After Bel'anna checked back in with the Mandalorian base camp and collected her bounty for the colony's destruction, she headed out for the excavation site. It was swarming with Rakghouls, which she was starting to think were more disgusting than any creature she'd encountered so far—including Hutts. They slowed her down constantly, chasing after her even when she flew by on speeder, and she used them for target practice with her off-hand.
When she and Gault reached the site mentioned by the Republic captain, it was abandoned. The steel flooring clanged with her bootfalls. She pulled out her blasters, ready for an ambush.
A rakghoul's growl reverberated off the slime-covered walls. She tensed, waiting for her helmet to light up with the target. A moment later, the creature came crawling around a corner, and she shot it through the eye.
She and Gault killed three more of the creatures as they explored, but no sentient beings haunted the structure. They reached the end of the site and saw no clues that could lead them to Jicoln or his son.
Gault said, "I don't like this—"
A blaster slid out of a holster behind her. "Thought you'd be harder to get the drop on."
She recognized the voice, and a moment later she smiled as she realized who it was. "I was just eager to see you again after Drommund Kaas." She turned to see Torian, with his unforgettable scars, scruffy blond hair, and look of complete shock.
"You—what?" His pistol lowered. Bel'anna took her opportunity to grab his blaster with one hand and press her other hand against his shoulder. She flipped him head-over-heels onto his back. She pointed Torian's own blaster at his chest as she kicked him in the breastplate for good measure. He grunted loudly as soon as his breath came back to him.
"Time to tell me what you're doing out here," Bel'anna said, her brows lowered.
Torian grunted. "Ow…I deserve that." After a moment, Bel'anna stepped back and lowered the blaster, signaling for Torian to stand up.
Gault snorted. "You must like him—if I tried that, I'd be wearing my face on the back wall."
Bel'anna shot him a glare. "You still might." Gault raised his hands in defense.
"So if you're not here for me," Torian said. "Who, then?"
Bel'anna paused. "You don't want to know."
Torian grimaced. "The traitor." Bel'anna's eyes squinted, then she nodded. "I'm looking too," Torian said, "but not for a reunion; to reclaim my clan's honor."
Bel'anna quirked an eyebrow. "If it's honor you want, it's honor you'll get. Maybe we're better off joining forces than pulling blasters on each other."
"I promise you, I can find him. I already know where to start. Someone's put up dew collectors, beast traps, around an old transport station. Have to be the traitor's."
"If he's been here for the long haul, he's not exactly gonna make supply runs," Bel'anna nodded. After a moment of hesitation, she flipped Torian's blaster in her hand and passed it back to him. "Smart."
Torian nodded and holstered his weapon. "I've only found one entrance into the station. It's thick with rakghouls. Risky. Got a way to throw off rakghouls, but I'll need help. Materials."
"Done," Bel'anna said. "You got a list?"
"Fresh rakghoul bodily fluids," Torian said immediately, and Bel'anna's face twitched in quickly-repressed disgust. Torian continued, "Blood and waste—and a decomposing rakghoul at least a week old. Check these waypoints," he said, pulling out a datapad that Bel'anna quickly scanned for a chart of the territory. "We can rendezvous at the transport station."
Getting the supplies Torian requested was both the easiest and the most disgusting job Bel'anna had had in a while. Gault whined the entire time, but his commentary distracted her from her own revulsion as she dragged what she needed into her speeder's rear compartment.
Within an hour, they'd reached the transport station. Like everything else on Taris, it was shabby, rusting, and disused. She and Gault maneuvered their speeders straight through the front doors, dismounting when they saw Torian kneeling down a short distance ahead.
"Hey," Torian said before he'd even turned around. "Smelled you coming."
"Just gives me an excuse to polish my armor more thoroughly when I'm off this planet," Bel'anna said. "Here's what you asked for." She handed over the case of rakghoul filth.
"Perfect," Torian said. "This will just take a moment."
He didn't so much as flinch when the case opened and a fresh wave of stench buffeted the air. Thankfully, Bel'anna's helmet filtered much of the scent, but Torian worked quickly. Within a few minutes, he had a pile of thick, disgusting paste.
"This stuff will throw a rakghoul off my trail," he said, already spreading the lumpy brown compound onto his armor. "But in their den? Keep your blaster ready."
"I always do," Bel'anna said, her fingers unconsciously twitching for the holsters.
"I'll have your back," Torian said. He gestured for her to join him. "Smear it thick. If the fumes put the rakghouls out, we might sneak through."
Gault immediately said, "Oh no no no, I am not getting that…whatever, all over—this is my best shirt!"
Torian shrugged. "Nice knowing ya, di'kut."
Gault protested, "Wait wait wait! Ugh, just do it. Now I'm going to have to burn these."
They all joined in, and soon they looked like they'd rolled in the stuff. Bel'anna wiped the excess off her gloves so she wouldn't work it into her blasters, then pulled out her weapons. She didn't glance at her companions as she stalked further into the station.
The first time her targeting sensor lit up a rakghoul, it took all of her restraint not to shoot. She inched forward, sidling along the length of a wall opposite the mindless creature. It slobbered and clawed at the wall, then stood still. It turned its head toward her, and she stopped. Her fingers gripped the trigger guards so tightly she thought the durasteel might bend. Then the rakghoul resumed its foraging along the moldy wall.
Bel'anna resumed her march without relaxing. From then on, the rakghouls only multiplied and thickened. As long as they could keep a short distance, the rakghouls' poor eyesight and addled minds prevented them from attacking. But when a passage was so clogged with the creatures that Bel'anna would have had to wade through the writhing bodies, she signaled Torian and Gault to stay back. She launched herself into the air on her jet-pack, then set the entire mob ablaze with her flame-thrower. Once their gargled cries ricocheted off the walls, she finished them off with blaster shots to the eyes.
She landed, and glanced at her companions to be sure they hadn't found more trouble. "That'll alert the other beasts to our presence. We'd better keep moving."
Torian's eyebrows lowered. "Sixteen rakghouls in ten seconds. Knew Mandalore had to honor you for a reason."
"Yeah, well I earn my respect," Bel'anna said. "So let's get some more honor, huh Mandalorian?"
"Right behind you."
"I'd just like to get out of here with my limbs intact," Gault muttered. "You two can have all the glory you want."
Bel'anna had to take out another dozen rakghouls before they made it to a sealed door at the end of the transport station. "I've got a bad feeling about this…" Gault muttered, but Bel'anna ignored him and glanced at Torian for guidance.
"It's been a while," he muttered. Then, out of nowhere, he slammed his hands over his ears and cried out. "Agh! Hear that?"
Bel'anna stopped moving, stopped breathing, and monitored her helmet's sensors, but nothing abnormal reached her ears. "Nothing?" Torian blurted when she shook her head.
The next moment, the ground began to shake, and Torian screamed, "TRAP!" Next thing, his blaster rifle was in shooting position and he was aiming for the other end of the passage they'd just come through. Bel'anna took up position beside him, both pistols ready as her legs tensed to leap into the air.
"I hate always being right…" Gault muttered as he pulled out his own blasters.
The rakghouls swarmed. Every rakghoul they'd passed harmlessly to get in, every rakghoul they hadn't seen, every rakghoul within the confines of the station hurled over each other in an undulating avalanche of diseased flesh. They clogged the passage, some unheard alarm propelling them toward the doors. Bel'anna grit her teeth as her helmet registered the number of oncoming hostiles: fifty-four.
She holstered one pistol to reach for her belt and grab a handful of micro-grenades. She hurled them into the middle of the swarm, and with a silent command from her helmet she detonated all ten of them. The wave exploded outward, killing sixteen of the rakghouls and neutralizing another eight.
By then, the front line of rakghouls was almost upon them, but Gault and Torian hadn't been sitting idly. Torian fired rhythmically, the blaster shots pulsing in a steady beat as he went down the line. Meanwhile, Gault screamed, "Come at me, you filth-covered freaks! How do you like the taste of blaster fire, huh? Get away from me, that's disgusting!" His blaster shots were sporadic and ricocheted as fast as he could pull the triggers.
Bel'anna rotated the gauntlet on her wrist to lock in the electro darts, then fired them into the densest clumps of rakghouls. The electricity stunned the targets she hit, then spread to the monsters still in contact with the target. She switched to blasters and ended the writhing creatures before the darts lost power.
Twelve to go.
The surviving rakghouls clamored over the corpses of their brethren and leapt at Bel'anna and her comrades. She hadn't even noticed him switch weapons, but Torian brought out an electrostaff and bashed the first rakghoul so hard she heard the crunch of skull even through her helmet. Before a beast could reach her, she leapt into the air. She targeted a group of four beasts below her and ran her blasters from side to side, unleashing a hail of bolts until they all crumpled. When another rakghoul came beneath her and tried to grab onto her boot, she reversed the jet pack and punched her feet into it with enough force to crack the floor.
Gault had killed one beast, but another one was on top of him. He had both hands pressed to the monster's face, keeping its jaws apart so it couldn't bite him, but its back legs were latched onto his stomach and its hands clawed at him. Bel'anna blasted it six times through the head just to be sure.
She turned to see which beasts remained, but Torian stood panting in a pile of corpses. His staff was thick with gore, his jaw clenched as he looked down upon his final foe.
"Blast blast blast blast—does this look infected to you?" Gault said, holding out his hand where the rakghoul had scratched him. Bel'anna hesitated, then holstered her pistols and took out a medical scanner.
"No foreign agents detected," she announced, then took out a kolto vial and stabbed it into his arm.
He howled. "Was that really necessary?"
"You want it sealed or not?"
"K'atini," Torian said. When Bel'anna and Gault stared at him, he said, "It's only pain."
"Easy for you to say," Gault muttered. "You didn't—"
The doors that had barred their path suddenly creaked to life. They turned to see the metal panels sliding into the walls, revealing a small control room beyond. A holoterminal occupied the center of the floor, and a blue hologram was projected above it.
"So, is Artus finally sending children to do his dirty work?" Jicoln said. He was built like a mining droid and armored like one too. He had no hair on the top of his head, but a thick beard. His face was painted with violent streaks of paint. "Run home now, and tell Mandalore if he wants my head, he should come take it himself."
Bel'anna was tempted to pull her blasters out then and there, but she stormed forward. "You going to face me like a warrior, or make me chase you all over Taris?"
Jicoln smiled slightly. "Think real hard, girl, before you go issuing challenges you might regret. I will tell you what I told the others. You survived. You have earned the right to the Garoya be Haren. If you lose, however, I will kill you." He pulled out a hand-held comm. "I'll be waiting at these coordinates. Then we'll see who hunts whom."
The holo-image disappeared, and Gault immediately turned to Torian and said, "He's a real nice guy, your dad."
Bel'anna leaned forward to see the coordinates coming up on the terminal console, copying them into her helmet's database.
Torian frowned. "He's toying with us. But the Garoya be Haren gives us an opening. It's a Mandalorian death game."
"My favorite kind," Bel'anna said. "So what, I meet him at the coordinates and fight to the death?"
Torian shook his head, then swung his electrostaff over his shoulder and hooked it onto a holster on his back. "There are four parts: alii'aate, personal honors; Yai'me'stuum, the homeworld; the Sterebiise, who defends a legacy; and the Naast, who destroys it." He held up his hands. "He will place honors, prized possessions, around a battlefield. You will try to take them. If you take all of them, then you must take his home."
"OK, I'll bite," Bel'anna said. "So these coordinates are for the first honor?"
Torian shook his head again. "The coordinates are there for you to accept the challenge. It's a war game—Mandalorian tradition. And it gets us close to him. I'll scout for Jicoln's honors while you go to face him. Then while you run the game, I'll find his home. Call me when you've made your challenge."
"Sounds to me like you're doing all the work in this Garoya be Haren—shouldn't I be the one doing the hunting?" Bel'anna said.
Torian's eyebrows quirked upward. "Yes, you should—but you'd be better off saving your energy for the real fight."
Bel'anna's jaw tensed, but she nodded. "You know what to look for, and it saves me time getting the target. Go ahead." She turned back toward the passage flooded with rakghoul gore and trudged through the corpses.
"Oh, you really know how to show a man a good time…" Gault muttered as he followed.