Taro Priak sighed while watching his droid, ST-10, survey the damage to his ship’s hull. Dagobah’s humid, musty air weighed on him, rendering every centimeter of exposed skin on his face uncomfortably slick.
The Voidskipper was a modified KST-100 that had served him well in his pirating affairs, but an encounter with a school of Bakros – “void sharks” as they were sometimes called – left it with several bite marks across its surface. He thought they could only be found deep within Wild Space, but the damned things were near the Kessel Sector, too. He’d heard tales of all types of strange creatures that nature cooked up, but a spaceborne predator capable of chewing through starship hulls like they were flimsiplast took the cake.
“The damage appears to be cosmetic in nature,” announced ST-10, “but our time here will allow me to perform a more thorough examination of the hull’s integrity.”
Taro spat on the ground to clear his mouth of excess saliva produced by the chewing tabac tucked between his bottom lip and gums. “And it’ll give us time to let some of this heat on us die down. Yifei’s tip was worth the cost, because this haul is gonna earn us enough credits to cover the cost of repairs and plenty more.”
“Worth the credits indeed,” ST-10 concurred, “though, I do wonder why this shipment was so easy for us to steal. It is not the normal operating procedure for Outer Rim cargo haulers to travel with such inadequate protection.”
The droid’s pontificating earned a raised brow from Taro. “You ever hear the phrase, ‘don’t look a gift fathier in the mouth,’ Stetson? You’ve got to learn to not question when the Galaxy sees fit to bless us.”
ST-10’s photoreceptors flickered for a moment, which Taro recognized as a sign that it was considering his answer. After a moment, it spoke again. “This idiom is nonsensical. Who is gifting quadrupedal herbivores, and why would you ever peer into their mouths?”
Taro shook his head while stifling a chuckle. “Just get back to checkin’ out the ship, will you?”
Elsewhere, Luka Zarkot and their nexu companion, Bico, crept across Dagobah’s muddy ground at a moderate pace. In their left hand, Luka held a small datapad whose screen displayed the location of a tracker further ahead in the swamp.
“Come on, Bico,” they said, “whoever stole the shipment is just up ahead.”
The nexu replied with a low warble that Luka recognized as her way of saying she was ready.
When Luka was close enough to hear the voice of a man and a droid, they pressed a button on their armor to activate its optical camouflage system. By manipulating ambient light, the advanced cloaking technology rendered them mostly invisible so long as they moved slow enough. Combining technology with their skill in stealth would allow them to apprehend their target quickly without being drawn into a prolonged engagement. And if things did take a turn for the worse? Well, that’s what their lightsaber was for.
As they approached with Bico trailing not far behind them, Luka wondered who was bold enough to steal shipments coming from Selen. Whether they were extremely brave or just stupid would reveal itself in time. Either possibility made them dangerous, though. Anyone who would go through the trouble it likely took to rob Clan Arcona not once, but three times, was likely the kind of person who was willing to kill for what they took.
Beyond a tangle of thick vines, there was an open field of more compact soil upon which a large ship, probably a freighter of some kind, rested. There was a tall droid wearing a hat and overcoat, and an even larger man dressed in expensive-looking armor standing near it. It looked like they were working on patching up damage to the ship’s exterior.
Good time for a distraction, Luka thought before directing their attention to Bico. With a shared Force bond that was beskar-clad, it only took a moment for Luka to convey their wishes to their nexu companion. After receiving the command, Bico slipped through a gap at the base of the vines and trotted out into the empty field, leaving Luka to circle its perimeter in search of a better vantage point.
Taro used his scarf to wipe sweat from his face before reaching up to hand ST-10 a portable heating torch. “You know, this kind of thing would go a lot faster if we had more hands on deck. Maybe after we finish this job, I’ll hire a full-time technician. An Ugnaught, maybe. They’re great with repairs.”
“Are you saying my repairs are not up to your standards?” ST-10 inquired.
“No, it ain’t that. I’m just sayin’ that—” He cut his words short when he heard something rustling in the bushes nearby. It was big, based on the sound of it. “Keep workin’ on the ship, Stetson.” After clipping his helmet to his belt, Taro began to move in the direction of the sound he’d heard with slow, steady steps. When he came within a few feet of a thicket of dense bushes, a large four-legged animal with a mouth full of teeth like vibroknives and a whiplike tail leaped out of them, nearly knocking him off his feet. “Druk!” he cried.
It didn’t take long for ST-10 to reach him. “Are you alright?” it asked. Upon seeing the animal, the droid pointed its CX-101 Crystal Blaster Rifle directly at it, but the staying hand of Taro on the weapon’s barrel kept him from firing.
“Wait, Stetson. I think it wants to play. Look.”
As if on cue, Bico dropped low to the ground and whipped its tail from side-to-side quickly. It rolled over to show its belly after that.
“It’s freaky lookin’ but I kind of like it,” Taro said while watching it play. “What kind of critter are you, anyway?”
“That is a nexu, a dangerous feline species that is not native to this planet. I suggest using caution when dealing with it,” ST-10 stated.
“Well it had to get here somehow. Maybe it’s lost. You lost, girl?”
Meanwhile, Luka watched from the shadows of the treeline just behind and to the right of the stranger and his droid. Bico had done a great job at distracting them both, and now Luka was in a perfect position to attack. Muscles tensed to propel the Arconan forward in a sprint. Once they were within striking distance, they sprang into the air like a pouncing vornskr and deployed a narrow blade from their hidden bracer with a single flick of the wrist. They thrust forward to plunge the blade into the back of the tall man’s neck.
Taro felt the Force tug at him like a lasso suddenly going taut. Reacting on pure instinct, he leaned to the side enough to narrowly avoid the killing blow, but it did open a thin cut across his right cheek. He retaliated by swinging his long arm out in a backfist attack, but Luka ducked beneath it and hopped backward.
“Comin’ to steal my loot?” he asked while dropping his right hand to grasp High Price, one of his MW-20 Bryar pistols. “Or maybe you’re a bounty hunter here to turn me in.”
“A little bit of both,” said Luka in response, moving their hand to unclip the lightsaber from their hip. “This cargo that you stole belongs to Clan Arcona, and they’ve sent me to retrieve it and you.”
Taro shook his head with a smirk, saying, “Sorry, partner. None of that is on my to-do-list for the day, But, I appreciate you comin’ all this way to let us know our hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed. Now, if you don’t mind, kriff off so we can continue our repairs.”
With their hand hanging at their side, Luka ignited their lightsaber with a crackling hiss, painting half of their body and the surrounding vegetation with a teal glow. “You’re coming with us,” they said with a resolute tone, “Whether you do so in one piece is up to you.”
The grin on Taro’s face disappeared. “Don’t say I didn’t give you an out,” he replied. That this encounter was about to turn violent didn’t really surprise him. He often gave his enemies a chance to walk away, but they rarely took it. With speed aided by the repulsor tech in his armor, he snatched High Price from its holster and fired three shots in rapid succession, briefly casting everything around them in a green light.
The Force warned of the immediate danger and Luka sprang into action, deflecting the first two blaster bolts with their lightsaber. The third slipped through, and struck their shoulder with enough force to send them stumbling backward.
Figuring Taro had that handled, ST-10 trained its blaster rifle on Bico and squeezed the trigger, but the nexu was faster than it anticipated. The creature lunged forward and whipped its tail around the droid’s feet to trip it. The last thing Taro saw of them was the quadruped disappearing into the trees while dragging the droid along behind it.
Luka’s eyes drifted to their shoulder. Blood was beginning to trickle out from the tear in their armor, and the skin around it throbbed with the residual heat left from the bolt’s impact. Can’t get hit with that again, they thought. If the man’s pistol could do that kind of damage from a glancing blow, they didn;t want to see what a clean shot could do. I need to use the environment to my advantage. They reached out to their opponent’s mind with the Force.
Taro raised his pistol and aimed at Luka’s center of mass, prepared to end this little skirmish of theirs. But before he could squeeze the trigger, he heard something coming from his right. The sound of buzzing insects and the occasional croak of animals lurking somewhere in the darkness were overtaken by the frantic chirps and shrill cries of a colony of bats that exploded from the trees!
The damned things were flying straight at him, and all Taro could do was raise his arms to protect his face from being scratched or bitten. But where he expected to feel the impact of their tiny bodies against his, to hear their chirping filling his ears as they flew past, he felt , , , nothing. He heard nothing.
“What the kriff?” he said as the bats disappeared. “An illusion?” Taro’s eyes snapped back to where Luka had been standing, only to see that they had vanished as well. “Quite the trick,” he shouted loud enough for the Arconan to hear him. “If that’s how you want to play it, I’ll oblige for now. Let the hunt begin!”
An odd tingling sensation on his face prompted him to touch his cheek. To his surprise, the skin surrounding the small cut his assailant had inflicted earlier was numb. Poison? He’d have to keep that in mind for later. After unclipping his helmet from his belt, he placed it on his head and ventured out into the brush in search of the Arconan interloper.
