Chapter Four

"Dad, will my bow really be effective against our enemies?" Menelaus asked, entering Hyperion's perspective as soon as the vision of Clymene disappeared.

"No, that's what the pistols are for but the principles of targeting, aiming, and firing are essentially the same. Learn the bow and it'll be even easier to learn the blaster, easier to utilize it in combat against the enemies who will stop at nothing to kill us," Hyperion admitted. Menelaus nodded but then asked the next most important question.

"How can I get good without targets to practice on?" he asked.

"I have an idea," Hyperion answered. He then raised several rocks of smooth roundular design and explained the nature of this exercise. "They're going to move so that it gets difficult for you to shoot them down. But for now, focus on just shooting them first and when you get good at it, the challenge will begin," he added after a moment.

Menelaus did his best but was only successful at hitting two of the targets and grazing another with the feathers. "It is not important that you be good right away but that you become good when it counts. Shooting rocks is nothing when compared to the ability to take a life, even in defense of yourself," Hyperion told him.

"Is that why you spared the soldier who came to our house?" Menelaus continued.

"It is," Hyperion admitted, "but his death served less purpose to us than his survival did as well. Alive, he may come after us again but we can plead self-defense if we're captured by his superiors. That I had given him every warning to leave our home through both my destruction of his weapons and verbal articulation."

"And if superiors don't care about that?" asked the boy.

"Well, the government they answer to is famous for its corruption so that isn't an impossible outcome. That is why after we disperse your mother's ashes in Dathomir, we'll make a break for uncharted space that the Republic doesn't control. If my suspicions about the fall of the Sith Empire are correct, the last thing we want is to stay on Dathomir any longer than we need to," Hyperion confessed.

"But if he comes for us again, we'll kill him right?" Menelaus asked.

"Do not be so quick to thirst for blood when you have not even felt it coursing through your hands yet as I have. Never seek battle when you have yet to experience the hell of combat and the torments of protecting your life at the cost of someone else's. And never think you can kill for sport because you've seen me do it: I am hardened to the ways of the universe where you are still malleable, impressionable," Hyperion warned. At that moment, he saw something he hoped he wouldn't see for some time yet, something that signaled an acceleration to their journey was needed. The son of a kath hound has activated his distress beacon Hyperion said, noticing the green beam that headed straight up from where the soldier had fallen.

"What's that?" Menelaus asked, pointing out the same green beam.

"Our cue to head for the mountains a little faster than we already are and get as far into the heart of the range as we possibly can. The more ground they have to cover, the better our chances of reaching a ship that can take us to Dathomir," Hyperion said.

"So we're going to Dathomir!? We're gonna disperse my mother's ashes at its highest mountain?" Menelaus asked excitedly.

"We are, we don't have a lot of options besides."

"Then why are we going into the mountains?"

"To lead away our pursuers or dissuade them from continuing the search without any violence. Once we've got them off our tail, we'll make a break for the nearest spaceport out of here," Hyperion declared. Menelaus tried to get up but soon fell on his hands and knees, likely from a charlie horse in his leg. Hyperion scooped him up with ease and slung him over one shoulder whilst carrying his pack with the other.

"I'm sorry, I'm so weak!" Menelaus cried.

"No, you were kneeling too long and I didn't tell you that you needed to get up. You had no way of knowing that was gonna happen. Plus your species has a higher pain tolerance than almost any other humanoid so you might not have even known you had one growing for that reason. But I am not leaving you behind and you have my word boy, if you should ever be abducted, I'll hunt down the people who abducted you and make them release you or make them suffer," Hyperion promised as he carried Menelaus toward their destiny. After slinging the backpack onto his shoulder, he removed a blaster pistol from its holster in case he needed to use it going forward then began the hike forward to the stone guardians of Ando Prime.

While Hyperion and Menelaus began their journey to the mountain range, the other members of Havoc Squad were arriving at the coordinates of the distress signal. Altogether, there were six total members kept in the squadron though eight more could be called back into service if needed. The leader of the Squad was a grizzled old Cather who'd seen the wars of the Jedi, Sith, and even rise of the Zakuul Eternal Empire. But because it wasn't quite eternal as it promised to be, even the succeeding Eternal Alliance eventually fell apart. Gaining the greater share of the technology of the fallen Zakuul people, the Republic had driven the Sith halfway across creation.

Since then squads had either been disbanded or temporarily suspended on paid leave. The reinstated Havoc Squad, due to their skills at staying alive and doing what they were sent to do, stayed functioning. But even they had more than half their members on paid honorable leave with exception noted to its most seasoned members. Major Aric Jorgan, a former member of the Eternal Alliance, had recruited the best of the best from that army. But when the Alliance started to crumble due to the infighting of the Sith and Jedi within it, he rejoined the Republic in the hopes that he could get his name cleared by aiding them in destroying Zakuul.

In the years since those depressing days of his life as a soldier, he'd only grown harder than he had already been reputed to be when he first took command. Nonetheless, the years of peace had been kinder on his squad than he would've liked which was why he only assigned those most vigilant and ready for conflict to remain on his active roster. Such was the case with a Twi'lek named Chen, who'd joined in the waning days of the war against the Sith and the Eternal Alliance. At the time, Aric had been impressed with his martial prowess in hand to hand combat and made him the man to go to whenever new recruits needed weapons or martial training in general. So to find him lying broken and flat on his back in the snow like this wasn't a good sign of what they were up against.

"What the hell happened Chen?" he asked at once.

"I found him, I found the man we were looking for. Then he... he..." the Twi'lek began. He didn't need to finish for Major Jorgan to understand what'd happen here. Still, he looked over the recordings of Chen's live feed for the answers he sought in case he was wrong. As soon as he did, he had all the confirmation he needed that the man they were looking for was attuned to the Force... that or just really kriffing good at fistfighting.

But the move of Echani takedown he saw, the takedown that likely kept Chen pinned in the snow like this, confirmed his suspicion of the former rather than the latter. "Get him a kolto pack then make an immediate evac back to the gunship. We're gonna need to reevaluate how we fight this guy," he ordered.

"Pull back when he's retreating!? No sir!" Chen demanded as two more squad members carried him back.

"He wouldn't kick your ass as thoroughly as he did and then retreat because of fear. No ordinary human can hit that hard and that fast plus he's got knowledge of the land that we don't. There's no way I'm risking any of my men against him until I know the ground is at least somewhat equal or in our favor. For that to be the case, we're gonna need some help... some Jedi help," Major Jorgan said.

"Why not just let him go then? We're famous for doing our work without the aid of the Jedi or not doing it at all!" Chen hissed.

"It's prey like this that's always the best to catch plus this guy's got rap sheets with both sides that's longer than a Hutt. We let him go for any longer than we've already done, he ain't ever gonna know accountability. I'm wiring the footage from your live feed to someone who knows this one, someone who can help us beat him. Maybe even talk him into surrender before there's any actual bloodshed on anyone's part," Major Jorgan said. He wasn't about to lose another trooper the way he lost his predecessors and the mates he'd bunked with on the transports that carried him to and from missions, not if he had a choice in it.

In addition to being Force-sensitive and an incredible boxer, this guy was armed to the teeth and knew every millimeter of the forest and the nearby mountains. As soon as he got to the mountains especially, they'd have no chance of catching him or finding out what that kid was doing with him. He'd better not have taken a hostage to raise as his own or else he's gettin even less mercy from me and my team Jorgan promised as he transmitted the footage with an encoded message to the one Jedi he knew would aid them.