The Vertical City, Nar Shaddaa. They call it the Smuggler's Moon—an apt description based on the myriad of sentients shuffling back and forth with their illegal wares and hidden weapons. The narrow streets below criss-cross endlessly, soaring miles above the planet's surface. Exposed and uncovered, the streets offer a nearly perfect setting for someone with some skills with ranged weapons. A vantage point on the ledge of a towering structure of glass and steel offers a dizzying view of the cityscape.

Simple shops and merchants peddle both legitimate and illegitimate wares. Storefronts are just as plentiful as open-market pop-up tents, and the cantina's adapt the same lowlife air as the rest of the Smuggler's Moon. Enemies could be hidden in plain sight, whether one of the Hutts’ gangsters or mercenaries-for-hire looking to earn some credits. The streets are plagued with violent gangs and the general riff raff of the poor and destitute. They may be an ideal place for blasters, but the winding streets are difficult to disappear from. An opponent would be easily boxed in and simple to finish with a few quick slashes of a lightsaber. The moon is dangerous—even for one gifted in the Force.

Hector walked the narrow corridor of the streets, seemingly at ease. Comfortable distance surrounded him as each and every civilian swerved and packed in to avoid someone very clearly carrying two fire arms and a lightsabre in full Imperial armour striding down the tight alley of Nar Shaddaa.

Vizsla had sent its own leadership here with one simple intent. Find and kill Knight Work’t of Arcona, before he could become a greater menace then he already was. Or as Korvis had said to him. “Hector, that Ewok has been with Arcona for six weeks and has gone from throwing pebbles and being weird to having all the degrees in the sciences and throwing boulders around effortlessly. I’m not having them manage to win any battles due to a murder bear with disillusions of grandeur.” Sentiment toward the largest clan of the Brotherhood had been brewing for a while, and this was just the latest endeavour to undermine that strength without resorting to outright war.

An easy hit, Hector thought to himself. Just what he needed on a weekday’s start to dust of any ice.

He saw the meat preparation and packing plant the Ewok had last been sighted in. Simple enough, he supposed. But he also wasn’t stupid. Why was the Arconan in a meat packing plant? He was a mechanic of high skill, not a factory line wrench-monkey. It also seemed entirely defunct.

“I don’t like the look of this.” Hector muttered to himself within the sealed environmental confines of the Beskar suit. “It’s a trap.” He shrugged and walked in regardless. He had armour that could deflect most traps, and a jetpack. He stepped in and through the derelict reception area and immediately saw a strange sight within the plant. The floor had been replaced from the usual broad packing plant had been replaced with an odd shanty town, buildings of scrap pilled almost on top of each other. He grunted, but felt a force presence within. Unless there was just one weird force sensitive relaxing within here, the Ewok was close. He crept through, almost immediately stepping into what seemed to be a bear trap. He jerked his leg back at the last moment, his precognition screamed danger at him. He grunted. The trap had been expertly hidden in random floor junk. Fine. He sent a wave of telekinesis out, forcing the floor clear. Huge piles of dirt and debris formed, but the snap of another half a dozen traps also pinged off.

“Coward.” He called out into the dark. No answer came. He walked forward, watching his environment. He wasn’t afraid of some Arconan upstart. Nor did he want to play hide and seek around this stupid shanty. His smuggler contacts in the local area had mentioned an Ewok slowly building a network of escape runs across this district. He couldn’t give the Ewok time to escape if it realised the traps the creature had made would fail it.

He stepped into the hut, sending out waves of pure terror. Nothing changed, though Work’t trembled silently in his control area, nerves on fire with the sheer horror of it. He watched as the Vizsla Equite marched into the shanty centre. Originally this had been an assembly line for the meat canning, a huge array of blades and machinery. An array that he had hung deep in the darkness of the ceiling areas, bottom hollowed out, cables extended and infused with rudimentary anger through his Mechu-Deru and a droid core he’d slammed into the centre of the electronic control systems. It hung silently, held in place above the shanty centre. Work’t would not be taken by a man in Imperial armour again, Brotherhood or not. He triggered the trap and watched as the man tried to trigger his jump pack, sensing the walls springing down and the machine lowering. But his precognition only gave him mere heart beats of warning, and giant mechanical death trap landing firmly on top.

Work’t sensed he wasn’t dead. That was incredibly concerning to say the least. He knew in a straight fight, he wasn’t going to be hurting the man. He hit the emergency gas floods, filling the factory floor with toxic gasses he'd gathered from around Nar’s port waste collection system.

For his part, Hector watched the machinery around him flex and turn, having been forced to slam back down to the ground. The machine had been designed for larger meat then him, huge slabs to be sliced and canned. The blades and machinery seemed to be wired with little heat sensors. They were questing toward him rapidly. “Right, technomancer.” He said dryly, lighting the saber from his belt. There was a lot of things coming toward him, a mass of tendrils and angry blades highlighted by the red of his blade. Worse, he could feel the little Ewok pushing the arms on their paths, speeding them up and his suit and just sealed and gone into filtering mode, something that while it could maintain fairly indefinitely meant a blow to the face was now likely lethal.

Hector drew his blaster pistol with his left hand as he gripped his lightsaber with his right. “Sometimes one has to spring a trap to understand the trap user.”

The twin barrels of the blaster pistol sent crimson blast after blast into the approaching machinery. The conglomerate fusion of machine parts continued to venture closer. The Kiffar felt a small amount of fear roll through him. A Technomancer should be incapable of manipulating technology in such a manner, at least not without some form of sorcery or knowledge unknown to him. It was clear that the information provided about Work’t was quite outdated.

However, Hector Von Ricmore was not out of tricks yet. Reaching out his occupied hands he shot a stream of Force Lightning from each palm. The electricity slammed into the mechanized monstrosity, overloading it, and cutting off the Mech Deru control. The nearby machines dimmed and fell silent, giving Hector the opportunity to rise to his feet and step past the death trap.

The Force User looked around for his foe. The diminutive Ewok remained out of sight but appeared to be chattering to itself in a language that Hector could not understand.

Perhaps it was time for a more diplomatic approach. “This doesn’t have to come to violence. I can see from your workshop that you are quite a skilled mechanic. Clan Vizsla would love to have a member like you.”

Hector hoped that Work’t would be willing to negotiate a deal. The creature could prove a threat, but murder was not the only way to remove a threat from the galaxy.

The Ewok did not respond to his inquiry. Perhaps it had trouble understanding Basic. Or perhaps it was preparing another trap. Regardless, Hector would find out soon enough.

The Kiffar ventured deeper into the meat packing plant. A variety of artificially preserved creatures hung on hooks throughout a large room. A series of catwalks and scaffolds filled the space.

It was from one of these dimly lit catwalks that Work’t watched his prey enter. The earlier trap may have failed but his workshop was filled with a variety of contraptions he could use to drive out the intruder. But that jetpack was a problem. The Ewok gazed at an adhesive grenade trap he had set earlier.

Yes, that would do.

As the Mandalorian moved closer to Work’t catwalk the Ewok sprung up from his hiding place. He pulled the string back on his energy bow and sent a volley of purple bolts down range.

The bolts impacted a red lightsaber and were redirected back towards Work’t. The Ewok scampered away, the blasts hitting the walls of the factory.

With the Mandalorian distracted the second part of the trap was sprung. While in his workshop Work’t had heavily modified his B2 super battle droid beyond its initial modifications. The droid sported 2 shield generators and had an attached missile launcher on its left arm in addition to its stock dual cannon on the right wrist.

The droid fired a missile at Hector. The Kiffar activated his jetpack and launched himself upwards, right as the pre planted adhesive grenade detonated.

The jetpack was soaked in the glue, gumming up the thrusters and causing Hector to fall to the ground. His armor took the bulk of the impact and he forced himself to his feet.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” He griped as he faced the newly revealed B2 droid.

The bad feeling was immediately paid off as two repeater turrets, hidden in the roof, dropped down on their mounts. Shields sprang into life and the three machines began hosing the man with blaster fire, all while the Ewok began doing the most logical thing when faced with a being that was violently emanating pure terror. He ran. Hard. Hector growled; teeth bared inside his helmet as he slammed chained lightning into the ceiling while trying to block blasters from the B2.

It barely worked, the shields overloading and deflected bolts striking out one of the turrets before it could continue its barrage. But the strike left him vulnerable and if he had been wearing anything less then pure Beskar he’d have been blown to pieces. As it was the heavy blasts left his armour smouldering from impacts, slightly dented from the energy yield.

The B2 took its chance and launched the rocket even as the Mandalorian ripped the second turret from the ceiling with a precise display of telekinetic. He yelled a guttural sound as he watched Work’t below slamming into a bolt hatch, the passage sealing behind him as the rocket from the B2 struck him in the torso.

It had only taken seconds, but the sheer amount of shots had overwhelmed his mild precognition. The rocket struck hard, cracking his already smoking breast plate and throwing him back against the catwalk floor. He felt blood welling from small cuts in his chest but did not waste his energy healing minor injuries as the B2 reloaded a second rocket and he barely deflected more wrist blaster bolts.

He felt the darkness of his anger well up, and his Force enhanced rage unleashed. He sprinted into the bolts, another blast heating his chest as a shot struck his damaged chest armour. Lightning poured from his outstretched hand, popping the shield. The droid, ion proofed and made to deal with such powers merely slowed, damaged but not ended up the strike. As it launched the second rocket it missed, unable to track the speeding berserk Kiffar slammed into it, fist actually denting its sensors and shattering them as his other hand bearing his saber gutted its internal parts.

He stood, staggering as the effects of his rage wore off. He slumped slightly, choosing to redirect his now much more limited energy into healing. “Damn it, not my best day.” He said, looking at the incredibly expensive missing chunks of his chest plate. “Self-repair isn’t sealing that.” His senses, less sharp now, detected the Ewok’s essence suddenly arcing upward. The bastard had made it to a ship.

“Next time, you’re mine.” Hector said, grinning. This little bear was more then just a nuisance. And he enjoyed a good hunt.

Hector grimaced as he faced down the droid. His armor may have stopped the explosive from killing him but his flesh beneath was still bruised. The droid had no desire to give its foe time to recuperate. It began to fire its blaster at the Kiffar with one arm as the other reloading the missile launcher.

He batted the bolts away with his saber and returned fire with his blaster pistol. Shot after shot was absorbed by the droids energy shield.

“Come on out Work’t, we can talk about this! It doesn’t have to end in bloodshed.”

Silence greeted him in reply. Silence, except for the sounds of the droid that insisted on attempting to terminate him.

Hector stopped firing on the droid, focusing on defensively deflecting blaster bolts. He reached out his senses, hunting, searching for the Ewok. He could feel signs of life nearby, from just outside the building.

‘He took advantage of the conflict to run for his life. He doesn’t care if the droid survives!’ Hector thought as an irritated realization.

The Force alerted him to incoming danger pulling the Kiffar from his distracted state as he frantically dived to the right. His world became a flash of white and concussive noise as he was sent tumbling across the floor. Agony flowed through him as his left arm bent far past what was natural for his species, his elbow shattered to pieces.

With strength of will he forced himself to his feet. Unable to properly dual wield he settled for wielding his saber in his right hand. “I don’t have time for this.” He bit out.

He raised his right hand and called upon the Force to deny his foe. A dome of darkness erupted around the Battle Droid who fired blindly to no avail.

Hector forced himself past the droid and out of the building. He could see a Class Type B escort shuttle rising from the ground.

The Force User refused to allow his prey to escape after coming so far.

‘The Class B lacks any weapons, I can bring it down with a well placed saber throw.’ Hector thought to himself.

Unbeknownst to Hector, the ship did in fact have weapons. Work’t had taken the time to modify the ship to aid in situations just like the one he had found himself in.

“Yes yes yes, blast him, blast him.” The hyperactive creature chittered to itself as it spun the ship towards its hunter. A twin blaster cannon he installed at the front of the ship powered up and began hurtling shots towards the Mandalorian.

‘The ship has weapons, I was wrong, the ship has weapons!’ Hector hurriedly thought as he desperately swung his saber to deflect the incoming blasts. The firepower and his injuries forced the Force User onto the defensive, forcing any thought of offense out of his mind.

With the hunter on the defensive and lacking a working jetpack, Work’t took the opportunity to cease its attack and fly away, escaping from the conflict. “Yes yes yes, I am free, I am free!” The creature joyfully exclaimed as it lived to fight another day.