Terror In the Trees

[Kodo Jast]

::Kashyyyk::

Kodo Jast crossed the long wooden bridge that spanned two of the mighty wroshyr trees high in the canopy of the coastal settlement of Kachiro.

He had landed his freighter, the Doom Saloon, on one of the platforms adjacent to the lagoon-side docks, one of the few groundside spots that were safe from the deadly fauna that lived and hunted on the surface of the planet. He hadn't a particular mission; his master had instructed him to simply go on a bit of a walkabout to a planet lush with nature, wherever his instinct told him to fly to, and so he'd come here. He'd always been fascinated by the planet. A species as large and fierce as the Wookiee who had to build and live high in the trees to avoid creatures even more dangerous than they were, who respected the place where they'd always lived and thrived, even in the face of slavery and war.

Kodo took a deep breath of the fresh Kashyyyk air, absently checking the curved hit of his lightsaber as he did so.

That was when the dock behind him exploded.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine was annoyed. She had come to Kashyyk with a bunch of other Knights Obsidian because they had a mission to perform. As part of this or other initiation ceremony, their mission had been to bring back the leg of a Wyyyschokk. To make things harder, she had not been permitted to shift into her wolf form while hunting! It was a stupid challenge as stupid came, but what made it all worse was that she, along with the three teammates she had been sent with, had all failed. Hours upon hours of wandering the lower levels of these jungles, and they had found nothing that even resembled a big spider.

And then! She’d pulled the short straw and had been left behind in this Kachiro village or whatever it was, with the task to find food for all of them. Her hands had been full of warm fast food meals that she could not understand why anyone would ever wish to digest, but she had done it… And it had taken the Lupine over an hour, as she did not actually know most food places at all. Her home planet had not included all these big chain restaurants and it she had to run from one to one and then read, which took a lot of time, until she found what she hoped would be suitable; hamburgers and fries.

She was making her way back to the dock when it happened. Everything exploded.

Alwine stood frozen, the petite woman staring in shock as she saw parts of the ship she had arrived on bursting into pieces along with the death of her KO peers. As previously when faced with unexpected death, this drew no emotion from the young Lupine. She did not feel sorry for their loss, did not feel any pain at the knowledge that she would never see them again. And worse than before, this unsettled her beyond words.

Tossing the food into the nearest bin, Alwine continued to just stare at the wreckage. The comm device she had been using was an internal one, to keep in touch with those who had been on the mission and on the ship. It couldn’t reach outside the planet.

And here she was, a small inexperienced Lupine, without a way to reach home. She was going to have to find a solution, soon.


[member="Kodo Jast"]

 

[Kodo Jast]

"Bother me, I just got here," sighed Kodo.

Turning, he looked down to see great gouts of oily black smoke pouring into the sky, chasing flames that rose from burning hulks of wrecked ships. Moving quickly back along the bridge, he watched as a jungle wind blew momentarily from west to east, clearing his view of the landing bays, and there, miraculously untouched by the sudden violence, stood his Doom Saloon, intact and unharmed apart from some new scratches and scorches. Somehow the ship next to his has absorbed the bulk of the force, leaving his freighter little the worse.

Kodo nodded. "Just lucky I guess," he murmured, then quickly began surveying the area. Shouts and growls in Shriiwook, the native language of the Wookiees, filled the air, along with the more commonly spoken Galactic Basic, calling for medical aid or fire suppression units.

Kodo tuned his senses to the Force, scanning the crowd, analyzing the chaos, looking for anything that might be a clue, even this soon after the explosion.

There...

A Human and a very large droid, the latter painted like it was clad in Mandalorian battle armor, complete with jet pack. The man was passing something to the droid and pointing into the trees. As the droid turned, the man nodded and calmly began walking away from the scene, towards a reptavian varactyl that had been conveniently tied up outside the blast zone.

The huge droid triggered its jet pack and took to the air.

"Oh, why not?" asked Kodo aloud, and vaulted his small frame over the side of the wooden walkway.

Plummeting nearly twenty feet, Kodo landed squarely on the droid's back as it passed beneath him. The droid was easily twelve feet tall, and seemed to Kodo to have been based on a B2 super battle droid.

"I have a few questions for you," shouted the Jedi apprentice as the droid shuddered violently at the man landing on his back.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the man with the varactyl had just opened fire with his blaster, scattering all who stood before him as he kicked the beast into motion towards the jungle.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

People were being loud. Wookies were being louder. Why did everyone have to be so damned loud?! Alwine winced, using much of her self-control to keep herself from covering her ears with her hands. Lupines were much more sensitive to noise than most other species, and something loud enough could outright disable them on the field of battle. But for now… It was still manageable, even if miserably so.

Alwine walked over the rails and leaned against them, realizing that it would probably be smarter to distance herself from the scene, get away from the noise. She had to think, had to gather every bit of information she had to figure out how to contact any of her brothers so they could get her out of here. Alternatively, contacting the KO would work as well. But… She had no credits left on her, did not know any contact information by heart. It was going to be a headache. She was probably going to have to find the Silver HQ on the planet and ask them to do it for her.

Glancing at what was happening between the rails, Alwine saw a… Was that a child jumping on the back of the droid? No, that person did not move like a child. A shorter species of sorts, then.

She would have been content to continue watching, hearing what the little one shouted at the droid with ease, but the sound of a blaster (Alwine totally would pat herself on the shoulder later for recognizing the proper weapon by sound) was sounded. She looked at the man who was shooting it and blinked, wondering if anyone was ever actually accurate with those things.

Sword out, her speed propelled by the Force, she closed the distance between them within seconds.

“Bad human,” she said, the corners of her lips curling into a wicked smile as the sword moved before he had the chance to draw a single breath, and his hand was removed.


[member="Kodo Jast"]

 

[Kodo Jast]

With a deft movement, Kodo hopped to his feet, and was now standing on the back of the flying droid as it hurtled through the air between trees some eighteen feet above ground.

"Wheeeeeeeeee!" shouted the man, his face breaking into a massive smile. Catching himself, he look down at the droid, who had swivelled its head 180 degrees to look at the apprentice. "Oh, sorry there. Perhaps 'whee' isn't appropriate at the moment."

"Death to Kashyyyk!" cried the droid in a frightening, metallic voice. It turned its head back around and angled its body, sending it rising into the trees in an effort to shake the small man off its back.

"Nonsense," said Kodo, shifting his weight while grabbing his lightsaber. "I'm not Kashyyyk, I'm Bimm!"

Calling upon the power of the Force, Kodo pushed hard off of the huge droid's back, grabbing a hanging vine with one hand. The Force energy shoved at the metal being, knocking it off-balance and causing it to lurch. The sudden change of trajectory sent it hurtling into an enormous wroshyr tree. Kodo, meanwhile, used his momentum to swing in a complete circle around a long, thick tree branch that the vine had been dangling from, with such momentum that as he completed his arc, he'd come back to the droid, which was now falling. Igniting his lightsaber, he sent its brilliant yellow blade into the sternum of the droid, who looked very surprised for non-living matter.

Kodo watched as the now-immobile droid fell the rest of the way to the forest floor, its rocket pack's thrusters ruined from the lightsaber blade that had pushed through its circuitry. The diminutive man reattached his lightsaber blade to his belt and lowered himself to the end of the vine, dropping the rest of the way and using the Force to cushion his impact as he landed.

"Death to Kashyyyk, eh?" he asked aloud. "Isn't that curious? I wonder where your friend might be?"

Stooping over, Kodo opened the storage port in the front of the droid. There, in a padded case, was a vial of liquid of a sickly, glowing green color. "Well that doesn't look good," muttered the apprentice.

Convinced that the droid was well and truly deactivated, Kodo turned and began running back to the docks. There was a mystery afoot here.

Kodo smiled.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Humans were sometimes strange creatures. Alwine knew this firsthand; whilst in her human form, she had been beaten and tortured for months back on Stewjon. Burning, drowning, bone breaking, coals under the fingernails. She had undergone all of it, but her body had not broken, and her mind had been untouched as well. She still did not know how she had accomplished this feat; Lupines were not meant to survive more than a handful of days without shifting, and she had kept the wolf back during that entire time without going insane. But when she was in wolf form? A broken leg was enough to threaten her life. Wolves, while stronger, were much more fragile than humans, and these differences were something she felt harshly.

And then this human here… She had removed his hand, but he did not go down. He screamed a little bit before grabbing a weapon with his other hand. Alwine realized almost too late that she had not gotten rid of his dominant hand, and it had nearly cost her a bleeding smile upon her throat. The lithe woman jumped backwards, calling all that she had learned during the precious time she had spent with Caid Centurion as her trainer forth. Slow breathes, allowing the Force to whisper to her, not into her mind, but directly to her instincts, warning her of incoming attacks, suggesting where her blows should land.

And despite it all, she was not good enough of a match to this stranger. It took him a full minute, but Alwine found herself disarmed, her sword flying over the railway. Caid would have been furious with her for permitting such a thing to happen. Alwine jumped back, narrowly avoiding the pointy part of the man’s blade, trying to understand why he was still moving fast if his hand had not been cauterized to stop the bleeding. Was he perhaps not human at all? And if he was not, could she figure out what he was? If it was something she recognized, perhaps she would be able to come up with weaknesses to exploit? But no, these thoughts should have occurred to her before this fight started, not now when she was mostly trying to avoid being slaughtered.

Alwine pivoted out of the way again, smacking front first into one of the tree that the entire area had been built around. She groaned, a low snarl escaping her throat, sounding like nothing that should ever come out of a human throat, and ducked again. This time, her enemy managed to cut a few of her hairs off mid-motion. It was a good thing she did not care about such things as hair.

But there was something she had not taken into consideration. This was indeed Kashyyk. Everywhere around her were… Plants.

Alwine’s hands pressed against the tree bark as she called up every morsel of power and strength that she had within her. The vines of the gigantic tree whose name she could not recall just there and then answered her call, speeding forth in blinding speed. One of them wrapped around the wrist of the maybe-human, the other snaking around him until he was well cocooned inside. There. Now there was no chance of him escaping.

The Lupine looked at the tree, trying to estimate how much time she had before the vines she’d controlled would dry up and crumble. The trees provided more life and nutrients than anything she’d come across before. If she was lucky, it would be hours. If she was not… Minutes, perhaps.

Breathing hard, Alwine scrambled back up to her feet, unaware of the people around her who might have witnessed what she had done. A small blade slid into her hand as she closed the distance between them, hair clinging with sweat to her neck. She was going to find out exactly what this was about.

[member="Kodo Jast"]

 

[Kodo Jast]

Jast's short legs ached from the effort of running through the jungle, his Force-enhanced sense of smell working hard to pick up anything that could be perceived as a predator. As the trees thinned and he could once again see black smoke from the docks, he slowed to a jog, and then to a stop as he spotted a sword buried point-first in the ground. He looked around before pulling it out with his free right hand, letting the blade rest on the ground as it had clearly been made for someone of greater stature. Above him he could hear consternation.

Shifting the weight of the sword, Kodo took a deep breath. Calling on the Force once more he lept high into the air, landing once again on the bridge that he'd previously trod. There, he was rather surprised to find the second of his two suspects, bound securely to the tree by vines. He smiled.

"Well, hello!" he said to the crowd-at-large. "Is whoever did this still here? I'd like to ask them a few questions and compliment them on their work. Also," he held the sword up by its hilt, point down, "does this belong to anyone?"

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine’s hand was in the air, her fingers squeezing around air. The man in the vines gurgled, trying to wiggle himself free, but she would not relent until he was a few lack of breaths away from suffocating. She closed the distance between them, the little dagger in her hands now, and without any ceremony, slashed across his face twice. An inhuman growl boiled from her throat as she readied herself to begin probing into his mind and forcing an answer from it.

“Who-” But there was no time to finish her first question. If it had not been for her meta-hearing, she would never had registered the questions that someone was asking. The voice also came from nearby. Apparently she had been too focused on her new prisoner to even hear him approach.

Turning around, her eyes automatically went up, the five foot woman used to being the shortest one in the room. But when there was no one staring down at her, she blinked, realizing there was someone slightly shorter than her standing there now. A moment longer and she realized it was the person she had thought was a child on the back of the droid. No children grew beards like that.

“The sword is mine,” she said unceremoniously as she held her hand out to take it back, “and I vined him up. He was trying to shoot you. You will be delighted to know that he has a horrible aim and I sincerely doubt he has ever fathered children.”

[member="Kodo Jast"]

 

[Kodo Jast]

Kodo took the sword and laid it across his right arm, hilt up, presenting it formally back to the young woman with a grin. "Is that so?" he asked, his face full of mirth.

"Is that so, sir?" he asked the bound man. "Your aim is so bad you've never fathered children?" The man struggled angrily, his face bleeding from the pair of cuts Alwine had given him, his face still red from choking. "Just," Kodo waived his hand about, "splashed it about thither and yon, like an ill-kept hose?"

Some of the people in the crowd, some who spoke Basic anyway, chuckled.

"I'll tell you nothing, shrimp," growled the man.

Kodo nodded, wrinkling his nose in distaste and closing the distance. "Tell me nothing about what, my fine fellow? About this?" He held up the glowing green vial. Instantly the man's eyes widened and he flinched, trying to pull his head back. "What's in this, do you suppose?"

"N-n-no idea. Nothing," said the man. Blood dripped down his collar.

"No idea. Nothing. Well." Kodo flipped the vial into the air, end over end.

"NOOOOO!" screamed the man in a panic.

Kodo caught the vial deftly.

"Your droid partner is down there somewhere. He's no longer of any use to anyone, except maybe salvage, or if someone needs spare parts. Do you know what he said to me?"

The man shook his head slightly. Kodo looked to Alwine, then eyed the crowd. "He said 'Death to Kashyyyk.' Now what do you suppose he meant by that?"

"I don't know!" said the man angrily.

"You don't? You gave him this vial. I saw you! Do you also deny blowing up the docks just now?"

"I ain't telling you--"

"--Anything. Yes, you've made that clear. Well." The apprentice shook his head, then looked out over the crowd. "Can someone please find a Wookiee, preferably a tall, very strong Wookiee who's quite angry about what just happened? Thank you! In the meantime, I think my new friend here can probably take up the questioning. Sorry, I didn't catch your name. I'm Kodo Jast, Jedi Apprentice."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

Alwine nodded and took her sword back, strapping it into its scabbard without feeling a particular need to add any words at the moment. The crowd was responding with laughter to the man's taunting of the captive, but the Lupine did not count herself among them. It was hard for strangers to make her laugh, but this performance was not for her anyway.

Her eyes narrowed as the man produced the vial with the green liquid in it. What was that? Inside its glass container, there was no scent that she could pick up, nothing to identify it with. Her knowledge of chemistry was also practically nonexistent. For all she knew this could be witches' brew in a can.

The dialogue resumed, and Alwine followed it with sharp ears. Death to Kashyyk? Kashyyk belonged to the Silvers, she knew. If someone was planning terrorist crimes against them, it was her duty to report it, as the Silvers and the Confederacy were allies to the fullest sense of the word.

She blinked as the man turned to her, the last of his words registering in her mind now. Kodo Jast, Jedi Apprentice. Alwine nodded to him. "Alwine Lechner, Executor of the Knights Obsidian of the Confederacy," she introduced herself, "but we do not need a big Wookie. Or any Wookie."

Smiling, she closed the distance between her and the vined enemy.

"I admit that I am not very good at… Questioning," she said as she removed her knife from her belt, "but I know how to make a man suffer to the death without permitting him to reach the death part of his journey."

With that, Alwine allowed a growl to escape her throat. It was a threatening one, that no human vocal chords could ever produce. The wolf inside her demanded to be let out, but she kept it down, unwilling to shift into it in front of such a big crowd. But she also didn't need it. The predator crawled beneath her skin, giving off a different air than had been around her a moment earlier. To the eyes, she seemed like the same five foot woman who appeared small enough to not be able to cause harm. But with the wolf so close, there would only be a few who would not feel a sense of dread. She looked human. But she was most definitely not.

"Talk," she growled at him, gently sending an invisible talon forward through the Force, lettings its nails glide along the captive's mind.


[member="Kodo Jast"]