Hidden in Felucia’s jungle lies a two hundred meter expanse marking the ancient burial site of this world’s deadliest creatures and the location of innumerable remnants of hundreds, if not thousands of rancors. A circular enclosure of sun-bleached bones are arranged in the center of the cemetery—no doubt the former dwelling of a powerful practitioner of the Force. Cobwebs cling to the fallen beasts, a testament to the primordial age of some of the creatures.

Somewhat obscured by surrounding cliffs and the luminescent jungle, the dusted bones and carcasses are cast in a faint shadow, leaving just enough light to see by. The atmosphere is thick and stifling, with a strong overtone of dust and bone suspended in the still air. The taint of the Dark Side's influence has polluted the landmark over time, giving form to a dreadful aura that has scared off scavengers hoping to sell off a rancor tusk or two. Unlike most of Felucia, the area is nearly devoid of life aside from ravenous predators dwelling within the hollowed-out husks of dead rancors.

He couldn't even get a signal.

Felucia sucked.

TuQ'uan Varick sighed through his respirator as he lowered his datapad yet again. He'd been perfectly fine before landing on the damnable jungle planet, but now that he was on the ground, it seemed like all his beloved, beautiful tech just didn't want to work. Which, wasn't actually the worst part. The worst part was that he, an incredible slicer of great reputation, couldn't get it working again.

Rarely in his life had the Kel Dor felt so galled. His pride would never recover if he let himself be beat by some debris in the air causing interference or any supersition told about this place.

...still, he really wanted, no, needed to check the odds on his betting pools, and how was he supposed to do that if he couldn't connect to the holonet?

Forget maiming, this was torture.

Even his trusty probe droid was having difficulties. Manuvering through the jungle had been bad enough for the both of them, but once they reached the graveyard, the bone dust had started clogging up Peek's single wheel, and gotten inside its cranial casing, and Peek was having none of that. The predatory little droid had seemed inclined to mutiny on its mastery if it wasn't sent back to their ship. So TuQ'uan trduged on, antiox mask full of grit and dust and wide-brimmed hat in serious need of brushing to get all the particles turning it ashy and gray off.

"Twenty thousand per kilogram," the mercenary reminded himself. "Twenty blastaed thousand per kilogram."

If he could get even four mostly-intact rancor tusks out of this dirtball, he could be a hundred million cred richer. All this walking and dust and haze and the feeling of something crawling and itching just under his skin, that was all worth it. Millions.

He could make so much money putting that in on the next podrace at Malastare. The thought made him shiver in glee and totally not dread of a creepy beastial skeleton twice as tall as he was.

Ghost stories and wild rancors or no, for the amount of credits on the table, he wasn’t leaving empty-handed. Besides, he had his hat. It'd keep him safe.

TuQ'uan's stride took on a jauntier step as he moved further into the eerie bone pit, his DL-44 in his comfortable grip, ears pricked for the sound of any raging animals or other threats. He bypassed smaller, long-dry carcasses as he went, headed for the center of the cemetary in hopes of finding the largest creature possible. The bigger the tusks, the bigger his payday. He was suddenly glad for the saber he carried; plasma would slice through anything, even bones the size of his head.

As the Kel Dor picked further and further into the sepulcher, however, another shape solidified in the shadowed glow of gloaming, low to the ground and hunched as if to spring. The mercenary froze, then in one smooth motion, raised his pistol, flicked off the safety, and fired a volley with a steady hand.

The bolts of deadly light seared through the space and—

Blue fire erupted into existence, batting some of the shots away as someone shouted.

Not a rancor, then, thought the Plaguein as a the shape uncurled and furious-looking Mirialan came stomping out of a swirl of grave dust, the shadows of skeletons cutting dark across his frame. His eyes glowed bright gold with some Dark power, and lightning lanced up and down his arms. His hand spasmed on the hilt of his saber, and a blaster burn smoldered in his right bicep.

"The kriff do you think you're doing, shooting at people outta nowhere like that?" he growled, and TuQ'uan thought, a rancor would have been less of a pain.

Right. Angry Force-user with lightsaber possibly there to either murder him or steal his bounty. What to do, what to do.

"You listening to me?" the man demanded again, just as enraged, and TuQ'uan made a show of taking off his hat with his free hand to wave it in front of him frantically, as if in worry. The motion did well to hide his fingers curling around his sonic grenade.

"Me no...say how...Basic speaks!" he cried, the effect only a little hindered by his mask, launching into a tirade of some language or another and making his tone apologetic, confused. "So sorry."

The Mirialan's stance was loosening a bit as he listened to the gibberish, which was a good sign, though he seemed more suspicious and angry than anything else. TuQ'uan babbled a bit more, and the Sith stood up straight as if shocked.

The mercenary's mind caught up with his mouth a little too slowly. Karabast...that was Mirialan, wasn't it?

"Liar," spat the other man, half-pivoting to one side and lifting his lightsaber high overhead, horizontally, coiling to spring. "I'm not going down that easy!" Just as he charged, the Kel Dor cursed and dropped his explosive, turning to sprint in the opposite direction.

Something hot grazed the matte black fabric of the back of his shirt and he yelped, smelling burning flesh, before a blood-curdling, bone-rattling boom detonated behind him and he was thrown face-first into the dirt, nearly deafened to the scream that echoed behind him.

TuQ’uan lay face down in the thick dust, a pounding in his head and a searing pain across his back. He could barely string his thoughts together. All he really knew right now was that things were not going as expected, which for him, was to be expected.

Letting out a groan, the Kel Dor picked himself up off the ground. He stood for a moment to take in his surroundings. A stirring from behind caught his attention as the Mirialan roused from his place on the ground.

Force users, the mercenary cursed inwardly. TuQ’uan still needed a moment to regroup and if he didn’t act fast, his foe was not likely to be so generous as to give him that opportunity. Quickly running to the left, TuQ’uan wove through a series of Rancor skeletons attempting to gain some distance.

The Kel Dor skidded to a halt behind a rather large Rancor skull. Pressing his back up against the skull, TuQ’uan nearly let out a gasp of pain revealing his location. The mercenary reached for the pouch on his belt to prepare another sonic grenade, because that seemed to work well the first time.

Frak. He only had an EMP left. Guess I’m doing this the old fashioned way, he thought as he checked his blaster.

TuQ’uan was getting a bad feeling about this whole thing. Slowly the Kel Dor inched his way around the skull, being very careful not to make any noise. He just wanted to collect a few Rancor tusks and get out of here, was that so much to ask?

Apparently it was.

Taking slow, calculated steps, TuQ’uan edged his way into a pathway between the long dead carcasses headed deeper into the heart of the graveyard. A noise off to his right caught the mercenary’s attention.

Spinning on his heels, TuQ’uan found himself staring down the 20 metres separating himself and that pesky Mirialan. The two looked equally as surprised to see each other.

Before the Kel Dor had a chance to fire his DL-44 something else caught his attention, and then it caught him in the side of the face. The Mercenary had finally found a Rancor tusk, though this was smaller than he was looking for and not exactly how he expected to find it.

TuQ’uan raised his blaster and squeezed the trigger as two more chunks of bone struck him in the chest sending his shots wide of their target.

Recalibrating his aim as more bones raised into the air around him, TuQ’uan began firing a volley of bolts into the ground just short of the Mirialan, throwing up clouds of dust into Force users’ eyes and obstructing his view. Pieces of bone started flying wildly around, narrowing missing the Kel Dor. With that taken care of, TuQ’uan began his advance.

The young Mirialan tensed the muscles throughout his legs and took off at a run much faster than should have been possible. Bursting through the cloud of dust and with what seemed like only a few long strides, the Force user had closed the distance between the two combatants.

TuQ’uan tried to sidestep as his attacker rapidly approached but as he drew near the Mirialan lept a short distance and landed in a crouch, open palm pressed into the ground. A shockwave of Force energy around rippled through the ground around him, lifting TuQ’uan off his feet and throwing him onto his back.

The Kel Dor slid nearly a metre on impact with the ground, grinding more dirt and dust into his fresh wound.

This time TuQ’uan did let out a cry of pain.

TuQ'uan felt, with a sudden flush of dread, that he was going to die on Felucia.

His hat had been knocked off and there was an angry Force-user coming at him and it was so not okay.

He resisted the urge to cover his poor, bare, vulnerable head and instead palmed around for his blaster, feeling cool metal under his fingertips nearby and scrabbling for it. The Kel Dor froze on his knees and elbows, however, when the hum of a lightsaber drew so close to his neck that he couldn't hear his own heartbeat pounding over it.

A low growl issued behind him, "Don't kriffing move."

TuQ'uan swallowed, wheezing painfully behind his antiox mask. The agony in his back was all too real, his goodluck charm was somewhere in the dirt, and the plasma blade was pressing nearer still. The collar of his suit smoked, not burning him but more than a little unnerving.

"Piece of hutt slime," the Mirialan behind him hissed. "Attacking people, skulking around the resting place for the dead--"

"You're here!" the Kel Dor hissed, and regretted it as a booted foot kicked him over.

"Not to rob the graves! Like I bet you are!"

"You're assuming a lot there—"

The blue saber swung around to hover at his throat and he babbled, "Look, it's a lot of money for these bone bits."

The younger man glared again, his gaze gold, the red rings around his irises creeping farther. "I should drag your greedy ass to the cliffside and--" he cut off with an inarticulate string of his own language. The mercenary noted that the hand holding the lightsaber was shaking badly.

"Hey now, no need for that," TuQ'uan attempted in his most soothing tone, slowly reaching out again and hoping he wasn't noticed. Just a little farther... "How about we just quit this, I get my haul, you take some for your own chest, we never have to see each other again!"

"Shut up, shut up!" the Mirialan snapped, shaking his head. "I don't care about credits, this isn't about...grr." Squeezing his eyes shut, the Sith shook his head again, deactivating his weapon. "This isn't you. This isn't you. Breathe, c'mon. This isn't you. Think about Cora."

TuQ'uan's palm curled around the comforting weight of his pistol and he didn't wait for the crazy kid to finish muttering to himself. Kicking away, he dove to his side and leveled the blaster right at his attacker's head.

The green-skinned man opened his eyes and stilled at the barrel in his face. Purple now — what was it with Force-users and changing colors? Eesh — those eyes widened. He paled.

"Don't."

"Sorry, kid, just business."

Carefully, the Mirialan gestured at him with his empty, speaking firmly words of power, "You don't want to kill me. You want to talk."

"I want to talk," the Kel Dor repeated.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

"GAH!" the Knight yowled in agony, hands hands flying to his knee as he dropped to the ground and curled the limb tight to his body, rolling back and forth. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

"It's not lethal."

"You sleemo!"

"Well it's not if you take care of it," the mercenary added, feeling defensive. He was a damned good shot, he knew where to aim.

"You shot me!"

"Well...yeah."

"You shot me!"

"That was kind of the point. And you tried to cut me to pieces!"

"Yeah, because you shot at me. Where were you ten minutes ago?! 'Cause it wasn't blasting at people minding their own kriffing business!"

"I thought you were a rancor! Or worse, competition."

"You are so franging paranoid and trigger-happy, Bogan!"

"Uh-huh. Don't make me stun you." TuQ'uan walked painfully over and grabbed the Sith's saber, then went to find his hat. His precious, precious hat.

"My name is Ruka, by the way," sighed the Mirialan. He seemed to be either in pain or constipated, considering how hard he was scowling at his leg. His hands glowed slightly.

"TuQ'uan," responded the gunman. "What are you doing out here, anyway? Raiding for tusks?"

"Of course not. That's just wrong." The emphasis wasn't lost on TuQ'uan.

"Wrong makes bank. So...?" As he came back, the Kel Dor noticed Ruka actually seemed to darken and change color slightly, but TuQ'uan couldn't tell if that was normal for a humanoid like him or not, nevermind a green one. "I, uh, don't laugh."

"No promises."

"My boyfr— husband is mad at me and I thought he might like a...baby rancor. He really loves animals. So. Er. I was trying to find one. As a gift."

"Wow, man." TuQ'uan fitted his hat snuggled back into place, instantly feeling a thousand times better despite the peristant wound in his back. "Goodluck with that. Not a bet even I'd take."

"You're scrounging for tusks on this dirtball, I'm guessing you take plenty of bad bets," Ruka sneered. He started to climb to his feet, and the mercenary cursed Force-users.

The Kel Dor raised his blaster again, and the Mirialan stilled. "Nope, you stay put until I'm gone, unless you don't want to get back to the husband."

The Sith snarled, but eased back down, hands over his head. TuQ'uan nodded, starting to walk backwards. They watched each other carefully, and the Kel Dor made it several paces before Ruka suddenly moved, fingers twitching as electricity surged through the air.

The mercenary's world went white and rigid at the edges. He was aware of his hand clenching on his blaster, of it going off, of his body collapsing and rocking, slamming against the hard-packed earth. All his muscles locked up, and he couldn't breathe for those terrible moments, not that that mattered to his resilient lungs. The sensations of numbness and mingled agony and strain receded slowly, giving the Kel Dor back his parts and pieces bit by bit, chest then abdomen, fingers then toes. He gasped, aching all over, and pried his eyes open. He head lolled aside, and he squinted around, but he couldn't see the Mirialan anywhere.

He was, however, alive, and he had his hat. He would take it, and as many tusks as his battered body could carry. In ten minutes. Or thirty. Or an hour.

Eventually, TuQ'uan resolved. Just a nap first...

The rancors were probably being pet-napped by that Sith anyway.

TuQ’uan tried to lift his head up off the ground but was only able to get a handful of centimetres above the dust before collapsing again.

That karking hurt!

Footsteps crunched as the Mirialan slowly made his way towards his downed prey. The Kel Dor raised the blaster still clutched in his hand towards the approaching opponent but before he could find his target the blaster was telekinetically ripped from his grip.

Letting out a groan, TuQ’uan rolled over onto his stomach and lifted himself off the ground. Taking a deep breath, the Kel Dor widened his stance and raised his open hands into a defensive position.

“Alright, let’s do this.” The words came out as more of a sigh than a statement.

The Force User raised his fists and took a step forward, bringing the two within striking distance of each other.

“You know, that hat looks ridiculous, right?” With a quick flick of the Mirialan’s hand, the Kel Dor's hat went flying away. TuQ’uan watched it float to the ground, anger flashed across his face.

As he turned back ready to fight, TuQ’uan saw a brutal kick aimed at the back of his knee. Reacting just in time, the Kel Dor twisted his leg causing his opponent’s foot to pass within millimetres of contact.

The Mirialan swung at the mercenary with his right hand. TuQ’uan countered by grabbing the Sith’s wrist with his own right hand and pulled him forward, causing the Mirialan to lose his footing. The Mercenary grabbed his opponent by the shoulder, pressing down tightly on the Mirialan’s injury.

“Frak you!” he screamed at TuQ’uan. Swivelling on the balls of his feet, the Force User twisted towards his attacker. A crackling noise emanated from between the two of them. Electricity jumped from the Mirialan’s hands and enveloped TuQ’uan’s body, forcing him to loosen his grip. He fought back, struggling to stay not only on his feet but conscious.

The lightning finally let up, leaving both men panting as they barely kept their footing.

TuQ’uan reached for the double-bladed dagger stored just inside his jacket and spun, stabbing at the Mirialan who narrowly dodged the blade leaving a shallow slice across his stomach.

Before he realized it, TuQ’uan’s arm was in the Force Users grasp. He let out a scream of pain as the Mirialan’s Force lightning shot through his body once more, driving him to his knees. TuQ’uan struggled to keeps his eyes open but it was a losing battle.

The grip on his arm loosened and the ground rushed up to meet him.

The world went black for the mercenary.