When you are traversing the wild and untouched landscapes of the savannah, just remind yourself that you are never the apex predator. The vast and desolate area of sand, rocks, dead and ancient trees are all the same blood-orange color for a simple reason: to hide your worst nightmare from your sight, the Akul. A large, quadrupedal and orange furred mammal, the Akul are the top predators that hunt all sorts of bovine, dog, hooved and giant mammals. Using their extraordinary sense of smell, they can trace your scent from days long past and track you down without mercy.

Throughout the Savannah, tall and wispy Turu-grass stretches out into long ranging fields. Watering holes are sparse and spread thin, and the terrain offers little safety from the blazing sun that hangs overhead. When the sun retreats and gives way to moonlight, the Savannah becomes almost chill, but the night is dark and full of wild creatures. In the Savannah, it’s hunt or be hunted.

In the midst of the open meadow of red grass sits Areticus’ transport shuttle. The lights within bow of the craft were pale in comparison to the many moons of the starlit sky. It was aesthetic enough that Areticus set down his book and enjoyed the peaceful evening to himself for once. Although he preferred the restless nights of civilization, moments to himself as Lo-Kain and Iios go off on a hunt allowed him time for reflection and admiration for nature. He got up from his seat and joyfully went to pour himself another brew of his brand tea. Not too soon after, he found his joy lost by the sudden power outage of his vessel.

The annoyed Knight grumbled to himself curses on the vermin that made its way to the power conduit as walked down the hangar rail to the outside, only to see a Kel Dor with the most ridiculous hat. Without saying anything, Areticus continued to make his way down the hangar rail of his shuttle. TuQ’uan pulled out his pistol and aimed it at Areticus, “That’s far enough, big guy.”

“Afraid of my teacup are you?” Areticus said gesturing openly to show himself unarmed. “Come now, we can talk as gentlemen.”

TuQ’uan holstered his weapon, “Smart man, would hate to lose another of Clan Plagueis over a retrieving job. I don’t need you dead, just the Pyramidal Holocron you have.”

Areticus looked confused, and nodded in remembrance before taking another drink of his tea. He pulled out the holocron from his pocket and looked it over, “Was smaller than I had imagined. Didn’t have much guidance, I have no use for it.” He then extended out his arm to offer it to TuQ’uan.

“You can toss it,” TuQ’uan suggested.

“Do you know how delicate these are?! Are you mental?! I’m not risking the constitution of a good holocron on my skill to throw or yours to catch.”

The mercenary nodded and walked up to retrieve it, “Here I expected I was going to have to add you and your two friends to my kill count. You made a smart deci-” He stopped when his hand reached for the holocron which went through it like thin air.

Areticus acted quickly, dropping his cup and grabbing TuQ’uan’s extended left wrist with his right hand. He then slid his own left hand along the Kel Dor’s exposed arm until it reached the crease between his shoulder and back and pressed down on it. The mercenary was bent forward and then fell to the ground from Areticus’ leg sweep. TuQ’uan went to roll to the side and pick himself up, put was stopped prematurely at the ignition of a crimson blade.

“You didn’t turn off the lights to my ship, did you?” asked the sith with a stern frown.

So he wants to do this the hard way.

“I figured you could better enjoy the beautiful vista,” the mercenary retorted from his position on his back. Looking up at the human above him, TuQ’uan started to form an idea. “You know, I have one of those too,” the Kel Dor chuckled.

Areticus scoffed and just stood there, back ramrod straight. The Sith looked down his nose at the mercenary. The look on his face held a hint of condescension.

“Mind if I make myself a little more comfortable?” TuQ’uan asked as he propped himself up on his left arm and carefully positioned his right leg so that his knee was bent and his foot was planted firmly on the ground. A twinge of pain shot through his arm. “You know, you could have made this easy for both of us.”

“And why would I want to give someone like you something that belongs to me?” Areticus’ piercing blue eyes burned holes in the prone Kel Dor. “Besides, you interrupted my tea time.”

Keeping his eyes on Areticus, TuQ’uan moved his hand to his thigh and grabbed the butt of his DL-44. The mercenary didn't need to look at his trusty weapon to flick the safety with his thumb and pull the trigger. A single bolt of plasma punched a hole straight through the bottom of the Kel Dor’s holster, leaving it partially in tatters. Areticus leapt to the right, managing to just barely dodge the crimson bolt and receiving a glancing blow to his leg.

This was TuQ’uan’s opportunity. He rolled onto his stomach, digging his toes into the ground and placing his hand bellow him. The mercenary simultaneously pushed himself up and started to run. It wasn't graceful, but it worked. TuQ’uan took off into the tall Turu-grass, zigging and zagging as he went. If he was going to win this fight and get what he came for, he'd have to keep his mark at a distance. After a few moments of running at full speed, TuQ’uan skidded to a halt and crouched down. A sudden sense of dread passed over him. Something felt off. Reaching up to wipe the sweat from his head, he realized why—he must have dropped his hat in all of the commotion.

"Areticus! Areticus! We come with a fine meal from a grand hunt!" roared the apprentice Lo-kain as he and Iios came into view from the distance. A large animal corpse was seen carried by Lo-Kain as the two made their way towards the shuttle, to which their path was awfully close to where Tu'Quan had planted himself. He looked back to see if he could find Areticus, while also diverting his eyes back to the approaching Zabrak and Chiss.

"Wonderful, I don't suppose you would know how to perform maintenance on my ship? It seems to require maintenance after my encounter with a vermin; one that still may be present. Keep your eyes open and ears alert," Areticus' called back as he is seen approaching his companions.

Perfect, just a little bit closer together... TuQ'uan reached for the sonic grenade in a pouch along his belt. The distance was perfect to where the grenade's effective range wouldn't reach TuQ'uan, allowing for a good ol' fashion gunslinging triple shot. After a few more moments of their approach, the Kel Dor tossed his sonic grenade, with the impact of the blast perfectly timed. TuQ'uan drew his blaster and took aim at his three targets. He hesitated to fire as something felt off once again. The three men seem unmoved by the sonic blast. Within the few seconds between the impact and taking aim, there was no reaction from his targets to the grenade. Before TuQ'uan could react after piecing together what had happened, his body went into shock as the end of Areticus' lightsaber appeared out of his chest.

Areticus removed his blade and sweept TuQuan's leg from underneath him, turned, and slashed open the Kel Dor's mask. Areticus then stepped hard on his opponent's stomach to attempt a forced inhale. TuQ'uan coughed and started to undergo a seizure from Shili's oxidized atmosphere. The suffering Kel Dor turned to see his dropped blaster next too him. He made the attempt to reach for it, only to witness Areticus' foot kick it away. "How?" TuQ'uan asked while he looked back up into the raised nose and leering blue eyes of the Sith.

"Consider it elementary, my dear vermin. You could run but you couldn't hide," Areticus scoffed as he tossed TuQ'uan his hat. He then paced around his defeated opponent and continued his lecture, "After tracking you through the Force, I decided to setup a nice illusory display to divert your attention. This allowed me to approach you with subtlety. Once your confidence led you astray, well..." He gave a dark chuckle, "You know the rest."

Darkness approached the borders of Tu'Quan's vision. His body forced him to breathe, despite his mind's attempt otherwise. Before he could fade, his head was yanked forward by the Knight's pull on his collar. "I certainly hope you brought a ship, else this will not bode well for your survival, nor my interrogation," Areticus proclaimed. TuQ'uan raised his left arm and pointed out into the distance with what strength he could. Before the mercenary could utter another word, the oxygen reached his brain, and he faded away into unconsciousness.

Areticus watched TuQ’uan scurry through the metre tall grass for a moment before letting out a suspiration and deactivating his lightsaber. The Knight reached down and inspected his fresh wound with the tip of his finger, a small flash of pain caused Areticus to clench his jaw. It could have been far worse if he hadn’t reacted as quickly as he did, but he would survive. Besides, he had much more important things to take care of right now, namely a Kel Dor on a mission. Areticus bent over picking up the fallen cup and carefully placed it just inside his shuttle. He’d have to brew a fresh cup of tea when this was all over. Time to get to work.

Returning to the scene of the tussle with the Kel Dor, a grin formed on the fair skinned human’s face. Laying not five feet from him was TuQ’uan’s precious hat. “You’re making this too easy,” Areticus softly spoke to himself as he retrieved the hat from its place on the ground. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and let the Force flow through him. A calm came over him and the world around him melted away. The Force pinged to him like a radar, despite TuQ’uan’s best attempt to shake and confuse his opponent, Areticus knew exactly which direction he had ended up in.

The Mercenary’s hat floated back to the ground as Areticus let it slip from his grasp, he didn’t need it anymore. Without hesitation the Knight went off to stalk his prey.

It’s okay, I’ll get it back, TuQ’uan thought to himself as he tried to suppress the panic at losing his good luck charm. He always felt naked without his hat. Taking a quick stock of his miniature arsenal, the mercenary made sure that his grenades were at the ready. He would have to keep low and circle back around, hoping to miss Areticus on his way back to the shuttle. The Holocron had to be in there, and for the amount of credits he was being paid, he wasn’t leaving empty handed.

TuQ’uan drew his blaster from the wrecked holster. He’d have to add that to his bill for the job.

Inhaling deeply, the Kel Dor got ready to move. From his crouched position, he moved as quietly as he could while still maintaining a good speed. This could work, he thought too soon. The rustling of Turu-Grass alerted him to the presence of Areticus. He stopped immediately and held his breath.

“I know you’re over there,” Areticus called across the fifteen metres of the savannah that separated the two. “You might as well stop crawling around and show yourself.”

Karabast, TuQ’uan swore inwardly. Against his better judgement, the Kel Dor stood up and simply shrugged. “It was worth a shot, right?”

“Not really, I would have made it quick if you hadn’t run. Now I will enjoy it.” Areticus’ lips pulled back into a smug smirk as he reignited his crimson lightsaber.

TuQ’uan decided it was his turn to strike first. Aiming his blaster at the Knight, TuQ’uan rapidly squeezed the trigger, sending a volley of plasma at his target. To his astonishment the bolts dissipated into the air right in front of Areticus. Time for a new strategy. He’d have to close the distance just a bit.

Continuing to fire on the Knight, TuQ’uan began his advance. He was almost in position. The mercenary sent yet another volley of plasma towards his opponent, however, this time instead of the bolts disappearing into thin air they flew right past Areticus as the human dodged to the side.

Seeing the opening, TuQ’uan dropped his blaster onto the ground and grabbed a grenade in each hand. First he threw his EMP grenade with a complete lack of grace or subtlety.

Areticus saw this coming easily and reached his hand out in an attempt to use the Force to move it away from himself. What he didn’t see while his concentration was on the EMP was the Sonic Grenade that TuQ’uan had thrown just short of the knight.

With a massive bang the grenade went off, sending Areticus to his knees with his hands pressed up against his ears in an attempt to stop the near vomit inducing ringing in his ears. TuQ’uan quickly collected his DL-44 from its resting place before running over to his doubled over opponent.

The mercenary flipped the setting on his blaster and shot a single stun bolt point blank at the Knight. He didn’t need Kelly coming after him for killing a member of her House.

With his mark out of the way it was time to get back to the shuttle to retrieve the holocron and more importantly, his hat.