An Endangered Species

[Nyloh Heat]

Nyloh sat back in his hammock, relaxing in silk weave pants as he looked out upon the shaded background before him. The expanse was wide, not a sign of civilization for kilometers. He had wanted his outpost like that, away from people. He'd been here for a few standard months and had finally adapted to the environment and life style a few weeks ago. In comparison to Onderon, Kashyyk had increased humidity, much less visibility due to the tree line, and the depths of the wild were nearly the same if not dangerous in their own way from Onderon's Wilds.

Leaving Onderon hadn't been too hard. The General couldn't keep track of his own right hand, much less a special ops scout like Heat. He'd taken military property and flown it right to the heart of the galaxy, selling it on the black market once he had made it to Coruscant. Onderon equipment wasn't the most advanced but the exotic flare that accompanied it had raised the price and lined Heat's pocket well enough.

He figured the Empire could've used his skills for something on Coruscant. The military was in dire need supposedly for man power after the recent events and the war with the Rebel Alliance, which the Empire seemed unable to stomach and simply referred to as the "terrorists". But shortly after arriving on planet and coming out in the open, he'd been caught by the Empire. Only it was the wrong part, the Inquisitoriate. These things called Seekers had appeared the moment he hit top side, using stalking techniques that he could only commend, having used several himself before.

Then she had shown up. Lady Dahmonwight. A rancor sewn into a dead female's body and equipped with a voice that sounded like music but cut at the soul like daggers. Nyloh wasn't much of a poet but after having a several hour conversation with her, this was as much as he could deduce. The proposition was hardly as much a deal as it was a death trap. Comply or die, two choices. Even then, complying meant only the same conclusion as the other, just on a longer span of time.

He lit a cigarette and inhaled as he thought about that day.

[Nyloh Heat]

=======

Nyloh walked into the open street, a bag around strapped about his shoulder, his loose fitting leathers warming under the artificial lighting of Coruscant's skies. The majority of his things had already been sent to the hotel he was staying at, including his powersuit and vibrosaber. The only weapon he carried was his Onderon issue blaster pistol. Not as accurate as the Blastech models most people on this planet were fond of showing off but the kick that came with his was only a sign of the extra power. Regardless, he hadn't been without his powersuit for more than a few hours at a time since... Well, it had been his second skin on Onderon, as he rarely left the field during the war against the revolutionary Mandalorians.

The Mandalorians were the end-all be-all warriors. The entire culture was wrapped about the science of warfare and nothing changed in the way they treated other cultures in such aspects. The problem was, they method of culture proved obsolete against some advancements in other militaries. It took a life time to produce a full fledged Mandalorian, it took weeks and months to make a soldier. The soldiers of Onderon would keep coming, wave after wave, as the Mandalorians were slowly picked off one by one. The war had been going on for quite some time, thousands and thousands of years, but Nyloh knew the eventual conclusion already.

That didn't mean much though as he still had immense respect for the Mandalorians. They had been his brothers in blood and shadows for too long in the Wilds of Onderon. They would come in the night while he slept, dual bladed vibro staffs and Mandalorian slug throwers in hand, attempting to kill him. Their cloaking technology and techniques were superior, unrestricted by rules of unethical engagement like Onderon was in many cases.

And so Nyloh would survive, barely, adapting to his environment, learning from the hunters until he too had become something near to their design. He was gone from the chain of command so long that he had begun to use what he could of the Mandalorian technology that he scavenged, aiming for cleaner kills to reserve more gear for his own purposes. The rules of engagement slowly disappeared from his own protocol as he fought the Mandalorian's on their grounds. That seemed like it was so long ago and in reality it was only that far away.

Coruscant, the metal jungle. Heat had what the military doctor's could only diagnose as a subtle level of paranoia from being in a consistent amount of danger while on the field. One couldn't tell, as long as you were in an environment where dangers such as cloaked Mandalorians and demonic beasts waited behind every tree. Nyloh wasn't sure if Coruscant was similar in this perspective, just different monsters. Someone or something bumped into him at one point and he turned around, his leg slicing through the air to contact with their side. They hurtled into another person and Nyloh stood over a young man who slowly held up Nyloh's carrying case.

"S-s-s-sorry suh..."

Nyloh snatched his item back from the pickpocket and began to wade through the crowd once more. He was headed by the Imperial Enlistment Center before making his way back to the hotel for the night. It shouldn't have been too far away, at least the signs said as much.

He stopped at a sign that said the IEC was only a few hundred meters away. Stopping not to read the sign but because of the figure in black that was staring directly at him. He had never seen a living Mandalorian's face beneath any of their helmets, but one knew when they were staring at you. Just like he knew this being was. His instincts kicked in, his awareness jumping a level, and he quickly noticed two others staring directly at him at different points down the street. Black helmets, designed to some extent like stormtroopers but more sinister looking, each with a ruby sphere at the top of their helmets as if they were cyclops. He knew it was some kind of receptor, his own powersuit equipped with similar equipment. They had black padded armor and black strips of cloth that draped down from it, concealing any weapons. On a more important note, the general crowd went out of their way to remove themselves from the black figure's immediate vicinity. Not good. On Onderon, the weaker, smaller monsters did the same when avoiding deadly predators.

Nyloh turned on his heel, slowly walking away, maintaining his situational awareness as much as he could. Maybe he wouldn't be enlisting today.

[Nyloh Heat]

Nyloh didn't want to weave himself into one of their traps. The city was unfamiliar territory and he was sure the enemy was more than aware of such factor. They would try to box him until his options were limited to their avenues. He could only try to defy such a tactic, but as it had been against the Mandalorians, it would most likely prove inevitable that he would face his hunters. And the circumstances were far too METTC dependent at this point.

He crossed the road and bumped into someone, looking behind to view the person and to only make eye contact with the black visor of another one of his hunters. There were too many. They had achieved a numerical advantage of at least five to one in a tactical situation. A real fight was removed from his available options. Not to mention his range of movement.

The black figure pushed him and Nyloh stumbled back, partly in shock due to the startling strength that the figure possessed. Nyloh collided with a parked speeder and he quickly made to rebound but a fist caught him in the stomach. It wasn't really a punch, more like a threat. It hadn't made any severe impact but to hold Heat down against the side of the speeder. The rear door of the enclosed speeder opened and she stepped out.

[Nyloh Heat]

Wearing blacker than black, form fitting leather with black robes woven between her limbs, she was easily recognized as the kind of predator Nyloh had evaded at all costs on Onderon. By the time you actually saw them, you were already dead. Her eyes were offset, one had some form of implant as the iris glowed a dim red. She had wires laced in her hair and some kind of mechanical spider built into her neck. A nightmare of some dark beauty, mixed with intimidating machinery, a manufactured predator. Her skin was marble white and her lips were black, not makeup black, but black like dead skin black. She wasn't with the living anymore, Nyloh could only guess.

"Good afternoon, Sgt Heat. Welcome to Coruscant, would you like to go for a ride?"

"No, not rea-"

He was cut short as one of the other black figures grabbed Nyloh by the collar of his coat and easily hurled him inside the speeder.

"Hey!"

She gracefully slid into the seat beside Heat and rested a hand on his leg. She looked like the wind could blow her down but in the barest touch he could feel an unnerving amount of latent strength.

"Do not resist or we will silence you."

Nyloh kept himself motionless as the other figures filed into the speeder, blocking him in to a claustrophobic death trap.

"My name is Lady Dahmonwight, and the Empire has a job for you, serving a much higher purpose than any enlistment would ever do."

[Nyloh Heat]

=======

So they gave him a mission, a good one, an easy one, and it was out of the way as far as politics were concerned. As much as Nyloh knew at least. He took another drag as he looked out at the blank expanse of wilderness. Her exact words, hard to forget with that red eye staring you down in the darkness,

"We are having an issue with possible... force adept influences on Kashyyk. We want you to investigate and if there is indeed a presence of force adepts on that planet, investigate. Please, be sure to call us first, we wouldn't want you disappearing, you know those force adepts, corrupt in the soul and what not. We'll send you a little back up to make sure you're secure in your huntings. We aren't expecting much really but anything you can discover as far as these rumors are concerned would be appreciated. You might be there for a while, so we're going to go ahead and pay you as if you were retired..."

Nyloh later discovered that just meant they were going to rip him off on pay,

"... and you'll be snug as a bug in that overgrown green house won't you? You can even consider it your vacation."

And with a few other small details, he'd been let loose and then shipped to Kashyyk. It altogether wasn't that bad of a deal really. He'd checked into a few of the ports and so far come up with nil. The wookies had respect for the jedi of old; seeing how some wookies were old as mummified dren, they would know. That was about it though. Nothing really active or moving about swinging a lightsaber in people's faces.

So he'd taken it as she said, a vacation. His new "home" was out of the way and he'd gone down to the misty ground level a few times to hunt any game that might be there. He'd evacuated a few times when he had picked up the scent of something hunting him but otherwise they had been rather enjoyable. Fortunately his powersuit treated this environment much like the Wilds of Onderon and its moon so it wasn't too harsh of a change for the stealth gear.

Regardless of Nyloh's dislike for population, he had settled in rather well with the local population. The ports were modern and yet archaic at the same time, wood planks and fences with electronic doors built into hovels within the massive trees. The Wookies understood him for what he was, a hunter, but the Wookie population didn't address the rest of the population as much. From what Nyloh could tell, they had some deep rooted rituals within their society that otherworlders really weren't to be concerned with. Heat wasn't sure if any actually lived on the ground level but he had run across Wookie tracks, singular and group, several times by now.

But it was enough with relaxing as an alarm went off. His chronometer... telling him it was about that time again. He stood and stretched, flicking his cigarette into the deep misty abyss below. He was heading to one of the larger ports today to investigate. He figured if he did it right, in about three years he might have investigated all of them. Cool.

[Nyloh Heat]

The speeder was a piece of junk, some scrap heap he'd gotten off a "collector" who had plenty more from where this junk bucket came from. He took the straight line that the console indicated towards his destination. The straight line of course meandered, branches usually did that. He swerved about, dodged, and nearly collided with branches even bigger than the speeder but nonetheless maintained a consistent course.

After a few hours, he pulled into a small garage for visitors and parked the junk bucket, a really fitting name. He had donned his powersuit, always cautious just in case something bad came up, like getting stranded, but he was effectively covered in comfortable, full length robes. His helmet was in the satchel he had slung over his shoulder. Heat took to a populated walkway, ears open as he made his way to a glowing sign, apparently a cantina housed beneath.

After bumping into a grumpy pair of Duros, Heat made his way inside and to the bar. He only got a water as he took a seat and glanced around. He had heard only murmurs so far in his way here, murmurs of the dead Emperor, the conditions of the Imp vs Reb war and so on. Jedi were hard to come by nowadays but he had even heard a bit of this or that concerning jedi in the last ten minutes. People talked too loudly he decided. And the flyer on the wall in support of the Old Republic might've said something as well. These people were lucky the real thing had just stolen a majority of their population for slaves in the glitterstim mines.

Heat's head snapped to the left. Someone said it. That small guy. He said jedi. Heat pushed off the bar and casually approached the booth.

=======

"How many are you sending again?!"

Lady Dahmonwight's voice came back crisp and clear. For a cyborg, she sounded like a well paid prostitute on the other end of the comm receiver.

"Five seekers. That should be enough to confirm the presence of any force adepts."

"Great, and how long is this gonna take, m'Lady?"

"Was that sarcasm, Mr. Heat? I didn't think you were that smart. They'll be there in a few days. Be expecting them, I would hate for them to have to come find you instead."

"Right, will do."

"Of course you will. Tata for now."

He was glad she was lightyears away. Heat concluded that the Inquisitoriate was death incarnate, the forces of Onderon stood no chance against a machine of that nature.