Chikma vs. Dr. Bril Teg Erinos

The wild planet of Kashyyyk is known to be home to the gentle, but short-tempered race of Wookiees. Wild and untamed, the lush, wroshyr tree-filled forests form a multi-layered deathtrap. The local wildlife present a threat as one descends towards the forest floor, though the battle-scarred beaches and the remnants of the Clone Wars provide refuge. However, as one ascends the danger of falling becomes the largest threat until coming in contact with the Wookiee settlements. Fauna and flora flourish in delight, growing within dirt pockets in the crevices of the trees. Some of these plants are carnivorous, becoming larger and deadlier closer to the forest floor. Others have some form of consciousness, able to communicate with the Wookiees to give some understanding of their use.

Above the Wookie settlements rests the wild rain forest canopies. Within the crevices of the trees, empty fruit and rotting shells from seeds show the spring season has ended. A soft wind whistles between the thick vines and shrubs that stick to the trunks of the ancient and sleeping giants. Despite the never-ending lack of footholds aside from the branches of wroshyr trees, a series of abandoned and rotting platforms are suspended a hundred meters above the surface, once home to its own Wookiee settlement. Overgrown and decayed, it has since nourished countless plants and trees with their outstretched branches sheltering the dense and soft floor from the extreme sun rays and torrential rain. Upon closer inspection unusual signs become notable. Moss carpets particular areas on the platforms and nowhere else, and tree-dwelling animals and birds never seem to land on the surface.

Tread carefully, or fall whim to the creatures that inhabit this terrain.

Chikma crouched low on a rotted plank situated high in the canopies of Kashyyyk. Helmet clutched next to his torso, he inhaled deeply, allowing himself a rare moment of exposure. The screech of mykals flying by, the clicks of the can-cells hidden among the trees, the occasional howling call of a tach…all the sounds and smells and sights centered him. His months on Daleem hadn’t afforded him any opportunity to spend time in a forest. And the forest was where he belonged.

Suddenly, movement about forty meters to the east caught his attention. The Ewok quickly popped the helmet back over his head and stood at his full 2-foot-11-inch height. His captain, Magda Venn, let him know this job would place him side-by-side with a Zabrak Jedi who called himself a Mandalorian. As if draping beskar over one’s shoulders were the same thing as being born into it, the way Ewoks are.

A tall, horned figure slowly approached, each step eliciting a groan from the sagging beam he followed. He moved with a certain grounded stillness, even though this platform—carpeted with moss, suspiciously avoided by wildlife, rotting and charred—threatened to collapse. Almost as though he didn’t know some creature or squatters had taken up residence in the ruins of the abandoned settlement.

“Chikma, I presume,” Bril said as he entered earshot. “Our boss speaks well of you. He didn’t mention the spear, though.”

“Yaa-yaa,” Chikma responded, flatly, with the traditional Ewokese greeting before tapping his wooden spear on the ground and pointing it at the Jedi in a gesture he was sure meant: The old way. Better than beskar you don’t deserve.

The Ewok expected the words to land like a pelted rock, but Bril only cocked his head. The Arconan considered the words with the unhurried patience of someone considering a genuinely interesting question rather than formulating an insulting riposte.

“Earned or not, I carry the weight of it,” he said. “I won’t pretend to know your people’s claim to the armor. I’d like to, someday. But there’s a more pressing matter right now. Something is watching us.”

Chikma’s eyes followed Bril’s to a worn-down hut across the nearest fraying rope bridge. The pretender was right; his multi-frequency target acquisition system detected a heartbeat and unusual heat signature.

“Yesh. Bingee weechu. X’ekra meechoo. Dee fratta ta nocka.” Pointing with the spear, followed by a gentle nudge on Bril’s side and a poke into the air, helped him understand what Chikma said: “You’re right. You lead; I watch your back. This is the way.”

“Stay sharp,” Bril said while stepping forward. “The Collective may have been defeated, but its surviving members are no less dangerous. They may even be more so now that they’re in hiding.” Perhaps that’s why Marick had recruited him into the Envoy Corps’ hunt for any Collective agents who had evaded death or capture during the war. Bril’s skills in investigation, combat, and Force tracking made him a prime candidate to lead his fellow Envoys on the mission.

Chikma acknowledged the pretender’s words with a quick nod before fixing his gaze on the distant hut. The tip of his spear bobbed only slightly with each step he took, held tightly in both hands. He wasn’t familiar with the Collective but he’d heard of how dangerous they were. He knew better than most that an animal backed into a corner was at its most dangerous. “Yub,” he said quietly to ground himself.

The threads of the Living Force wove through the environment, coalescing into tight bundles within and around living beings like Bril and Chikma. When Bril focused his senses on the shack, the sensation he felt in the Force stopped him in his tracks. The threads were sparse there. Was their target concealing their presence in the Force? No, that didn’t make sense. If they were, they would have completely severed those threads tying them to the Living Force. He could still feel them lurking there, albeit with greater effort than he typically needed. Bril placed a hand on Endeavor’s hilt.

Then, the sound of splintering wood cut through the tense silence when something exploded through the door of the shack. A mass of matted, bloodsoaked fur stumbled through the door and rose into an awkward, gnarled posture. Bril’s eyes followed a path down its mangled arm to the limp corpse hanging at its feet. The bloody insignia of the Collective hanging from its torn flak vest confirmed the worst.

“By Ashla…” said Bril, taking a half-step backward while unsheathing Endeavor from its scabbard with a sharp crackle and hiss. Its blade cast their surroundings in white, including the figure looming before them. It was a wookiee, that much was clear, but even a glimpse of its twisted form was enough to tell that something was horribly wrong with it. Large patches of its chestnut brown fur had taken on a sickly pallor interspersed with tangled threads of blackish-green fibers. When the light flashed across the wookiee’s wide eyes, its head snapped in their direction.

Chikma tightened his grip on his spear so much that his palms ached. A pit started to form in his stomach as realization hit; he’d seen this before. Well, he’d read about it during his study of Shyriiwook poetry. They needed to get out of here. “Wubba chubba,” he said while reaching out to frantically tug at Bril’s leg. “Wubba chubba!”

Bril couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the emotions emanating off of Chikma in the Force told a story of recognition and fear. “Understood. We’re going.”

But the wookiee had other plans. It moved terrifyingly fast for a creature of its size, charging them with heavy footfalls that left patches of fur and fungal growth in their wake.

Both Mandalorians raised their weapons to defend themselves.

Something groaned beneath their feet when the wookiee stepped onto the platform. It could support Bril and Chikma’s weight without issue, but when the weight of a full-grown wookiee was added, the aged wood buckled under the pressure with a deafening crack.

Then, they began to fall.

Both Mandalorians possessed jetpacks, but it was Chikma who proved himself the superior flyer. The ewok crashed into a thick branch that sent him into a spiral. It was disorienting, but he managed to time the activation of his heavy jetpack well enough to soften his landing.

Bril wasn’t so lucky. He couldn’t activate his jetpack before the wookiee swung at him with its massive fist, unperturbed by the very real possibility of plummeting to its death. He caught the wookiee’s wrist, and it roared in his face, flinging specks of spit and moss across his helmet’s t-visor. Bril responded with a headbutt that stunned it long enough for him to break away.

The ground came faster than he thought. All he had time to do was brace, smashing through three branches before impacting the ground hard enough to send a shockwave of force rippling through his arms and legs. It karking hurt, but he was alive. “Adding this modular exoskeleton to my armor was a good idea, after all,” he muttered to himself before looking over to where Chikma had landed. “You alright?”

Chikma nodded in the affirmative.

The wookiee had landed not far from them. It wasn’t moving, but Bril could still sense life in it. “We need to get back to the canopy,” he said, “but first I need to find my lightsaber.”

That earned a scoff from Chikma. The pretender couldn’t even keep a hold of his weapon? Another example of how only he, an ewok, was a true mando’ade. But he was right. Anyone with an iota of sense knew better than to venture to Kashyyyk’s ground floor. To tarry within the Shadowlands was a death sentence, even for a warrior like him.

The Shadowlands smelled wrong. Since before he could walk, Chikma had grown up trusting a forest’s smell the way other people trusted a face. Bark and rot and green growth would assure him everything was fine, but the air down here hung heavy with something sour underneath it. Every instinct of his shouted to get back up to the canopy and never come down again.

He didn’t move yet, though. He wouldn’t until he checked on the downed Wookiee.

Sprawled among broken branches with its left arm bent at an unnatural angle, the creature hadn’t stirred since impact. But not moving didn’t mean not dangerous.

“Bad medicine,” Chikma muttered to himself in his best approximation of Shyriiwook. That phrase from an old mourning poem he’d read on a rainy day on Daleem had always stuck with him. Apparently, Wookiee elders sang of “the ones forgotten by the trees” to frighten pups away from certain hollows. Surely, they hadn’t imagined anything like the sight now before him.

“Bril,” the Ewok said, low and urgent. ”Ta koda mee sabra.” Find your weapon now, he communicated by jabbing his spear toward the wreckage left by their fall.

Bril was already moving, albeit gingerly with one hand pressed to his ribs. As the Zabrak’s boots crunched through dried leaves and fungus-slicked branches, Chikma waddled in the opposite direction to cover the angle left open by his partner’s back. His father had taught him never to turn his back on something breathing, so he kept the rocket launcher mounted on his wrist trained on the mutant’s silhouette.

”Yeek thesi!” Chikma shouted as a shudder ran the length of the Wookiee’s ruined arm. The blackish-green fibers threading its fur pulsed twice, in unison, as though something underneath were coming to life. Its empty eyes opened and, with an otherworldly shriek, it heaved itself upright. Endeavor snapped to life, Bril having found its hilt half-buried in a drift of rotting leaves at almost the same instant his companion shouted. White light flooded the clearing as the seemingly electrified blade hummed, causing the infected creature to recoil instinctively.

That was all the invitation Chikma needed. Tapping his wrist with the opposite hand, he sent two incendiary rockets flying toward the Wookiee’s already-ruined shoulder. On impact, it staggered half a step to the side, giving the Ewok enough time to dart between its legs and drive his spear up through the soft meat beneath the creature’s ribs.

Bril closed in from the other side without hesitation, carving his saber through the twisted growth knotted along its spine. The white blade surged with power as it made contact, then the Wookiee collapsed slowly.

An eerie silence again filled the Shadowlands.

Chikma yanked his spear free from the corrupted flesh, wiping it against a nearby patch of clean moss. His heart pounded as the odor of the enemy’s rancid breath and sight of its misdirected swings above his head replayed in his mind.

Bril deactivated Endeavor with a soft hiss, wincing as he replaced the hilt in its rightful spot hanging from his belt. “That’s twice you’ve had my back today. I won’t forget it.”

Chikma grunted, craning his neck up to scan the canopy and identify the quickest climb out. “Real mando’ade don’t forget. You should try it sometime,” he responded, in Basic this time. Unbeknownst to Bril, he cracked a smile under his helmet.

It wasn’t quite a joke; the Ewok believed it with all his heart. But it wasn’t not a joke, either. Bril huffed something that may have been a laugh or just simple relief. Then the two stepped away in tandem, now a team anticipating the long climb back toward the light.