Chapter II-An Unfriendly Welcome

The Viscerdan left Minna-Rinne later that day. Der had been given a location of the target, who was deep into the unknown regions. The nearest planet to it was Zaddja. And even Zaddja was about 10 hours through hyperspace away from the target. How the Empire had made an enemy that lived so remotely was a mystery. So was the actual identity of the Target; the only details they had been able to give Der were that the target was a human female who was very dangerous-armed or unarmed. The homing beacon implanted on the taget couldn't-unfortunately-tell him how the target had gotten to wherever she was. This was unfortunate mostly because it meant that he would have to find his own way there, without running the risk ending up inside of a planet. There was a reason that nobody had taken the high paying job; travelling in unknown space was extraordinarily dangerous. One might come out of hyperspace inside of a star, or too close to a planet to escape its gravity well before being smashed on the surface. But in Der's reasoning, if he failed, then it didn't matter anyways, but if he was successful, then he would immediately become known all across the galaxy. For him, that prospect far outweighed the risks associated with the Unknown Regions.

He dropped out of hyperspace just past the Zaddja system, which was considerhed the edge of the Unknown Regions. His target was stationary, about 10 hours hyperspace away. There were no maps of safe hyperspace routes through the unknown regions, so Der ended up using his eyes to guess at many distances, and only making small jumps at a time. Since his targeting computer was such an old model, it wouldn't be able to add this new route into its databanks; he would have to travel back in the same fashion as he came in.

After spending nearly a standard day shooting through space, he finally arrived at his destination. The planet was a relatively small one, and blue, although the water content seemed to be below average. Scanning for any life forms below with his ship's on-board scanners, he found that it seemed to be teeming with life. He made the mental note that he should probably take a larger blaster rifle with him as well as his blaster pistol when he landed.

The descent was rough; the wind violently shook him, and rain battered him from all angles. His visibility was low, which didn't improve things. As he came out from under a cloud, he suddenly realised that there was a mountain just in front of him. Der pulled the Viscerdan to the right sharply, making him lose altitude quickly. He extended the landing legs, and put the thrusters into reverse. He began to slow down, but not enough; when he hit the ground, the Viscerdan tilted, and one of its wings cut through the soft soil like a good knife through a good nerf steak. He increased the reverse thrust, but not before he hit several trees, knocking the trees down and dents in the ships armor. After more thrust increase, the ship came to rest in the middle of a meadow. Der let out a sigh he hadn't even realized that he was holding. He shut down the ship's systems, and stood up out of the pilot's seat. He opened his hyperfuel tank, and took out a medium-sized high power kerk blaster rifle. He had a certain fondness for kerks. He appreciated their high power-size ratio, and loved their aesthetics. He strapped it to his back-armor plate. He wasn't sure what his armor could do in this environment, seeing as it only protected his core, and durasteel wasn't exactly the strongest stuff out there anyways. He opened the hatch on the side of the ship, and climbed out, closing the hatch behind him.

The ground was-interestingly enough-blue, both the rocks and the dirt. The plant life around the clearing he had "landed" in was also light blue, with some green mixed in. There was noise in the air-signifying that there was animal life around-but Der couldn't see any at all. His rough estimate location given to him by the Imperial captain was just North of here. He set out.

The ground, which would suddenly become soft and then rocky and then soft again, without any change in its appearance. This caused Der to stumble once or twice, but he wasn't to fazed by it; he just kept walking, one hand on his blaster, the other stabilizing him. After a while of walking slowly, so that he didn't trip, he fell in a hole. The hole was covered by blue and light green vegetation. It, too, looked just like all the rest of the ground, but when Der stepped on it, it gave way, and sent him plummeting 20 feet underground. He hit the ground hard, but luckily the ground was soft here, cushioning him just enough. It was dark in the hole, and Der couldn't see anything. He quickly pulled his rifle of his back, and turned on its spotlight. the small circle of light illuminated more blue ground, just like the ground above it. He shone the light all over, trying to get his bearing again. He saw nothing much. He pointed the light up. The narrow mouth of the cave was 20 feet above his head, and the walls were made of soft dirt-not good for climbing-and sloped inwards. This was not exactly a perfect situation to find oneself in when hunting a dangerous bounty far, far from the nearest civilized planet.

Shining the light around the cave again, Der noticed something he had overlooked the last time; a small tunnel leading off into the darkness. He knew that he wouldn't make it out of the cave by climbing, which meant this was his best hope for getting out of the cave. He crouched down, and began to crawl, his rifle in front of him. The tunnel was barely large enough for him to squeeze through. At times he had to lay down, and pull himself along. By the time he had crawled only 10 meters, he was covered from head to toe with blue dirt. By the time he was 20 meters in, he wasn't sure that it was such a good idea to try this anymore. By the time he was around 30 meters away from the cave, he was sure it was a bad idea. As he continued crawling, he had a terrible thought; What had made tunnels like this? The thought caused him to stop. It hadn't been a small creature, whatever had made these. Yet again, he had second thoughts about the idea. But, if he was going to go back, he would have to find a way to turn around within the tight space. And that would leave him more vulnerable to attacks from behind. At least going this way, he was fairly certain nothing would be coming from behind him. And if something came from in front? He checked his power cartridge on the rifle in front of him. He had 7 shots. That should be enough to take down (or at least stun) anything coming at him. With that small comfort, he continued on, towards the unknown. When his arms started to get tired, he also began to worry he tunnel would end. The tunnel seemed to go on forever. The air started to get stuffy around 50 meters in. Der thought, for a small period of time, that he would suffocate from lack of oxygen. But, as crawled just a bit further, the air started to get fresher. Guessing that this was a sign of the end of the tunnel, Der sped up a bit. He came to the end of the tunnel, around 100 meters away from where he came in. When the mouth widened up, Der stood up, and fell over again, exhausted. He dropped his rifle in the dirt as he fell back to his knees. Looking at his hands, he found that they were covered in blood. His knees also were in pain. After he finished catching his breath, he stood up again. And that was when he heard the grumbling

His head snapped up, and his rifle with it, but not fast enough. A vicious cavleki hit him. He shot back a few meters into the cave wall. His rifle fell out of his hands. Winded, he tried to stand back up, but before he could do so, the cavleki hit him again. The cavleki were found on many planets, but had not been ever known to burrow widely. The creature threw Der up in the air with its tusks, and caught him in its mouth on the way down. It began to thrash him around, almost causing to lose consciousness. Then he saw the rifle on the ground a few feet away from him, its light still shining. He reached out, and was promptly smashed into the wall again by the cavleki. He struggled to reach down to his boot, where he kept a small knife. The shaking of him made it especially hard. Cavlekis were known for being ferocious, but having little defenses on their outside, making them vulnerable to blades. His fingers grasped the edge of the blade's hilt, and he closed his bleeding palm around the end of the knife. Quickly, he jerked the knife out of his boot, and into the jaw of the beast. It howled, and dropped him. He jumped at his rifle, but the ferocious creature hit him with its tusks, sending him into the wall of the cave again. The cavleki charged him, but this time, he pulled up his legs before it bit at them, and slid down the creature's back, right to his rifle. He got his left hand on it before the cavleki bit his boot. Jerking its head back, the cavleki threw Der into the roof of the cave. He fell back to the ground. The cavleki, walking around him, prepared for the killing gore with its tusks. This gave Der just enough time to roll over, lift his rifle, aim, and fire. The red blaster bolt lit up the room for a split second, before it dissolved into the cavleki's neck. The giant creature reared up in pain, and came down again, angered. Der rolled to avoid being crushed by its giant feet. He took aim again, and fired into the ferocious beast's side. It roared with even more malice and pain, and slashed out with its tusks. Der rolled onto his side. His durasteel took most of the force, lowering the pain, but he was still thrown a fair distance across the cave. He knew that would leave a dent in his pretty armor Der sat up, and took aim at the turning monster. He fired as it charged, and this time it crumpled into the ground, thrashing and howling for a few seconds, before it stilled.

Still breathing heavily, Der stood up. He was, unsurprisingly, bleeding from his leg and his face. He reached down to his side for his side-blaster, just to make sure the cavleki was indeed dead, but it wasn't there. His eyes, by now fairly well adjusted to the darkness, spotted it on the other side of the cave. He retrieved it, checked that the cavleki was dead, and wrenched his blade out of his defeated attacker's lip. He wiped the blood off on the creature's hairy body. Der wiped the blood out of his eyes again, and looked around for an exit. He wasn't aware of any cavlekis that lived permanently underground. In fact, even though they were widespread across the galaxy, he had never heard of them having burrows at all. The beasts were known to be able to dislocate many of their bones, in order to access small spaces. Der guessed that this was how it had dug the tunnel. He shone the light from his rifle around, looking for an exit from this larger burrow. There was a slightly larger tunnel, that sloped upwards, on the opposite wall. He was not overjoyed at the thought of going through another tunnel, but he really didn't have much choice. As he climbed the tunnel, which got steeper and steeper, his mind strayed to the actions of the cavleki in the last cave. It stuck him as odd the way that it had tried to gore him with its tusks over and over again. He wasn't an expert, but he had learned somewhere that they only used their tusks in defense. He was fairly sure that they mostly used their jaws when attacking and killing prey. The way that the cavleki had moved, and acted, it was as if it was being controlled or something. Der shook of the thought, because it was a bit to weird for him. When the tunnel was going nearly vertical, Der finally saw the exit. It looked as if the tunnel just ended, apart from the fact that there were a few small patches of light poking through. Der put his legs and his back against the cave wall, so he wouldn't slip down, and smashed the butt of his gun through what he assumed was just vegetation. Dirt and green plants rained down on him, but the moon shone through the opening. He had made it.

Der climbed out of the hole, dropped his rifle, and fell to the ground, exhausted after crawling so far, and battling the cavleki. He lay on the ground for a while, before he could even start thinking moving again. From there on, he checked every step in front of him, to make sure it wasn't a cavleki den's entrance. The moon, which was exceptionally bright, lit his way quite well, slightly lessening the possibility of him falling into a hole, because he would probably see them first at this rate. Before long, he reached the lower reaches of a large plateau. His tracking beacon-which only partially worked after the cavleki's thrashing-was insisting that his target was close, and dead ahead. Der knew what that meant; he would have to climb. The climbing was exceptionally hard, as many times, chunks of the rock would come out in his hands, nearly sending him plummeting down to the ground below him. The plateau was nearly 50 meters tall, sloping inwards. By this time, Der was exhausted. He had only landed on the planet around midday, and had been exerting himself ever since. He had been walking until close to 5-O'clock (or so he guessed), and then had fallen into the cave. When he emerged, he guessed it was around 7:00, and by the time he started climbing, it was near to 8. By now, Der was exhausted. He had no idea how he was going to apprehend a dangerous target when he was this tired. Maybe he could grab a few hours of sleep at the edge of the plateau, without being noticed. But that didn't end up happening. As he came over the edge, and lay there panting, he turned his head to look at the plateau, and saw something that made him quiet his breathing suddenly. The target was only a tiny distance away, and was dressed in the one form of armor that Der wanted to avoid at all costs. The target was wearing beskar. She was a mandalorian.

He rolled onto his side, dragging his rifle with him, and took aim. The woman didn't have her helmet on at the moment, which was her biggest disadvantage. He switched his rifle to stun, took aim, and then fired.