STAR WARS

Rise of the Skull King

Eleven years has passed since the extragalactic YUUZHAN VONG were defeated and order was restored to the GALACTIC FEDERATION of FREE ALLIANCES.

As the end of the Yuuzhan Vong war came to a head, Mandalorian bounty hunter BOBA FETT returned to his people and rallied them against the invaders, repelling them from their world.

With the Mandalorians once more being organized into a formidable culture, many have taken up their heritage and started to venture out into a brand new galaxy, ripe with business . . . .

__________________________________________________

Chapter One

The rain came down hard on the transparasteel windowpanes, early in the Ramada Prime morning. The sheets of water beaded down the windows of the apartment's bedroom, with flashes of lightening cutting through the morning darkness every few minutes, followed closely by deep rumbling thunder.

And yet, Dar was not at all bothered by it. In fact, he was in a complete sense of bliss without even considering the weather outside. The man was laying in bed, as comfortable as he could be with his arm draped over the exotic, blue hued Twi'lek lying against his broad chest.

The night before had been very interesting. He had been at a local cantina, several blocks away from the residential complex he was now sleeping in, and had made very good friends with several bottles of alcohol.

Cutting through the din of the thunder outside, a quiet beeping began chirping in the darkness. That caused Dar to open an eye suddenly.

"Your helmet is beeping," came the sleepy voice of the heavily tattooed, red skin-toned Twi'lek girl behind him, who had her arms wrapped over his shoulder. She snuggled closer into his back, as if it would cause the beeping to stop.

"Fierfek…" Dar knew what that beeping meant. It meant trouble.

Sitting up, he carefully untangled himself from the two women, both of who just groaned at his disturbing their sleep, and found two of the remaining bottles that had been victimized the night prior. Soon as he was free, though, the red Twi'lek shifted over and wrapped her arms around the still sleeping blue one.

Dar Kyram was short, by Human standards. Only standing 1.6 meters tall, he filled out for his height with his stocky, heavy build. Tattoos swirled across his left shoulder, across the side of his neck and collarbone, to taper off down his arm. A blue Mythosaur skull with a crown of flame above it, the kyr'bes, was inked onto the back of his right forearm, along with other symbols and markings on the inside of both forearms. Up his entire right forearm was tattooing that showed an image of the space that surrounded his home world, which then turned into a swirl of blue-green flame at his elbow and up his upper arm to his shoulder.

He had hazel eyes, and dark blond hair which he let grow long enough to be somewhat shaggy, with a full set of 'chops worn on the sides of his face. The Mandalorian crossed the room to his dresser, where his helmet was set. The helmet was a unique one, shaped much like an archaic Republic Commando helmet, but the front visor had been replaced with the standard T-visor of a Mandalorian helmet, seamlessly blending the two styles together. Putting it on, he blinked at the warning screen that had popped up, which then brought up on his HUD the image of an external security cam placed outside the apartment complex. Sure enough, as he expected, a gang of swoop riders had pulled up, and were gathering under eve of the apartment building's entrance.

"Haar'chak… Gotta go, cyar'ika. Got some damage to deal with." Dar began suiting himself up, while keeping an eye on his HUD for the swoop gang. He was patched into the complex's security cams, so continued to watch the movements of the group. There were two Humans, three Twi'lek, a Trandoshan, and two Zabraks. I like it when the odds are on my side, Dar thought to himself while getting his dark blue jump suit put on.

The gang wasn't too much of a surprise to him, as he had become acquainted with them the night before. Unfortunately for them, he had been far more adept at swooning the attractive females. It was doubly unfortunate for the larger Twi'lek male in the lead of the gang, for the blue one was his sister and the red one had been his girlfriend.

As such with all true Mandalorians, Dar wore the traditional beskar'gam of his culture. The armor was made of beskar; an ore found only on Mandalore and was made only by Mandalorians into the shock trooper armor. Even though extremely rare these days due to the former Empire strip mining Mandalore of the iron, Dar wore what had once been his grandfather's armor.

The armor plates were painted a dark blue with a trim of gray on each armored plate. His helmet, a similar style of blue and gray trim with black cheek plates and wrapped around the back.

Dar strapped on his belts of ammo clips, the ancient blue ARC Trooper lieutenant rank pauldron and kama, the holsters for his multiple weapons and pistols, then finally putting on the last bits of armor, his gloves and gauntlets.

"You ladies just stay in bed," he said, while heading for the door. "I'll be back in a little while with breakfast."

The two Twi'lek had both gone back to sleep, aware of this being a usual distraction with Dar. According to his HUD, the gang was now heading through the apartment complex hallways, splitting up to hopefully corner Dar.

That disappointed him. He was truly hoping they'd be sporting and not tactical. Oh well. He had the upper hand. He always had the upper hand.

The Trandoshan and two of the Twi'lek had taken the lift to the third floor, which he resided on. The two Zabraks and two Humans had both taken to the two stairwells on each end of the third story hallway, just incase Dar decided to escape either way out.

He stepped from the room, shutting and locking the door panel behind him, and made his way directly for the lift tube's entrance, just a few doors up the hall to his right. There was a ding as the door opened, and the Trandoshan came out first.

Dar didn't wait; he lunged in with his blaster pistol drawn. Jamming the muzzle of the pistol into the surprised Trandoshan's throat, he squeezed the trigger to unload several shots into the neck of the swoop thug. The large Trandoshan gurgled in surprise as his throat was cooked with the smell of Ozone and burned flesh. Falling back, he left the two Twi'lek opened. Dar fired two shots, both leaving burn marks in the forehead of each Twi'lek. The three were all dropped to the floor of the lift tube car. Dar simply closed the doors, and keyed the lift car to return to the first floor.

He didn't even hesitate, as he knew that his cover of surprise was blown by now. Bolting down the hallway, the clacking of his weapons and armor and gear echoing down the hall, he headed for the closer of two doors.

Both doors to the stairwells opened at the same time. The door he was running to opened, and the pair of Zabraks stepped out. They had heavy body armor and even heavier looking blaster rifles. Dar acted instantly, firing as he ran, before diving into a forward roll. Above him, the air heated as red energy bolts sizzled through the space he had once been standing.

Coming up to his knees, he fired up at the first Zabrak, slotting two burn marks across his face. But the second one dodged back into the doorway. Behind him, he heard the two Humans shouting and charging up the hall.

Dar went after the Zabrak in the stairwell, who had gone to take cover behind a trash receptacle, but he was on him in an instant. Leaping over the receptacle, he kicked the gun out of the Zabrak's hands, and reversed the kick back to his head. Knocking the Zabrak back, he landed, fired with his blaster pistol and once more left three burning holes in the face and neck.

Meanwhile, the two Humans were now closing in on the stairwell, and firing as they came. Ducking behind the receptacle that the now dead Zabrak had intended on using as cover, Dar withdrew one of his vibroknives into his left hand. He peeked over the trash receptacle, only to be greeted with a fury of blaster fire.

But he saw what he needed. The two Humans had taken up cover on the other side of the doorframe, and were now well defended. Holstering his pistol, Dar reached to his belt and unclipped a flash grenade. Pressing the activator stud, he tossed it out into the hallway, waited for the flash to explode and blind his two opponents.

Once they were stunned and thus rendered defenseless, Dar leapt out into the hall, vibroknife activated. It didn't take long to slash their necks, ear to ear. Cleaning the blade off on their suits, he replaced it. All that was left now was the large Twi'lek who he did not see come up with the rest. He flicked through the security cams of the apartment complex. There was no sign of the final swoop thug.

With a shimmer in his HUD, his 360-degree view caught the sight of the Twi'lek coming into the light behind him, apparently out of thin air. He apparently had a shadow suit on.

"Filthy Mandalorian scum!" With both hands held in a fist clasped together, the Twi'lek clubbed Dar from the back, knocking him forward. Tumbling down, he rolled over in time to block a booted kick from the Twi'lek. He rolled back over his shoulder onto his heels, to get booted in the visor plate and knocked back once more.

Getting himself back to his feet, Dar hopped back just in time to miss the stun-rod the Twi'lek now had in hand. He jumped back again, using his armored forearm to deflect another shocking strike. If that stun-staff hit him on anything other than the beskar armor, he'd be down to the floor.

"This the best you got, chakaar?" The taunt enraged the Twi'lek further, and he stepped back, falling into pace of hand-to-hand combat, making sure not to be struck by the staff. But each step set him into a rhythm of reading the other's moves and strikes.

Soon after a few moments of the game, Dar made his move. He waited for the Twi'lek to lunge in, and then twisted on a heel-toe pivot that let the staff go straight past his torso. Grabbing the haft of the staff, he tugged the Twi'lek off balance. Then Dar took the brief window to move in close to the Twi'lek and sweep his foot from under him and let him hit the floor at his feet. Taking the staff now, Dar twirled it, and then jammed it into the side of the Twi'lek's head. With a brief yelp of shock, the heavy thug was unconscious.

Deactivating the stun-rod, Dar looked around and tossed it aside. No one had come out of his or her or its apartments during the fight. It wasn't unexpected. In this part of Ramada Prime's biggest spaceport, Zaffar, a fatal conflict was not unheard of. And the odds of a call into the local authorities was even less heard of. That made the neighborhood just perfect for a Mandalorian mercenary who wanted to be left to his own devices.

Leaving the big Twi'lek on the floor, he made his way back to the stairwell to check the bodies he'd left behind. He rifled through their uniforms and gear, taking their ID cards and money they carried. He didn't touch the weapons. Dar had plenty of his own kit and none of these wore worth half of what he had. Amateurs.

Finding nothing of use of the swoop thugs, he went to the still unconscious big Twi'lek. Going through his gear, he found nothing of interest other than he was obviously the gang's leader.

But then something did catch his attention. On the back of the swoop leader's wrist was a tattoo, a symbol that brought up old and painful memories within Dar.

It was simple, a Human hand clasped with a Yuuzhan Vong hand.

He didn't hesitate. The blaster came up from his holster and a burning hole was thus slotted into the side of the Twi'lek's head.

He had been a former member of the Peace Brigade.

With the inspections of the swoop thug done, Dar took the ident card he would no longer need, and made his way down the hall once more, back to the stairwell that was the tomb for several swoop gang members. The rumble of thunder rolled outside, and he knew the sun would be coming up very soon. Walking over the bodies, and down the stairs, he headed for the outside exit. He had a pair of girls back in bed that he promised breakfast for.

If there was one thing, Dar Kyram was known for, that was keeping his promises.

---------------------------------------

Mando'a to Basic translations

kyr'bes - skull, especially Mythosaur skull (also "crown")

Haar'chak! - Damn it!

cyar'ika - darling; Sweetheart

beskar'gam - armor

beskar - Mandalorian iron

chakaar - corpse robber, thief, petty criminal