisible pressure wrapped around the Mandalorian and lifted him bodily from the earth. Leaves spiralled beneath his boots as he rose, armour servos whining in protest. Bomoor drew him closer until the visor was only inches from his own.
With a quiet exhale, he tore the helmet free.
The Human beneath gasped, eyes wide, face pale with terror. Bomoor’s own eyes clouded, veins darkening across their surfaces, as the forest’s anger flowed through him. He regarded the man with a heavy, contemplative silence. Not hatred, but judgement.
The Mandalorian’s mouth opened, a desperate plea forming, "Please, just..."
Bomoor raised his other hand to the man’s forehead and an invisible pressure resonated between them as the Ithorian delved into the man's mind.
Why are you here? the question pounded, although no lips were moved, Who sent you?
The man had received mental resilience training. Every time Bomoor pushed, all he got back were images of closed doorways and sealed hatches, all the while a serial number was being repeated like a desperate chant growing louder by the second.
Foolish the son of Öetrago thought, You will only damage yourself more this way. I can knock louder.
The man's nose began to bleed and, although still suspended in the air, his body faintly trembled. The string of numbers became fragmented, too many numbers repeated, some Mando'a phrases slipping in as he lost a grip on his defences and Bomoor got a foothold inside.
There, in the darkness beyond was a shimmering hologram answering Bomoor's questions: his own face, along with Serus, Amare, Rex and Reave's slowly rotating above the Aurebesh letters spelling out:
40,000,000 CREDITS
DEAD OR ALIVE
The hologram flickered and dissolved as Bomoor withdrew from the man’s mind. The Mandalorian’s scream never fully formed; it broke apart into a wet, stuttering gasp as Bomoor released his grip.
The warrior dropped like a severed vine.
He hit the earth in a heap of armour and trembling limbs, hands clawing at the soil as though trying to anchor himself to something real. His eyes were unfocused, pupils blown wide, mouth hanging open in a silent, shuddering babble. Mando’a syllables spilled out in fragments - half‑remembered training mantras, fragmented serial numbers, pleas, apologies - all tangled into a senseless stream.
Bomoor watched him for a moment. A brief thought passed, cool and measured: finish him, or leave him to the consequence he had earned.
"You should not have come here," he murmured, voice low and resonant, the forest seeming to carry the words deeper than sound alone could.
The Mandalorian curled inward, shaking violently, mind shattered but alive only because Bomoor allowed it. Death was a release. This was a lesson.
Bomoor turned away.
His saber remained dormant at his side as he stepped back into the undergrowth, the forest parting around him with quiet acceptance. Through the bond, Serus’ presence beckoned like a pulsing star, drawing him forward. The cryoban wound still throbbed across the valley and Bomoor felt the Living Force urging him toward his partner and to the crescendo of the hunt.
Serus felt Bomoor's presence drawing nearer through the bond long before the Ithorian emerged from the dense undergrowth. The sacred forest had grown strangely quiet now. Those creatures bold enough to announce themselves moments before had withdrawn deeper into the canopy, whilst the lingering scent of scorched ozone and cooling plasma slowly gave way once more to damp earth and rich vegetation. Around them, the surviving Mandalorians no longer manoeuvred with the confidence of hunters. They moved because instinct demanded movement, because years of discipline had not yet surrendered to the simple understanding that every position they occupied had already become temporary.
The Sith slowed for the first time since the ambush had begun, but not because the battle required it, but because it was almost over.
As the form of Bomoor resolved against the darkened backdrop of twisting trees, Serus could see his friend was unharmed. The Ithorian slowed and his trunk bowed up and down slowly as he made a similar assessment of himself.
"These hunters will not be the last," Bomoor stated solemnly, slipping immediately back into the moment, "I saw their reason for coming: a large bounty has been placed on our heads: it looked like a Hutt Cartel listing. Others will come to collect it. Our presence here is no longer a secret."
Serus took in the information outward reaction, though somewhere behind the respirator another piece of an ever-expanding puzzle quietly clicked into place. Sleheyron had stripped him of anonymity alongside flesh and blood alike. Their enemies were no longer reacting to isolated incidents. Someone, somewhere, had begun connecting names, faces and events into a coherent whole - or at least someone they had crossed in the past two years had brought subsequent information together.
"So," he said quietly, the synthesised voice carrying little more emotion than the hiss that accompanied it. "The galaxy has finally begun paying attention." He looked towards the forest ahead. "We should conclude this and return to the others. Öetrago should not bear the cost of our being here."
Some of the tension in Bomoor's shoulders seemed to relax slightly at the suggestion from Serus and he nodded his understanding.
Together, they continued forwards.
The last of the Mandalorians no longer attempted another coordinated assault. Their discipline remained admirable, but experience had taught them what pride would not permit them to ignore; every engagement ended the same way - every firing line collapsed, every prepared position became another place to die.
One by one, motion vanished from the forest - until only a single presence remained.
The blue-armoured commander stepped out from between two colossal tree trunks into a shaft of pale afternoon light. His armour bore fresh scoring where fragments and glancing blows had found weak angles. One shoulder plate hung slightly lower than the other and a hairline fracture ran diagonally across his visor where something immensely heavy had glanced from the beskar. His rifle remained slung across his back. One gauntleted hand rested instead upon the hilt of the beskad hanging at his hip.
He neither raised the weapon nor reached for it. For several long moments, nobody moved.
The commander regarded first Bomoor and then Serus, studying them with the same calm attention he had shown through macrobinoculars scarcely minutes before.
When he finally spoke, his filtered voice carried neither panic nor bitterness.
"Our intelligence was flawed. We came expecting two Jedi." The Mandalorian's helmet inclined fractionally. "You are no Jedi."
"No," Serus replied after a pregnant pause, the gentle shifting hiss of his mask more audible in the peace between the three men.
The commander gave one slow nod.
"I believe you."
His hand rose deliberately to the side of his helmet. Compressed seals released with muted hisses. The scarred blue visor lifted away to reveal a weathered Near-Human face of ashen skin lined by age, old burns and countless healed fractures. Grey had begun creeping into the beard along his jaw, whilst one eyebrow had long since been replaced by scar tissue. His intensely-silver eyes never left Serus.
"I will not be remembered behind a visor." He cast the helmet gently onto the moss beside him. "I am done hiding, Bomoor of the Elenca... Thane of Caanus."
His gaze shifted briefly towards Bomoor, examining the darkness around his Ithorian eyes, then back towards Serus and the ravaged state of his face.
"You carry scars beyond your bodies, beyond my understanding of the Force," he said matter-of-factly.
"We carry," Serus answered quietly, "what survived. What is left of Thane and the Elenca survive within us."
The commander accepted the reply with another small nod, as if whatever meaning was hidden within the Caanan's reply was understood and satisfactory.
"So be it."
His hand closed around the hilt of his beskad. There was no hesitation as the blade cleared its sheath in a single practiced movement. He advanced exactly as every lesson of his people demanded... but the duel lasted scarcely longer than a heartbeat.
The crimson blade moved only once, with almost perfect economy. Serus shifted half a pace to his own left as the beskad descended, allowing the strike to pass through empty air by the narrowest of margins before guiding it aside with the lower third of his lightsaber. The same motion continued seamlessly into a short, rising cut that slipped beneath the Mandalorian's guard before he could recover.
The blade pierced cleanly through armour, body and the power unit mounted against the warrior's back, the gently-pointed electrum hilt pressed against the commander.
For a moment, neither man moved. The commander looked down towards the crimson light protruding from his chest, then back up into Serus' remaining eye. He made a noise, guttural and little more than a breath, as his dying eyes sought Serus' with what could almost pass for satisfaction. Whether it was approval of his own death, or of the warrior who had delivered it, only he knew. Mandalorians had habits even Sith found alien.
The light faded from his eyes and Darth Serus withdrew the blade. The body collapsed heavily onto the damp forest floor and the Sith Lord regarded him for several silent seconds before extinguishing the lightsaber. The jungle immediately seemed darker without its crimson glow.
"He was competent," Serus observed as his gaze drifted towards the direction from which the Mandalorians had come. "Their transport will still be concealed nearby." He looked towards Bomoor. "Your rebel friends require a ship more than these dead men, but we should not remain here. Öetrago should not suffer due to our presence - we should gather the others, if they yet live."
Bomoor turned from the fallen commander, the weight of the encounter settling across his broad shoulders.
"Mentis is still alive; but his face wasn’t on the listing," he looked up through the canopy at the darkening sky, "Rex and Reave on the other hand; they will be targeted. The Raptor should be space-worthy again by now. We should return to the station and depart with them."
Around them, the forest was already beginning to steady; not through miracle, but through the simple, stubborn resilience of living things. The explosive and cryoban scars still marred the earth, but the canopy above rustled with returning life, small creatures emerging cautiously from the undergrowth now that the gunfire had ceased.
He stepped forward, the ground soft beneath his feet, and Serus fell into stride beside him. Neither spoke further; there was nothing left to say. The forest closed gently behind them as they walked, branches shifting, leaves settling, the valley slowly reclaiming the violence that had passed through it.
They moved on, toward their allies, toward the next threat, leaving the clearing to its quiet work of healing under the steady, watchful calm of Mother Jungle.
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