Children of Mandalore: Prelude to Terror

Chapter Eight:

Ryia took a deep breath and stepped out from the corner, his hand clamped around the detonator shaped to look like a piece of the ultra-sturdy yorik-coral the Yuuzhan Vong used to build most of their structures and living-space cruisers. He wasn't exactly sure if what he was planning to do was actually going to work, but he'd been lucky so far in his decision making. He found himself looking forward to when Tyran would be back having to make tactical decisions like this because the last few days had surely given him a few premature gray hairs.

The Yuuzhan Vong warriors all perked up as he walked out alone into the corridor. Almost all at once they stood up straight and gripped their amphistaff's tighter in anticipation.

“He is mine.” Sehn Draisa barked at the warriors behind him. “You redeem yourself by confronting your fate Infidel. You have chosen to die with honor.”

Ryia set his audio projector to full volume. “You speak Basic pretty well for a scarhead.”

What he had assumed to be a smile, the veteran warrior's face was so cut up and ritually disfigured that the Mandalorian couldn't make it out exactly, quickly faded.

“You've managed to take away from what little honor you had regained in the eyes of the Gods.” Draisa sounded disappointed. “If that is how you wish to be viewed by the Gods, so be it.”

Sehn Draisa gave his arm a tremendous shake and an amphistaff uncoiled from around his massive arm. It went rigid in the warrior's large hand and Ryia swallowed hard. He needed to get close enough to the group of warriors so that the detonator in his hand could have a more potent effect.

“You know I thought a warrior like you, obviously one of higher stature, would enjoy a good old fashioned fist fight.” Ryia said.

Draisa studied him for a few moments. “You wish to fight me in hand-to-hand combat?”

“I've killed enough of your warriors in the last two days and know enough about your society to know that I'm a worthy opponent.” Ryia couldn't believe he was actually asking a Yuuzhan Vong warrior for a one on one fight. It wasn't that he didn't have faith in his CQC skill, he had that in spades, he just found the situation less than comfortable.

Draisa snarled at Ryia. “Those warriors you killed were mere insects compared to me! You are not worthy to face me in unarmed combat.”

“Are you afraid you might lose?” Ryia said smugly knowing that his arrogance combine with the slight against the warrior's reputation would push Sehn Draisa in the direction he wanted. “Scarhead.”

Draisa turned his whole body towards the gold armored Mandalorian. “You think that I am afraid of you!?”

“I'm not the one who's backing down from a fight,” Ryia said shrugging. “Yeah I think you're shaking in your boots because you've finally seen what a real warrior looks like. All that blustering doesn't mean anything because you are just a coward.”

That did it. Draisa's eyes narrowed to practically slits as the amphistaff in his hand went slack and slowly wrapped itself around his forearm. “You dare call me a coward?!” Draisa's voice was quiet and menacing.

Ryia rolled his neck in preparation for the coming fight. “Yeah I just think I did.”

The Mandalorian couldn't help but feel like this was a bad idea, but it was necessary if he wanted to get his team and their missing Jedi off the forsaken moon they had all found themselves on.

“You wish to fight me in unarmed combat?” Draisa asked again. “Fine Infidel, you get your wish.”

“Stand down!” Sehn Draisa and every warrior under his command wheeled around as Kurru Ivat and his personal guard approached the cluster of soldiers.

“Commander Ivat, this Infidel has challenged me to combat!” Draisa exclaimed. “I have the right to confront my challenger.”

“You will.” Ivat said uninterestedly in formal ceremony. He cared little about ceremony anymore, his life was already forfeit. He just cared about redeeming himself before his death. “First I must challenge an infidel of my own and then you can slaughter the rest.”

“The High Commander has deemed those infidels as sacrifices for the Gods.” Draisa said. “You cannot touch them.”

“I am the Commander, you are the warrior!” Ivat roared. “You do as ordered.”

“You dare talk to me that way!” Draisa roared back.

Ryia stood by watching the spat between two obviously high ranked Yuuzhan Vong warriors. He was never one to let an opportunity slip by unnoticed so he depressed the ignition button on the yorik-coral detonator and discreetly rolled it across the floor and hoped it rolled deep enough into the center of the Yuuzhan Vong ranks to cause enough damage.

Four seconds. He thought as he slowly turned around and began walking away from the blast zone. He opened a comm channel to his team. “Dets away.”

Draisa looked up at Ryia as he began walking away.

“Where are you going Infidel, you dishonor me by walking away after challenging me?!” the warrior raged, his tempered worsened by the intervention of his superior.

“I've got more combustible problems right now than fighting you.” Ryia said flinging himself to the ground and covering his head.

Both Ivat and Draisa stared down at the Mandalorian for a few precious seconds before they realized what was happening. They both ran in the same direction as Ryia away from the cluster of warriors just as a small brilliant ball of white light filled the corridor. Tremendous thunder followed suit in a small plume of vaporized yorik-coral, warrior limbs and blood splatter. It was over almost as quickly as it had happened. Draisa climbed up to his knees and was almost overcome by the intense smell of scorched flesh and spilled blood. His ears were ringing but otherwise he had suffered very little damage in the blast.

A large majority of his warriors were laying motionless on the floor behind him, only a handful were pulling themselves up off the ground and seemed to be in fighting condition. A larger percentage were on the ground missing either an arm or a leg or some combination. The warriors of the Temple Guard of Yun-Yammka were reveling in the pain racing through their bodies. The lone infidel had managed to efficiently decrease the fighting strength Draisa had brought with him. He realized he had been tricked by the Mandalorian. The infidel had goaded him into a drawn out conversation with insults to his honor and bravery.

The interruption by Kurru Ivat had only provided the Mandalorian with perfect cover to launch whatever had just decimated his forces, most likely one of the blasphemous thermal detonators, undetected. Draisa looked around and found Ivat a few paces behind him already on his feet and disappearing into the chamber where the four prisoners had been held.

“No!” Draisa exclaimed. “They belong to the Gods!” He climbed up to his feet and motioned at the remaining warriors he had “Stop Kurru Ivat!”

“Oh you can bet we're going to stop him. We just have to stop you first.”

Draisa whipped his head around to see five Mandalorians raising their rifles. The high pitched whine of the blasphemous weapons discharging filled the hallway. A wall of superheated plasma ripped through the Yuuzhan Vong warriors still standing in the hallway. Draisa was knocked back by a rapid sequence of impacts against his chest plate and slowly a burning fire worked it's way through his torso.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt as he collapsed smelling his own burning flesh as his breathing became intensely labored. The whine of the blaster rifles came to a stop and only a few more selective shots rang out as the Mandalorians finished off the Yuuzhan Vong warriors who had yet to die. Draisa heard footsteps coming his way and found that he couldn't move his arms or legs. Soon he was looking up into the lifeless durasteel barrel of a blaster pistol.

He wanted to say something, to curse to Infidels with all the hate and anger in his body but his voice would not form the words he wanted them to. He watched the armored finger depress the trigger of the weapon and was no more.

“Good riddance.” Ryia said darkly as he put away his pistol. He had no more ammunition for his blaster rifle and had discarded it, the weapon was just dead weight that he didn't need now.

The hissing of amphistaffs slithering around the floor was the only other sound that the Mandalorian team could hear now. There were muted sounds coming from inside the chamber where the tracking signal was coming from hinting at some kind of commotion going on inside the chamber.

“Beluin I want you and Koryn to gather up as many thudbugs and razorbugs as you can, our ammo isn't going to last much longer and we're going to need another source of weaponry.” Ryia said. “Dyir, you and Dawk are coming with me to get Tyran and the others.”

“You got it.” Beluin said as he began kicking over a Yuuzhan Vong warrior's body and began checking for the projectiles.

Ryia headed over to the entrance membrane that Kurru Ivat had disappeared into. There did sound like a fight was going on in there, and it sounded like a vicious one.

“Anyone know how to get this thing to open?” Dyir asked as he looked at the wall on either side of the membrane.

“Put a low-yield det on it.” Ryia said standing back.

“What about Tyran and the others?” Dawk said. “I'm running

“As long as they aren't up against the wall when it blows they'll be fine.” Dyir said as he pulled out a palm sized detonator and fixed it to the wall.

Ryia banged his fist onto the wall as hard as he could. “Tyran if you can hear me, fire in the hole!”

He stepped back, followed by the two others, and he nodded to Dyir once they were a safe distance away. Dyir nodded back and hit a button on his wrist gauntlet and the wall exploded in a ball of lightning and thunder.

**************

Raven was fixed on healing the wounds covering most of Rixa's body. She visualized the flesh reattaching itself in her minds eye and exerted her will through the Force to manipulate his cells. At the moment the most serious wound Rixa had was a punctured and collapsed lung. Over the last few minutes she had managed to re-inflate the lung but had yet to seal the puncture wound.

She could feel the fear radiating from him in the Force stronger than she could anyone else in the room. She tried to emit a soothing presence in the Force and enshroud him in it, but even that wasn't as strong as it should have been. She was too weak and injured herself from the weeks of captivity in the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Her focus wasn't as strong as it should have been, there were too many things going on around her to allow her full concentration on the task before her.

The Mandalorian strike team had arrived in the corridor outside and she could sense all of their emotions. There must have been something outside that door that they didn't like. A large Yuuzhan Vong patrol perhaps? Tyran had ordered her to let him know when they arrived and she had to break what little concentration she had to do so.

“You're friends are outside.” She said trying to split her focus between talking with Tyran and healing Rixa. She felt pure relief flood through both Tyran and Kial. “But something isn't right they feel very....apprehensive and anxious I guess. Something's got them concerned outside the door.”

Tyran and Kial traded looks. Ryia and the others weren't the type of people to be rattled easily.

“Yuuzhan Vong.” Kial said. “The have to be outside the door.”

“Must be a lot of them.” Tyran agreed. “Take up defensive positions around Rixa and the Jedi. They might try to move us before Ryia and the others can get in here and we'll have to hold them off for as long as we can.”

As the two Mandalorians closed in around her Raven meshed her hands together, one on top of the other, and pressed down harder into the jagged gash in Rixa's back. He let out a wet gurgling sound of distress as the pain hit him. His blood oozed out over her fingers in warm thin strands that she added to the increasing list of things she was trying to ignore. She tried to calm him again through the Force and felt him ease a little but not as much as she would have liked.

Raven didn't know why these men were putting themselves through all of this for her. She didn't feel like she deserved the pain and sacrifice they had suffered in the last few days. They didn't know her at all and they came from two very different lifestyles, but Rixa had subjected himself to a level of brutality and violence that not even she had been subjected to during her stay with the Yuuzhan Vong. The only thing she could do to make things right at the current moment was to kneel beside the wounded man and try to ease his suffering for as long as she could.

She focused on the presences of the two other men in the room with her, trying to draw on their determination and concentration to bolster her own. She peeled back the layers of their presences, working through the worry and negative emotions that would hamper her and looking for the emotions she needed. She was caught off guard by what she felt. Tyran and Kial were only a few years older than she was and it amazed her at how much older and wearier they all felt compared to her. They felt more like retired war veterans who were in settling into their autumn years that she had met on some of the assignments she had been sent on.

It was sad. These were men who should have been out in the prime of the careers as mercenaries and bounty hunters, but this war had aged them, at least mentally, beyond their years. She knew she probably felt the same way in the Force. It was a foregone conclusion that she wouldn't ever be like she had been before being tortured. She knew the vibrant and fearless young-woman she had been weeks earlier was going to be replaced by a more cautious and fearful woman if she made it off this moon.

When she made it off the moon.

She could feel it in Tyran's presence. He hadn't come all this way just to watch his younger brother be tortured and to wind up sacrificed to the imagined Gods of the Yuuzhan Vong. He was going to get her out of here, he was going to make sure she survived. She couldn't understand how he could be so confident, but it was reassuring all the same. She drew upon his confidence, a shining light at the center of a dark mix of rage and violent intent that she now saw as her only means of salvation. She could feel the effects of her healing technique becoming stronger as she bolstered her confidence in her abilities with his own. The blood oozing from between her fingers began to slow at a steady rate and Raven could feel the pain lessen in Rixa's body.

Suddenly and violently all of her concentration was ripped away as a thunderous roar pierced through the yorik-coral wall between them and the corridor. Raven dropped down to the ground out of shear animal instinct not knowing what had just happened. The room was as dark as ever so the explosion hadn't managed to pierce the wall to their cell. She reached out in the Force again, this time searching the presences of the other Mandalorians who had come to rescue her. The feelings she felt emanating from them were ones of satisfaction and relief.

“Cutting it close, don't you think?” Kial said as he pulled himself up off the floor.

Tyran grunted and looked around the room. “Not close enough, they didn't breach any of the walls.”

“That's the next step.” Kial said dismissively.

The conversation sounded too casual to Raven. There wasn't an edge to either of their voices. Dust had been dislodged from the ceiling by the blast outside and Raven began sneezing. The wet hacking sound was what made her remember about Rixa but before she could even start crawling towards him the portal membrane to the room opened with a sickening pucker and the hulking form of Kurru Ivat stumbled inside.

If Raven's eyes hadn't been adjusted to the darkness of the room, she wouldn't have noticed the seething look in the Yuuzhan Vong warrior's eyes as he brought himself up to his full height and leveled his gaze at Tyran.

“You Mandalorian,” He growled deeply. “Will be my redemption.”

Tyran turned to face the warrior, both his arms held away from his sides. “We'll see about that.”

**************

It happened too fast for Tyran to react.

The razorbug shot straight past his face, just glancing his scalp and opening up a wound that began to bleed freely. Out of reflex he executed a combat roll away from the line of sight the Yuuzhan Vong warrior had on him. He followed through the roll and came up on his feet and broke out into a dead run charging full on towards Ivat and letting out a animalistic roar of anger. He ejected one beskar blade from the housing on his right arm and made a savage slash at Ivat's left side.

The Yuuzhan Vong warrior caught Tyran's arm in his own large hand and pulled Tyran in close before delivering a debilitating headbutt to the bridge of Tyran's nose. The blow buckled Tyran's knees as Ivat removed a coufee from a sheath somewhere on his back and brought it down. The point of impact would have been the center of Tyran's skull had Kial not jumped into the fray. He threw a solid right hand punch into the side of Ivat's disfigured face and the warrior barely moved backwards more than a millimeter. Ivat turned his head in a slow, menacing fashion as he growled deeply in his throat. Kial glanced down at his crushgaunt and back up at Ivat not believing that it had had little to no effect.

Tyran shook his head to try and clear it and looked up in time to see Ivat plant the tip of his boot firmly into Kial's groin. Tyran tried to free his arm from the vice-like grip Ivat had on it but the Yuuzhan Vong warrior swung him around and hurled him into Kial. Both men crashed to the ground feeling a little worse for wear.

“I thought we were supposed to be kicking his shebs.” Kial groaned.

“Come on get up,” Tyran said thickly while climbing up to all fours. “We've got him on the ropes.”

“Yeah it feels like it.”

Ivat let out a laugh. “You disappoint me. After you managed to kill so many of my kind without any trouble, a lone warrior is all it takes to best the both of you?”

Tyran spit a glob of blood and saliva onto the floor as he stood up to his full height. “Now that we got the warm-up over, time for the real fight to start.”

This time Kial and Tyran didn't try to rush Ivat, instead they slowly began walking towards him. Tyran had retracted the beskar blade he had failed to impale Ivat with earlier. Ivat seemed to be willing to meet them in a melee, he had discarded his coufee and had yet to uncurl his amphistaff. The large warrior began to close the distance between himself and the Mandalorians. The two parties came to within and arms length of each other and Ivat made the first lunge.

It was a savage strike directed at the side of Tyran's head. Tyran ducked under it and brought his own fist up hard into Ivat's abdomen while Kial connected with a spinning back-fist to Ivat's disfigured nose. Ivat made a second wild swipe this time directing it towards Kial. The Supercommando clamped onto Ivat's left arm and hyper-extended the alien warrior's elbow before bringing his own beskar armored elbow down on the joint. Ivat howled more in anger than from pain as his arm bent at an angle that it wasn't supposed to. In the short few seconds afterward Tyran landed several hard left and right fists into Ivat's right side, further pulverizing the vonduun-crab armor and even drawing out some of the alien's bluish-black blood.

Ivat stepped back breathing heavily, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side and black blood flowing from a crack in his armor's right side. His eyes glanced from Tyran to Kial and to the Jeedai hiding in the corner with the wounded Mandalorian. It was obvious to Tyran that Ivat was trying to formulate a plan.

“Not so high and mighty now are you scarhead?” Kial said with his trademarked smugness.

The smile that came over Ivat's face turned Tyran's stomach into a ball of ice. The sinister laugh the large Yuuzhan Vong emitted after it didn't help to thaw it out either.

“No Mandalorian, I am not but unlike you I will be accepted by my Gods.” he reached behind him and pulled out one of the projectile beatles that were often employed as long range weapons by the Yuuzhan Vong warrior-caste.

This one didn't look like a normal thudbug or it's more dangerous cousin the razorbug. Process of elimination left only one more possibility.

“Blastbug!” Tyran yelled. Instantly he turned towards Raven and Rixa and began running in their direction.

Kial began running towards Ivat but the Yuuzhan Vong warrior lowered his shoulder and stopped the charging Mandalorian with the spikes on his vonduun-crab armor. The spike found it's way through a weak point in Kial's beskar armor, entering just under his right armpit. Ivat threw Kial to the ground and hurled the blastbug in the direction of Tyran, Rixa and Raven.

Tyran felt a pressure wave hit him and lift him off his feet and heard the crack of thunder, too loud to be a blastbug, unless Ivat had hurled a supercharged variant of the creature. There was a good chance the Yuuzhan Vong had different classes of explosives just like the Mandalorians and other military's in the Galaxy did. He closed his eyes as he felt himself flying through the air towards his brother and the wounded Jedi standing guard over him. He just hoped that the weight of his body and the full beskar armor it was encased in didn't crush who ever he impacted when he came to a stop.

**************

Raven reached out in the Force and grabbed Tyran, stopping him in mid air less than a meter from Rixa and herself as the smoke and rubble continued falling from the explosion. She lowered Tyran to the ground and looked to the wall where the eruption of flame and yorik-coral had come from. Through it spilled three other Mandalorians: one wearing dented and battered gold armor, a second wearing a set of royal blue armor and the third was much smaller than the other two and wearing a set of purple on black armor. She wanted to say something, to scream out in joy as her rescuers piled into the room and headed towards her but found that her throat could no longer work again. She was too overcome by her emotions to speak, days of fear, pain and tremendous doubt were close to coming to an end.

Tyran climbed to his feet and looked around. It didn't take him too long to work out what had happened and he turned around just as the golden armored soldier began walking in their direction.

“A little warning would have been nice Ry'ika.” Tyran said with no small amount of relief in his voice.

“You know me, always love to make a big entrance.” the soldier said.

“Who's with you?” Tyran asked.

“Dyir and Dawk, Beluin and Koryn are outside keeping our exit route clear and Elai is with Kas and Baydo at our exfiltration point eight clicks from here.”

Tyran nodded and Raven didn't even try to pretend like anything that was being said was actually making sense to her. “Good job Ryia, I guess it's up to me now.”

“Yeah, and I couldn't be more happy. This leadership thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

Tyran laughed in agreement.

“Where are Rixa and Kial?” Ryia asked.

Tyran stopped laughing and pointed behind him. “Rixa is over there with the Jedi and I haven't seen Kial since your blast.”

Ryia looked over Tyran's shoulder and remained silent as he took in the brutally beaten appearances of both Raven Varos and Rixa Numeck.

“Dawk get over here, we've got two people who need your assistance.” Ryia said.

The small purple armored Mandalorian appeared at Raven's side in an instant and the Jedi began to shake her head. “No he needs medical aid more than I do.” She said pointing to Rixa. “Help him first.”

Dawk looked up at Tyran. “Sir?”

Tyran nodded his head and Dawk went about treating Rixa. He turned back to face Ryia. “Do you have a spare earpiece? I need to be patched into the team comm frequency.”

Ryia nodded and fished around in his belt and produced the desired device and Tyran pressed it into his ear. The device linked to the control panel in his forearm plate a second later and Tyran opened a line to all members of his team.

“Dyir, start looking for Kial. He might be under the rubble you guys brought down.”

Dyir grunted. “I'll look for the chakaar, but I'm doing it under protest.”

Ryia walked over to Raven and extended his hand to her. She stared at it for a few second before taking it and the Mandalorian pulled her to her feet.

“Ryia Devieyc.” He said to her flatly.

Raven got the impression that he wasn't too friendly with Force-sensitives. In fact his Force presence suggested that he hated them.

“Raven Varos.”

“I know who you are.” Ryia said. “You're not what I expected to find.”

“You thought I'd be older?”

“No I was sure you were dead.”

Tyran watched her visibly deflate and felt bad for her. He nudged Ryia's shoulder. “Hey get a line to Elai, I can't raise him on this thing. Tell him to get in touch with Yunauli and tell him we'll need extraction in a couple of hours.”

“You got it.” Ryia said but before he could open a comm line to Elai, Dyir began shouting.

“Hey Dawk we got a man down over here! Kial's got one of those crab armor spikes jammed in his side!”

The young medic grabbed Raven by the arm “Stay here with him.”

Raven didn't even have time to respond as Dawk took off towards Dyir with all the others. She knelt down beside Rixa and propped him up against her own body. The wounded soldier's Force presence was filled with alarm and fright. Raven patted him on his chest.

“It's ok, you're friends are here and they're going to get us out of here.”

His sense of alarm didn't decrease and it bothered Raven. As a precaution she took a look around. Out of a pile of rubble Kurru Ivat launched himself towards Raven and Rixa with the small dagger in his hand. Raven caught a glint of metal behind Ivat and didn't need to think twice. She reached out in the Force and the silver cylinder came flying out of the rubble and into the palm of her hand. With the much welcomed snap-hiss the purple blade of energy sprang into life and she brought the blade down into the path of Kurru Ivat with strength that stemmed from all her anger and hatred of the alien being. In one swipe she removed both his one good arm and his head from his body.

The warrior fell to the ground in a smoking heap.

Breathing heavily, Raven kicked the lifeless husk with her foot and looked up to see the other Mandalorians staring in her direction.

“He's dead.” She sighed as she deactivated her lightsaber.

Tyran turned away from the distraction and looked down at Dawk as she examined Kial wound.

“How is he?”

“He's going to lose his arm.” Dawk said. “The spike went right through the socket.”

“He's alive though right?” Ryia asked.

“Unconscious, but alive.” Dawk said.

“Great, we have to carry out two members of our team.” the frustration in Ryia's voice was apparent. “That's going to diminish our fighting ability.”

“We'll manage.” Tyran said. “Dyir you carry Kial, I'll get Rixa and the Jedi.”

“I'll carry Rixa.” Ryia said. “We need you out front.”

“Fine, Dawk you watch over the Jedi.”

The small medic nodded her head. Once Dyir had Kial over his shoulder and Ryia had a semi-mobile Rixa propped up against him the group moved out into the hallway. Beluin and Koryn both saluted Tyran as he moved past them.

“Beluin you're on rear guard, Koryn you stay up front with me.”

The large Barabel hissed as he fell into step with Tyran. “Thiz one iz pleazed to see you alive.”

Tyran patted the Barabel on the chest-plate. “Try to keep me that way, huh big guy?”

Raven watched Tyran's interaction with the Barabel from the center of the Mandalorian formation. She had never seen anything like the Barabel before and the she must have been staring at him because the young medic next to her nudged her.

“He doesn't like people staring at him.”

Raven looked down and kept walking. She could feel the small medic staring at her as the group moved through corridor after corridor, some of them filled with Yuuzhan Vong bodies.

“Tyran I got through to Elai, he's going to radio Yunauli for pick up.” Ryia said.

Tyran was gripping the blaster pistols that Beluin had given him tightly in each of his hands. He was leading the group down the corridors at a quicker pace than Ryia had. The potential to encounter resistance without detecting it beforehand was a lot higher.

“Good, lets hope we can get out of here without too much of a hassle.” He said quietly as he brushed through an intersection following the path of destruction that Ryia and the others had caused on their way in.

“Why'd you have to say that?” Beluin said from the rear of the group. “Once you say that things always get worse.”

As if on cue a trio of razorbugs hurled through the air and stuck in the Zabrak's backplate and knocking him down on his stomach. He let out a wet gurgling sound that caused Dyir to turn around and see his injured friend and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors approaching from down the corridor.

“Contact!” He yelled as he brought his rifle up one handed and depressed the trigger.

The rest of the group spun around and everyone who was able to return fire did so. Beluin began crawling towards the group but caught two more razorbugs in the process. He looked behind him at the mass of Yuuzhan Vong warriors barreling towards them. “Explosives...” Beluin said extending his arm. “Give me...what's left.”

“What?” Dyir said. “No, you're coming with us.”

“We can't spare anyone else to carry him.” Tyran said grimly. “Give him the explosives.”

Dyir growled in frustration as he passed Kial over to Ryia and undid the satchel that housed the few remaining explosives the group had left. Thudbugs and razorbugs began to strike the walls to either side of him. Dyir pulled the ignition switch and placed it in Beluin's weak grasp.

“Just push the button vod, you won't feel a thing.” Dyir said slowly.

“Get out of here.” Beluin said.

When Dyir turned around he saw that the rest of the group was almost to the end of the corridor near the next intersection. With one last look at his friend he turned and followed suit.

**************

Beluin watched as his team disappeared around the corner. The Yuuzhan Vong horde came to a stop and began to encircle him. Cruel laughter filled the hallway as the warriors spoke in their guttural language, probably hurling insults at him as he lay there dying. He could feel his heart beat in his fingertips as he hovered his thumb over the detonation switch. The Yuuzhan Vong warriors began kicking him, laughing hard with each blow. Beluin couldn't help but smile. The Yuuzhan Vong could laugh all they wanted. He pushed the button.

With a flash of brilliant light and rolling flame, Beluin Uluar got the true last laugh.

**************

Elai perked up as a sudden column of smoke began rolling up into the sky on the horizon. His pulse rate skyrocketed and he began to try and raise Ryia on the team frequency.

“Ryia, are you there? If you can hear me respond.” Static filled the airwaves. He eyed the pillar of smoke with a sense of dread creeping up on him. “That can't be good.”

His earpiece crackled but it was only Baydo. “Whats going on?”

Elai sighed. “Smoke on the horizon, looks like it's coming from that Temple.”

“Can you raise Ryia or anyone else?”

“No.”

The answer hung there in the air for a while. Baydo didn't say anything and Elai didn't either. There was a very real chance that out of all the Mandalorians who had made it onto the moon of Katna-II, Elai Kareb, Baydo Titus and Kas Birek were the only three that were going to make it off of it.

“What do we do?” Baydo finally said. “Yunauli is going to be here in two hours.”

“That's if he can make it through the Yuuzhan Vong blockade again.” the sour note in Elai's voice was easily detectable. “Either way we can only sit and wait for Yunauli to signal us and for Ryia to get here with the others, or as many of the others as he can.”

“If they're captured we need to do something!”

“No, we need to stay here and hold the pickup point.” Elai said smoothly. The Kiffar sniper knew that there wasn't anything the three of them could do anyway. Baydo was still suffering from a dislocated arm that had been hastily popped back into place and Kas could barely lift either of his arms because they were covered in severe burns. “For now we just sit and wait it out.”

Baydo growled in frustration as he closed the link. Elai sighed again and leaned back in the tree he was perched in and cradled his long-range Verpine sniper rifle in his arms as he fixed his eyes on the ascending pall of smoke on the horizon.

**************

Raven had never run so hard or so fast in her life. After narrowly avoiding being roasted alive the group had managed to get outside the temple and back into the swamplands surrounding it. Their escape had been slowed by repeated attempts by they Yuuzhan Vong to intercept them, that and the fact that two members of the group had to be carried. The Mandalorians had resorted to hand-to-hand combat after depleting all of their ammunition. She wanted to know how much further they had to go before they reached the extraction point but she didn't need the Force to tell that that wouldn't be a good idea.

Everyone around her was already emitting grief on a scale she had never encountered before for their friend. There was little doubt that Beluin had bought them precious time to actually make it out of the Temple as well as hinder the Yuuzhan Vong attempt to capture the escaping prisoners. But in the end however, the Yuuzhan Vong had still caught up to them.

The constant whomp, whomp, whomp of the artillery beasts firing golden globs of superheated plasma in large arcs from somewhere behind them was proof of that. The ground-shaking impacts of the plasma salvos were getting closer and closer with each passing minute. It wouldn't be long before the Yuuzhan Vong had dialed in their artillery and pinned what was left of the Mandalorian rescue team down.

Raven looked over her shoulder for a single instant and her foot caught in a divet in the ground. She screamed as her ankle twisted as she fell but Dyir had grabbed her by the back of her tattered top and pulled her back up. He shoved her in the direction the rest of the group was headed in.

“Don't look back Jedi, there aint nothing back there that's worth it.” His voice was strained with the effort of running through the swamp while also carrying the dead weight of Kial Volar on his shoulder.

An earsplitting shriek made Raven look upwards as a plasma salvo arced over their heads and impacted the ground just ahead of Tyran, Koryn and Ryia. Trees, muck and Mandalorians were sent flying up into the air. Tyran came crashing down in the mud just ahead of Dawk and came back up to his feet almost an instant after he hit.

“I'm getting real tired of being thrown through the air!” He screamed at no one in particular. Plasma artillery rained down on virtually every side of the Mandalorian team except directly down on them.

“They're trying to box us in!” Ryia said.

“They want the Jedi alive.” Tyran said as he looked around the swamp. The trees had fallen in an adequate defensive barrier, they didn't have anything but their knives and hands. It was going to be a fight to the last man once the Yuuzhan Vong finally caught up to them. “Take up defensive positions, get ready for close-quarters-combat.”

No one moved. They all knew right then and there that they weren't going to make it out of their alive. Tyran looked around at all of them and Raven could feel the sense of failure he felt.

“Call Elai, tell him we aren't going to make the extraction point and that we need pick up at our current position.”

“Tyran,” Ryia began.

“Just do it Ryia.” Tyran cut him off. “Everyone else get in position and get ready to fight.”

Everyone slowly got into their positions and Ryia began to try and raise Elai again after passing Rixa over to Dawk. Dyir set Kial down behind a tree trunk where Dawk led Rixa and began treating the wounded soldiers. Raven gripped her lightsaber in her hand tighter than ever and looked around the makeshift position as Yuuzhan Vong artillery flattened the area around them. She was a trained soldier and she didn't know what to do in this type of situation. Tyran grabbed her by her shoulder and led her to where Dawk was tending to Rixa and Kial.

“You stay here with them.” He said pointing at the medic. “Watch her back and keep the scarheads at bay. Can you do that Jedi?”

Raven didn't know if she could but she nodded her head anyway. “Yes, I can do that.”

“Dyir and Koryn will be here to help defend this end, me and Ryia are going to hold the other side.” He pressed a comlink into her hand. “If this position gets overrun you get out of here and call Elai Kareb, tell him you are the Jedi and that Tyran's position has been compromised and that he is to come to your position and pick you up.”

She stared at the comlink in her hand before she closed her slender fingers around it and nodded at Tyran. He walked away from her and turned to Ryia who gave him a subtle thumbs up.

“I got through to Elai and he said he'd relay the message to Yunauli.” There wasn't much hope in his voice. “Earliest ETA is one hour.”

“We can hold out for an hour.” Tyran said.

“With what? We don't have any weapons and we have three injured people, the Yuuzhan Vong will swarm right over us.” Ryia yelled.

“Have some faith.” Tyran yelled back. “We didn't come this far just to die in a hole in a swamp.”

The Yuuzhan Vong artillery died down and it's constant thudding was replaced with the guttural snarls of the Yuuzhan Vong as they marched towards the Mandalorian position. In front of the marching Yuuzhan Vong warriors appeared to be a cloud of some sort, moving rapidly towards Tyran and his team. Ryia stepped forward and increased the magnification of his visor.

“Razorbugs!” he yelled.

“Everybody down!” Tyran ordered.

He heard a staggered series of wet thuds as the people around him dropped down into the mud.

**************

Yunauli clenched his hands around the controls of the Tal’galaar tighter than he could ever recall squeezing a set of controls in his life as the ship made the short hyperspace jump into the Katna-Rae system.

“Rev is the cannon up and running?” The old pilot asked calmly as he watched the timer slowly tick down to the moment when they would return to realspace.

“Cannon is good to go, medical bay is prepped and ready to receive injured. Lets get this over with and get back to Gyndine with the rest of the taskforce.”

“You don't have to ask me twice.” Yunauli truly felt that he was getting too old for this kind of thing. He'd had his fill of large scale space engagements during the war with the Empire and Rebellion years ago. But he'd heeded the Mand'alor's call and come out of his comfortable retirement when the Supercommandos had been ordered to go to war.

“Can you make your way through the Yuuzhan Vong blockade again?” Rev asked.

“Boy I've been running blockades since before you were a twinkle in your old man's eye. You just sit in that bubble of yours and blast and scarhead ship that get's too close.”

Rev began laughing, just nervous displacement before dropping back into a firestorm for a third time. “Remind me to thank Ryia for making me stay behind with you.”

“Probably did you a favor lad, that last message from Elai didn't sound like they were fairing too well down there.” Yunauli said as he glanced at the timer one more time. “Thirty seconds before we drop out of hyperspace.”

Conversation stopped for the entirety of that thirty seconds. Yunauli kept his gaze out of the viewport watching the inky blue display of hyperspace dancing in front of him. The countdown clock was of no concern to him now, he had begun to keep a mental countdown of the seconds until reversion into realspace.

All too soon the inky-blue lights stretched out and became stars in front of him and the large planet of Katna-Major dominated the viewport. The brown mudball of Katna-II was directly ahead, ringed by what appeared to be an asteroid belt that Yunauli knew to be the enemy fleet.

“Strap yourself in lad, this is where the fun begins.”

Yunauli put the ship into a steep spiraling dive, activating the ship's stealth package as he did so. His plan this time was to dive under the Yuuzhan Vong fleet and come up behind them and head down into the surface. Of course that had been his initial plan when he had dropped Tyran and the strike team off, and that hadn't exactly fared so well. The Yuuzhan Vong wouldn't suspect him to try the same maneuver twice, at least he hoped that they didn't.

“Call out any enemy contacts if they come to within two-hundred meters.” Yunauli said. That was the extreme range that the Tal’galaar’s lone turret could fire and still maintain accuracy. “Pipe your visual feed to the secondary monitor, I don't want you opening fire unless I give the order. No need to blow our cover if we don't need to.”

“Piping it through now.” Rev replied.

Rev's HUD display appeared in an empty monitor next to the tactical display. It showed the large, dual-barreled turret was aimed directly behind and upwards of the Tal’galaar at the enemy fleet above.

“So far so good lad.” Yunauli said. “We'll just have to take it nice and slow from here.”

“We can't do slow!” Rev hissed over the radio. “Ryia and the others need us now!”

Yunauli shook his head. “Son we'll go as fast as we can with the stealth package engaged. Getting a magma missile up the ion drive isn't going to solve your big brother's woes any quicker.”

Yunauli spent the next twelve minutes negotiating his way under the Yuuzhan Vong fleet as slowly and urgently as he could. The constant impatient huffs coming over the radio link were starting to irritate him.

I should have brought along the Aggressors. He thought to himself. His fighter squadron, an all Mandalorian unit flying the latest series of XJ X-Wings provided by the Galactic Alliance, were all still back on Gyndine with the taskforce. The eleven other Mandos would have been a welcome sight right now. They could have engaged the Yuuzhan Vong and allowed him to slip by the blockade easily and much more quickly than he was now.

But he didn't have them.

He just had a highly modified KDY space-yacht, a single high powered cannon manned by a young and inexperienced Supercommando and his own battle tested wits and flying abilities to get the job done. He could do it, he knew he could, he just needed the Yuuzhan Vong to remain unaware of his presence for just a little while longer.

“Contact! Contact!” Rev yelled. “Flight of six coralskippers breaking off from a patrol pattern near that frigate-analog.”

Yunauli glanced down at Rev's video feed. Indeed two coralskippers were breaking off and heading in their direction.

“Fierfek.” Yunauli sighed. “Keep an eye on them Rev. Let me know if they become unfriendly.”

“Missiles released!” Rev yelled.

“I guess that means they just became unfriendly.” Yunauli sighed. “Going evasive, permission to return fire.”

He deactivated the stealth package and accelerated the space-yacht to it's full speed and rocketed out of the line of sight of the Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers. The steady chug, chug, chug of the Tal’galaar's turret opening up filled the cockpit as Yunauli corkscrewed through the void to out maneuver missile after missile. Rev cried out in victory as he reduced a coralskipper to a cloud of floating ash.

“Five left.” Rev said.

“Oh there's quite a few more than five left lad. We've got a a few thousand of those things bearing down on us.” The tactical display was alive with hostile signals swarming in around the Tal’galaar from all directions. “We can't head down to the surface with all of these things on us like this. We'll have to jump out of the system and come up with another plan.”

“No, they need extraction now!” Rev yelled.

“It's not possible, the Yuuzhan Vong would shoot us down the moment we became stationary.” Yunauli yelled back. “They'll just have to hold out longer.”

Rev screamed in frustration. The tactical display began to beep as more contacts entered the system.

“See they've got more ships coming in, we need to get out of here.”

“No!” Rev yelled. “Those aren't Yuuzhan Vong, those are Alliance Star Destroyers.”

Yunauli didn't have a visual of the vessels through the viewports but the tactical display supported Rev's claim. Four of the wedge shaped vessels were now sitting on the edge of the system spewing hundreds of smaller green dots.

“Mandalorian vessel Tal’galaar, this is the Imperial Star Destroyer Transcendence are you receiving?”

“Affirmative Transcendence, you picked a fine time to join the party.”

“Tal’galaar this is Aggressor-Two, the Jedi couldn't wait anymore. So we thought we'd tag along.”

“Captain Drau this is Commander Balsir Tumari of the Transcendence. We will hold position here and draw out the Yuuzhan Vong fleet while you and Aggressor Squadron recover the ground team.”

“Since when does the Empire help out the Jedi?” Yunauli asked.

“Since when do the Mandalorians rescue the Jedi.”

“Fair point Commander. Get the caf ready, we wont be too long now.”

A flight of eleven X-Wings appeared on the left and right of the Tal’galaar. Each one sporting a black-blue paint scheme with a Mythosaur skull emblazoned on the snubbed nose of each craft.

“I bet Tyran will be thrilled to see you Ten.” Yunauli said as a large scale battle began to unfold above the Mandalorian formation.

A sultry female laugh came over the radio. “I am his wife.”

“Well lets go get him so we can all get somewhere less lethal.”

Yunauli dropped the space-yacht into a second steep dive towards the brown moon below him, feeling much more comfortable with his new escorts.

**************

Tyran pressed his face down into the mud as razorbugs, thudbugs and blastbugs races over his protected position. Splinters from the trees around the Mandalorians dropped down in irritating chunks as blastbugs detonated on impact with the waterlogged wood.

“Fierfek, why aren't they moving in to engage us?” Dyir yelled as projectiles rained down on his position directly opposite of Tyran. “It's not like them. Normally when they get their shebs handed to them the scarheads are clamoring to get at the people responsible.”

“Maybe they don't have as many soldiers left as we think they do.” Ryia said. “Maybe they're moving more up from the planet, but that's going to take time and their stalling until they can get more reinforcements.”

“I don't know about that.” Tyran said. “But anything is possible.”

A blast bug detonated behind Tyran and was followed by a blood curdling scream. He whipped his head around to see Dyir holding his hands to his helmet clawing at it. The visor itself was cracked. Dawk was on him in an instant pulling off his helmet. Fragments of wood and visor were lodged in his eyes and face and he was rolling around grabbing at them. Dawk was failing in her efforts to restrain the wounded man and keep him from digging at the glass and wood fragments. A second blastbug detonated next to her knocking her face first into the log Dyir had been using as cover.

“Dawk!?” Tyran yelled as he readied himself to run over to her and Dyir. She climbed up to her knees and removed her helmet and let it drop into the mud. She had a cut along the top of her scalp but it didn't seem to bother her as she rolled Dyir onto his back and began to try and calm him. She looked up at Tyran and opened her mouth to say something to him.

But she never got the chance to say it.

A Razorbug came flying in and impacted her just under the chin and stuck there. The small medic was knocked backwards by the impact.

“No!” Tyran yelled as he rushed over to her. He scrambled on all floors in the mud to reach his fallen teammate. Raven had already beaten him to the small medic.

Remarkably the small medic was still alive. Blood was streaming from her mouth and nose, her skin was ghostly pale. Tyran tried to wipe away the blood as he looked down at the small medic.

“You're going to be ok.” He said, having to force the words out from his throat.

The small girl couldn't make any noise at all but her face contorted and tears fell from her eyes. Her hand twitched and Tyran reached down and grabbed it. He held her hand in his left hand while he wiped away more blood from her face.

It was hard for Raven to watch. This was happening because of her. A woman who she didn't know and who owed her her nothing was going to die. It was a death that no one deserved.

“It's going to be alright, just relax.” Raven managed to stammer as she tried to push aside the fear and pain that Dawk was emitting. Raven tried to replace it with calm and peaceful sensations.

Dawk looked over at Raven for a brief second making eye contact with the Jedi she had come to rescue. Then she was gone.

“Dawk....Dawk!” Tyran gave her a gentle shake.

Raven put her hand on Tyran's shoulder and shook her head. “She's gone Tyran, I can't feel her in the Force.”

Tyran removed the Razorbug from his dead teammates throat and gripped it in his hands. He looked over at Dyir who was no longer thrashing around but still clutching his hands to his face, growling in pain. Tyran pulled Dyir by his collar to the safety of the formation of tree trunks that Kial and Rixa were propped up in.

“Let me see it.” Tyran said as he tried to remove Dyir's hands from his face. Dyir fought against Tyran's grip. “Hey I can't fix it if I can't see it so move your hands.”

Dyir slowly released the tension in his arms and Tyran pried the wounded man's hands from his face and visibly winced at the wound.

“How bad is it?” Dyir said with tremble to his voice.

“It's bad.” Tyran confirmed. “You're gonna lose your right eye.”

Dyir leaned his head against the tree trunk just as Raven dragged Dawk's body into the protection of the trees. She gently placed her next to Rixa, who had managed to remain conscious despite his severe wounds. He shook his head slightly upon seeing the dead woman.

“Raven, find her medkit and get a bacta bandage around Dyir's wound. You're in charge of the wounded now.”

Raven looked around at the three wounded men and one dead body and nodded her head.

Tyran ducked back outside with Ryia and Koryn. Ryia was hunched over waiting for him.

“Dawk didn't make it and Dyir is going to lose his right eye. We need evac soon.”

Ryia swore. “Yuuzhan Vong infantry is moving up on us Tyran. I don't think we're getting out of this one.”

Tyran shook his head “What a waste.”

“You aint kidding.”

The rain of Yuuzhan Vong projectiles came to a stop and Tyran, Ryia and Koryn all stood up and watched as a procession of Yuuzhan Vong warriors raced towards them. These were the all-star Yuuzhan Vong warriors. They were encased head-to-toe in thick vonduun-crab armor. At a quick glance there must have been two or three hundred of them marching through the swamp.

Tyran felt everything drain out of him. He was suddenly more tired than ever and just wanted to drop to his knees in submission. The urge was the opposite of everything he'd ever been trained to do and broke every rule and code he believed in. Now he realized that sometimes there was just no helping it. Tyran glanced around at the remains of his shattered team. He'd accepted the mission and led them into a suicide mission all because he came from a line of Mandalorians who had a knack for beating the odds.

He'd put his heritage up against fate and fate had thrashed his heritage and thensome.

“Sorry I got you into this Ryia.”

“Oh shut up with that.” Ryia laughed. “At least die with some dignity.”

Tyran laughed and soon Ryia was laughing with him. They stood in front of a wall of Yuuzhan Vong warriors laughing as if there wasn't an army of genocidal aliens swarming down around them. Koryn began hissing loudly as the Yuuzhan Vong came closer. The three of them knew that they werent going to make even a small dent in the Yuuzhan Vong forces, at best they would kill maybe two or three warriors a piece before being struck down by an amphistaff or the blade of a coufee.

They stood shoulder to shoulder and watched as the warriors began running at them howling and baying for the flesh of the Mandalorians.

“Get ready.” Tyran said.

The Yuuzhan Vong closed to within thirty meters and with a giant roar the airframe of an X-Wing buzzed the tree tops. Everyone looked up into the sky as a brilliant streak of crimson raced through the sky and impacted into the Yuuzhan Vong ranks. The ground shook violently as the proton torpedo impacted the wet mud and sent remains of every warrior within the impact zone flying into the air.

Five more X-Wings came in from the left and right dropping more torpedoes into the Yuuzhan Vong. Tyran couldn't believe what he was seeing. Less than a second earlier he had been accepting that he was going to die and now there was an entire squadron of X-Wings laying waste to the Yuuzhan Vong that had been seconds from overruning his position.

A sudden downdraft made him turn around to see his space-yacht touching down in the muddy clearing. The ramp lowered and Elai stepped out.

“Get everyone on board, we don't have all day!” The Kiffar said as he waved to the Supercommandos.

“Koryn you grab Kial and Dyir, Ryia you get my brother. I'll get Dawk and the Jedi.” Tyran said as the three of them headed into the cover of the trees.

“What's going on?” Raven asked.

“We're getting out of here.” Tyran said as he stooped over and picked Dawk's body up in both of his arms.

The Barabel effortlessly tossed Kial over his shoulder and helped Dyir to his feet while Ryia draped one of Rixa's arms around his shoulder. They moved as a group into the Tal’galaar and in minutes they were off the ground. The majority of the group moved to the infirmary. It was hard to judge who got to use the bacta tank, after evaluating the wounds of all the injured it was decided that Rixa warranted the use more than the others. A fresh bacta bandage was wrapped around Dyir's face and Kial was strapped down to a stationary bed. Raven refused treatment until everyone else had been taken care of. She was sitting in a corner of the medical bay by herself apparently meditating.

Tyran decided to leave her be for the moment and went up to the cockpit to join Yunauli.

“Shab son you look like you've been put through the ringer.”

Tyran sunk down into the co-pilots seat with a tired laugh. “You should see the others.” He looked around at the tactical display as Yunauli brought the space-yacht up and away from the same heading as the rest of the Imperial Star Destroyers. “Not regrouping with the Imperials?”

“No today Tyran, the Yuuzhan Vong are chasing the four Star Destroyers out system in order to buy us a free pass out of here. We're going to regroup at Gyndine just as planned.”

Tyran nodded his head as the space battle disappeared behind them. The stars in the viewport stretched out and then blinked into waves of blues and purples as the Tal’galaar entered hyperspace. Tyran finally allowed himself a smile. He had done it.

He had beaten the odds. Just at a high cost.