While considered only a moon of Trandosha, that is hardly the defining trait of Wasskah. The jungle moon is instead best known as a game preserve used for hunting sentient beings. Its surface contains islands with sandy beaches and thorn-filled forests. It is primarily the jungle that will be seen by those who have been brought there against their will. However, with enough effort, one might escape to an island.

Beneath the jungle canopy, Wasskah is alive with the sounds of convorees, momongs, and other local fauna. Lush, green plants and vines cover the trees and hide the muddy ground beneath foliage. It is hard to find true daylight through the thick growth, but it is not impossible to come across bright rays of light.

While any sign of technology is nearly non-existent, some hunting nests remain to be discovered by the more tenacious of those trapped there. There isn't enough tech for a scavenger, but in a fight for survival every little bit counts. And every corner hides a potential threat.

You awaken at night in an open cage to a humid and vibrant jungle island filled with exotic flora. Any memory of how you got to this situation comes up blank, and the constellations in the skies say nothing as to where you are in the galaxy. However, a mark painted on your cage reveals a vaguely familiar emblem. The memory is fuzzy, but you recall recognizing the symbol as a crest for the Trandoshan Game Hunters: a league that kidnaps worthy prey to hunt for sport. You are now the next target of the hunt, and by the looks of the identical cages nearby, you are not the only one playing in the Trandoshans' most dangerous game.

Trenkyp woke up inside a cage with a terrible headache. He quickly checked his belt and realized that his weapons weren't there. While he did that, he noticed a certain man inside another cage next to him.

"Appius? What are you doing here? And how did we get here?" the Kel Dor asked his former Master, Appius Wight.

"Not sure. I think we are involved in a Trandoshan hunt. But we can't get out just like that. I've tried breaking the bars with the Force, nothing. They're durasteel so we can't break them with our hands either."

"Why didn't the Force... Ysalamiri. Of course. Well, now we know what not to do," the Jedi said as he noticed most of his equipment on the ground in front of the cage, too far to reach with his hands.

"Where are my daggers?" the Knight voiced as he reached to his back, trying to grab a small container. "I got them! Quick, Appius, can you lockpick with small knives?" the Defender asked the Sorcerer as he noticed a lock on the gate of his cage.

"No, but I'm sure you can figure it out," the Mystic said confidently.

"Alright, wish me luck."

Half an hour of thinking and lockpicking later, the lock to Trenkyp's cage finally unlocked, the gate opened slowly and the Kel Dor exited the durasteel prison and picked up his equipment.

"Don't leave me here!" the Mandalorian said.

The Jedi then activated Demonology and walked to the Human's cage, slicing the lock off.

"Quick, get out. The Trandoshans are getting closer," the Jedi whispered.

As the Force Disciple was grabbing his own equipment, a Trandoshan fired upon the two Force Sensitives with an automatic slugthrower. Trenkyp conjured an invisible wall with help from the Force and extended it to protect Appius. The slugs were flattened and fell to the ground just before the Mandalorian would have been pierced.

"A little trick I learned while fighting alongside Deathwatch."

"I don't usually say this, but would you mind telling me the trick?" the Mystic asked.

"Maybe some other time," the Jedi uttered.

As the slugthrower wielding Trandoshan stopped firing, another one opened fire, this time with blasters. Trenkyp activated Sorcery and began spinning his lightsabers in front of him to deflect the bolts away. Appius activated Redeemer and Liberator and started deflecting the blue blaster bolts towards the group of hunters. The Kel Dor then stopped spinning his lightsabers and moved to try to redirect the bolts as close as he could to the Trandoshans, eventually hitting the one shooting them.

Appius hated ysalamiri.

He would have loved to have been able to throw one of the hunters off of the nearby cliff.

But no, he was reduced to defending himself against the attackers like he was some sort of human pin cushion for blaster fire, relying on the Defender beside him to shield him from the slugthrower shots when they came. The fact he couldn't use his prowess on offensive Force Powers to dispatch of these attackers wasn't just maddening to him. It was downright infuriating!

Still, they couldn't keep this up forever. If Trenkyp kept using the Force to protect them both like this, it wouldn't be long before he exhausted his reserves, and they were in deep trouble.

A flash of inspiration shot through his skull as a method of escape shot through his mind.

"Trenkyp, cover me!"

Not one to waste time arguing when their lives were in danger, Trenkyp immediately called upon the Force once again to shield them from the barrage of blaster fire raining down upon them. The Kel Dor strained and could only hold the protective shield up for a few moments, but that little bit of time was all Appius required.

"Trenkyp, shield your eyes!" Yelled the Sorcerer.

The second their protection fell, he thrust his right arm forward. It felt like a supernova burst in front of the group of Trandoshan hunters. With gasps of pain, they recoiled as their eyes burned from the sudden brightness.

The blaster fire had seized, and Appius grabbed the sleeve of Trenkyp's Jedi Robes and quickly pulled him into the nearby forests.

---

"Can I look now?"

They had been running for several minutes across bumpy terrain, all the while Trenkyp kept his eyes shut as Appius dragged and guided him through the dense forested and boggy surroundings of Wasskah.

"Wait, you still have your eyes shut?" Questioned the Sorcerer.

"You didn't tell me I could open them!"

"For frack's sake, Trenkyp!"

They reached a small clearing in the woods, and the pair of Vizsla members stopped running to catch their breaths.

"Catch your breath. We probably only have a few minutes before they catch up and we need to run again," ordered the Wren Aedile. In response, the Kel Dor sat himself down on a nearby rock while the Mystic pressed himself against one of the surrounding trees.

"You know you have a jetpack, right? You can just fly out of here."

"And leave you here alone? I can't do that… besides, I have a sneaking suspicion there's more going on here than we realize."

The Defender glanced at the Mandalorian and quirked an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

"The cages, the ysalamiri strapped to their backs, the slugthrower weapons and the fact that we are both here together? Master and student? There's no way this is just a coincidence."

Trenkyp stood up and paced in place for a moment.

"The Collective?"

Appius shrugged in response.

"Clan Plagueis? You'd think they would send a bunch of Sith after us if this was their idea."

"Yeah," the Mandalorian agreed with a nod. "The Plagueians’ are usually a lot more direct than this. This has the Collective written all over it."

Upon hearing Appius' train of thought, the Kel Dor immediately placed both his lightsabers in his hands.

"So you think the hunters have been put up to this by the Collective? Then we need to do something about them."

"Wait, Trenkyp. We can't just rush at them. We don't know where we are, and they are very much prepared for anything we can throw at them. We need to figure out how we got here, and then find a way off this rock. That's our best bet."

The Defender's head dropped slightly, and he gripped the cylindrical hilts in his hands tighter. He did his best to not let his emotions get the best of him.

"So… what? We have the sworn enemies of the Brotherhood right next to us, and your plan is to just run away?"

He didn't get a response, except for the Mandalorian helmet Appius was wearing turning slightly to the side away from him.

"That's not very Mandalorian of you," replied Trenkyp coldly.

Suddenly, the visor quickly turned back to look at him. The Sorcerer's body tensed under the weight of the Knight's words.

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, Trenkyp, I'm not a typical Mandalorian!" The Sorcerer snapped harshly in response. "If you want to go get yourself killed, throw yourself at them like a child playing hero then fine. But don't expect me to save you this time. Your apprenticeship under me is over, remember? You are not my responsibility anymore."

The pair of Vizsla members stood in silence for a moment, with only the sound of the local wildlife inhabiting the trees for company.

"What's happening to you, Appius? The man I met a few months ago, the man who trained me, made me a Knight… he was never anything like this."

The pair fell silent again. Trenkyp tapped into the Force and felt the conflict waging war in his teacher's soul. The Sorcerer tried to form words in his mouth, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't speak.

"He also was the kind of man that wouldn't just let a friend walk to his death alone."

Appius shifted uncomfortably in place as the Defender sighed in frustration.

"Do what you want, but as a Jedi of Clan Vizsla, I know what I must do."

The Knight stormed off back in the direction they came from It only took a moment for his stature to disappear among the wood and leaves of the dense forest.

"Trenkyp!"

Appius called out to him, but it was already too late. He growled viciously and placed his head into his hands before he kicked a nearby tree hard. His toes throbbed, yet did little to settle the feelings in his heart. He glanced upward and spotted a pair of convorees and momongs staring down at him from the tree branch above him.

"What!?" He exclaimed loudly as if he expected them to somehow respond back to him.

---

As it turned out, Appius was right.

It only took a few minutes before Trenkyp caught sight of the Trandoshan hunters. He took cover behind a nearby fallen log, doing his best to stay out of sight.

Now that he wasn't being shot at, he could get a much better look at the large group of what looked to be over twenty of various sizes, builds, and weaponry stalking their movements through the woods. Each of them equipped with a ysalamiri strapped to their backs.

As some of the group approached him, he placed his lightsaber hilts on the soft ground beside him and unsheathed his Armory Vibroblade.

He leaped onto the log and launched it as hard as he could at the nearest Trandoshan, it severed the beings left arm, and it shrieked as blood surged from the open wound.

Its cry of anguish alerted its comrades and Trenkyp retreated back into cover to avoid the hornet swarm of blaster fire that immediately came his way.

Grabbing Sorcery and Demonology from the ground, he activated the pair of lightsabers as green plasma blades ruptured out of the hilts. The Force screamed the warning of danger through his mind as he used his proficiency in Shien to defend himself and deflect blaster bolts back at his targets.

The Trandoshan's, however, were clever, as this was not their first hunt.

They began to slowly surround the young Kel Dor as Trenkyp struggled to keep himself from harm. Calling upon the Force to protect him from Slugthrower shots and blaster bolts alone only worked for mere seconds before the protection shattered and he was back at square one.

A single Slugthrower shot hit the green blade of Sorcery, the shrapnel embedding itself into his face. The pain was disorienting to him.

A series of blaster bolts threatened to end his life until he suddenly felt himself being pulled out of the way by an invisible tether. He rolled across the ground and came to a stop next to a man in Mandalorian armor.

"Appius?" The Defender asked in surprise.

He didn't get a response, but instead watched as the Sorcerer reached out with his right arm and launched a nearby boulder at the group of Trandoshan's.

Following that attack, he called upon the Force like an extension of himself. He concentrated as the log Trenkyp hid behind catapulted towards the group of Game Hunter's, squashing three under its heavy weight.

With the enemy distracted for a moment, Appius addressed his fellow clansman.

"Are you ok?"

Trenkyp returned to his feet, and already he could feel the soothing energy of the Force working to heal the minor wound he received.

"I'm fine. I can still fight."

"Good, I'll take the ten on the left, you take the ten on the right. Divide and conquer, but try to leave one alive if we can. We need a way out of here, after all."

Trenkyp smirked behind his breathing apparatus.

"Screw you, Appius. I'm taking eleven!"

For the first time since he awoke in his cage, the Mandalorian smiled behind his visor.

"That's the spirit. Let's do this."

As Trenkyp's pain diminished, his mind began clearing up. His eyes focused on all the opportunities to strike the Trandoshans, but he was looking for something different. The Kel Dor hid behind a fallen tree, searching through the tallest trees when he saw a green rope coming out of one of them. The Jedi quickly looked at the group of hunters and saw that the rope was attached to the ground near them and that leaves they were standing on were strangely looking, as if they were painted. It took him a few seconds of thinking to realize that the hunters were standing on what was probably a trap set up by one of them.

"What are you doing Tren?! Stop hiding and go get them!" the Mandalorian yelled as he dodged and deflected the projectiles fired by the Trandoshans.

The Knight then motioned a punch towards the rope, expecting the firing to stop. He heard less shots, but he knew the danger wasn't gone.

"They're hunters, they use traps. Use that against them," the Kel Dor said with a confident voice.

There were seven remaining Trandoshans, all firing at the two Force Users . The blaster bolts were easier to defend against, but the threat was still there, approaching.

"Appius, I'm gonna need you to draw their attention towards you," the Jedi said as he ran out of the hunters' sight.

"Got that." the Mystic voiced as he started spinning Redeemer and Liberator in a flashy manner, however still defending himself. "LIZARDS, DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME?"

While the hunters kept firing at the Sorcerer, the Defender flanked their group. One of the hunters saw him approaching and started firing at the Jedi. The first bolt fired was redirected by Demonology right back, penetrating the Trandoshan's skull.

The Kel Dor imbued his senses with the Force and sliced through all of the remaining Trandoshans, killing almost all of them.

“What are you doing?! I told you that we needed one of them alive!” the Mystic yelled as he ran towards the Knight.

“He’s still alive,” Trenkyp said, pointing to a hunter with his stomach sliced open. “Maybe I can give him a few extra seconds.” The Kel Dor then concentrated on the Trandoshan’s wounds and healed him with the Force as best as he could.

“Right. Now, you will tell us everything you know or we will let you rot here.”

“You think I would tell you anything? The hunt is over, there is no point in keeping me alive.”

“Very well. But you are dying. It could be a long, painful death or a short and painless one. Your choice,” the Jedi said.

“They brought you here. Promised good pay. Good hunt. Liars, all of them…”

“But who?” the Force Disciple asked.

“I think you know them as The Collective. End this hunt or the hunt will end you,” the Trandoshan spoke as his pain grew. “Once the hunt is over, there is a ship at the other side of the forest. Just end it already.”

The Mandalorian then sliced the hunter’s head off with the Liberator and deactivated both of his lightsabers. Trenkyp turned both of his lightsabers off and sheathed them.

“At least he had honor. Come on now, we have a way off this place,” the Kel Dor said as he headed towards where the hunter said the ship would be.

“Yeah. Let’s get off this planet.”

A few minutes later, the two reached a heavily modified GX1 Civilian Short Hauler which appeared to be empty.

“Can you pilot this?” the Defender asked the Sorcerer.

“I can try,” the Mandalorian said as he went to the pilot’s cabin.

After a few more minutes of figuring out the controls, the two took off the planet and set a course to Zsoldos to inform the Clan of what they had found out.

Trenkyp didn't need to be told twice, and with the man who trained him at his side, his confidence rose exponentially.

He called upon the Force to power him, his muscles increased in strength, and his speed was almost faster than the hunters could keep track of. He landed in the middle of the massive group, catching their attention.

But this was just as he had planned, these men weren't soldiers or even paid mercenaries. They were game hunters, used to hunting prey that always ran and never fought back. This would not be the case with them.

With the Trandoshan's preoccupied with Trenkyp's daring jump, the Sorcerer had plenty of chances to do what he did best. The ysalamiri strapped to their backs may have helped nullify direct Force attacks against them that could cause them harm, but not everything else.

"Trenkyp, now!"

The former apprentice immediately sheathed his lightsabers and dropped them to the ground. He grabbed his all-temperature cloak, kneeled down, and covered his face with it as best he could.

A ball of light burst above him, and just like it did earlier, the Trandoshan's retinas burned with a horrible scratching sensation. Even the ysalamiri in their possession were pained by it and could not protect their masters.

Sensing the opportunity had come, the Defender wasted no time and retrieved his lightsabers from the ground, he stood and spun, activated his lightsabers and proceeded to slice through the nearest Trandoshan to him with a swirling double strike across the midsection.

Grabbing his own lightsabers, Appius jumped into the fray himself, and the moment he landed, he used his proficiency in Jar'Kai and the momentum he'd gained to quickly thrust forward to stab with a twin-handed strike. He carried this forward, not wasting any time whilst the huge group were still reeling from their loss of sight.

After a few seconds, the group's eyesight returned to them, but their numbers had taken a considerable toll. Realizing this from the number of corpses and body parts that littered the jungle floor, they tried to form a hasty retreat further into the jungle.

"Go jar yot tapar!" One of the Trandoshan's yelled with haste in a language that neither Force User could understand.

But they were not soldiers, and the difference between them compared to Trenkyp and Appius was they were not a united fighting force. As they backed away from almost certain death, they split up, separating from each other and making themselves easier targets for the two lightsaber-wielding men.

However, things were not as simple as that for Vizsla's first and second Knights. Appius' use of the Force up to this point was starting to take a toll on him as his lungs required deeper breaths, and actions became harder and harder to commit too.

Trenkyp was no better. Despite his skill in Shien, he had to focus every part of his will to deflecting blaster fire from their assailants, an effort that required intense concentration and energy.

The pair knew they had to end this quickly, or they might meet an unfortunate end. So they went on the offensive. The Defender was first to get close to a couple of Trandoshan's but suddenly halted at a slightly disturbed area of land in-between him and them. His heart almost jumped out of his chest, and he went wide-eyed at what he spotted.

"STOP!!!" He yelled back to the Human behind him.

It was too late, the Mandalorian had stepped an inch too far and triggered the Laser Trip Mine that detected his presence.

The Defender, acting on instinct, willed the Force around Appius to protect him from as much of the explosion as possible. Tree's blew apart, sending sharp splinters everywhere. Earth from the ground splattered into the air, and a booming red and orange fireball erupted from the epicenter, knocking both Force User's off their feet.

The boom thundered through the jungle, and the convorees, momongs, and all other wildlife fled from frightening noise.

Once the dust settled, the five remaining Trandoshan's cautiously approached the two bodies lying on the ground motionless. The smell of the jungle replaced by the faint burning that now lingered in the air. The Kel Dor was in relatively good shape, though the same couldn't be said for the Mandalorian.

His armor was torn through to his flesh, and a small amount of bleeding seeped through. His jetpack was beyond use now, and other parts his armor was singed, giving off a burnt leathery smell. Part of his helmet had been torn apart, revealing a single closed eye.

The game hunters smirked to each other, satisfied that they gained their kills. The closest one approached the body of the Sorcerer and brandished a clean and shiny vibrodagger, ready to claim his trophy.

A blue eye shot open and the Mandalorian quickly rose to his knees, with a lightsaber in his left hand, the emerald blade hissed out of the hilt and stabbed through the Trandoshan's heart. The reptilian being dropped the dagger and Appius removed the weapon out of its chest. It crumpled to the floor. Alarmed, the last four of the group brandished their blasters and were prepared to open fire.

Unfortunately for them, a certain Kel Dor had other ideas. They'd been so distracted by Appius they failed to notice the Jedi recompose himself. With his lightsabers in hand he moved swiftly from one Trandoshan to the other until the last managed to fire a single shot. The Jedi deflected the bolt into a nearby tree and swung the blade in his right hand across the last Trandoshan's neck.

After the final body dropped, Trenkyp sheathed his weapons. His Jedi Robes were ripped and torn but thankfully could be replaced. Any ysalamiri that survived their owner’s death scurried off into the distance, far away from danger.

"You're hurt." The tall Kel Dorian stated, out of breath and panting hard, his attention now on the kneeling Wren Aedile.

"Really? What was your first clue?" Appius responded sarcastically with a smile. He clutched his right arm with his left hand, and it was plainly evident to the Defender that he was in pain.

He approached him and tried to help him to his feet, though the hard gasp of anguish forced him to let go.

"Sorry," Trenkyp said apologetically.

He gently placed his hands on the wounded arm and immediately relief washed over the Sorcerer. A result of the soothing energy of the Force.

"Thanks. If you hadn't saved me when you did, I would have been a goner."

The Kel Dor didn't respond, instead focusing on healing his mentor and trying not to let his fatigue get the better of him.

"You know… we still have to find a way out of here. I think if we follow the direction they came from, we might find a ship."

"Hopefully. Still think they were hired by the Collective?"

"Maybe, does it matter? This was part of the reason why I wanted to leave one alive."

"Hm."

That was the response he received. And the Sorcerer closed his eyes, allowing his former apprentice to heal him so they could find a ship to get off this Force forsaken rock. Together.