Prologue
Keldabe, Mandalore
Zarya Rohrtag stepped off the transport and looked around, hitching her satchel higher up on her shoulder. She then walked out of the hotel that she was staying in, the light of the lamp shinning off her armor. Her clothing consisted of a black carapace-like armor that hugged her skin and covered every bit of it, including her hands, painted in dark ebony, with white stripes down the front side, a zipper running all the way up to secure herself, her thick hardened boots making sounds of footsteps on the floor. The knuckle plate of the armor featured a retractable vibroblade used for close quarter combat and covert encounters. She had a carbine blaster rifle slung across her back, she had a pair of personalized blaster pistols—which she capped with silencers when necessary—which she holstered on her armor's thigh plates. The rifle was battered since it had seen a lot of fights since coming into her ownership and that Zarya has a tendency of using it as a club whenever she ran out of ammo. She reached up and pulled her hood up to cover her face, she then tucked her dark brown hair that was pulled back in a braid into the hood before slipping her sunglasses on and taping the side which triggered the tinting of her sunglasses to cover the lens, covering her almond shaped brown eyes.
She felt something brush against her leg and looked down to see her companion with her, she smiles at Lyr, her Jha'dur companion. "This is Mandalore, Lyr…ready to meet the locals?"
Lyr lets out a twrring sound before walking a little ahead of Zarya but the leash that was attached to its collar prevented it from going any further.
As Zarya watched it, she took in its appearance. It had a long narrow muzzle and large erected ears; it had orange eyes with vertical pupils that were quite disconcerting to other races. It had extremely sharp teeth that ran along the length of its snout, with four fangs protruding over its lower lip, each ending in a double point. Slightly elastic jaw muscle and cheek increase bite force like a rubber-band snapping back and also allows for a large bite range-like a snake, she had seen Lyr bite someone before. It had an extremely long green tongue, which it used to smell its prey when its nose to busy smelling something else. It had strong neck and jaws for carrying heavy objects. Its chest was deep and its waist was narrow. It had hand-like paws for climbing and its paws had semi-retractable claws for extra grip in its high-speed pursuits, and they have strong, slender front legs for climbing. And it has a long whiplike tails for balance and maneuvering, its tails can also be used as a weapon and she had seen Lyr use it before to break bones and cause internal bleeding for prey and enemies.
Jha'durs as a whole was strongly telepathic to their Faberian partners though they sent images to their human partners' mind as would the Faberians. This ability was a natural manifestation of the Force among their kind. Jha'durs could also 'hide' themselves from the Force, though they could also make themselves detectable in the Force at will if they chose to, just like Faberians. As a whole the species were long lived; the average lifespan for a Jha'dur was 700 years and they had been known to live long and that depends on the bond that they have with their partner.
The Jha'durs is a Force-sensitive pack animal; their packs can consist of ten to twelve. Hermaphroditic mammals, Jha'durs were equally capable of both siring and bearing offspring with a second Jha'dur; young Jha'durs was referred to as pups. While some Jha'durs have made it off Faber, it is better if the owner is a very strong Force-sensitive because anyone weaker than they are will be viewed as prey and attacked, and non-Force-sensitives general have a hard time training these creatures since they cannot form a bond with the Jha'dur. Zarya couldn't count the number of times she had to explain to the outsiders that came to their planet to buy a Jha'dur that they couldn't have one because they were not Force-sensitive and if they were Force-sensitive, she had to tell them that they couldn't have one because they were not strong enough to handle the power of the animal.
Jha'durs will eat anything from rotten meat to berries, she had seen this before as well, this works well for them when winter comes and food is scarce. Jha'durs are immune to almost everything, so if the animal eats anything poisonous or that would infect humans or aliens with any virus, the owner doesn't have to worry about them getting infected when the animal licks their owners or when the Jha'dur accidentally or intentionally bites people...Lyr has been known to eat almost everything and Zarya was always worrying about it doing that. Jha'durs had very clean mouths, despite the fact that they eat things that no one else would eat. Their salvia affecting as a natural disinfect so Faberians tend to use Jha'dur salvia to put over their wounds. The salvia of Jha'durs also acts as a natural blood-clot, preventing the Jha'dur to bleed a lot or leave a trail of blood when the animal tries to hide.
Zarya looked when she sensed that she was about to bump into someone and quickly moved so that she would only brush against the man's shoulders. She pauses to look back at him; he was wearing the traditional Mandalorian armor. The armor is painted dull black with two vertical gray stripes over the left side of the helmet and a single wide gray bar down his chest plates. He wears three different belts; one for his weapon holsters, one with clips for his lightsabers, and one comprised of a series of belt pouches with which he carries varying equipment. He also wears a simple black belt-skirt that hangs a little past his knees and armored war boots.
She felt Lyr tug at its leash, which jarred her out of her thoughts before she looks at the man one last time before she turns and starts to head to the one hotel that was in this city. Zarya needed help to locate the traitor before she revealed to the Empire about a whole system of Force-users.