Drommund Kaas

The Hunt was over, and she was Champion.

Bel'anna Tor had worked for months to earn the title, and finally had the privilege to meet Mandalore himself. Of all the things he wanted her to do to prove herself, killing some dumb beast hadn't been what she'd expected. But if he thought this faceless creature was worthy of her skill, she'd kill it.

She'd been on Drommund Kaas during the Hunt and wasn't eager to return. She'd been on worse planets, but the relentless rain got into the joints of her armor. Even heated plating didn't keep her dry all the time.

Mandalore had given her the coordinates to the Mandalorian camp, so as soon as she left the spaceport she was on her speeder to the muddy patch. For a bunch of fierce warriors, it didn't look like much. A couple tents, some supply crates, and a fire. The men—for it was mostly men—were in full armor, but they looked like they'd been avoiding action instead of heading into it.

She dismounted her speeder next to the fire. A grim-looking man came right up to her. "This is a camp for warriors, not hikers. You aren't welcome here."

"That's funny," Bel'anna said, cocking her hip and planting her hand on it. "Mandalore seems to think differently."

The man scoffed. "And you are?"

"She's more warrior than you, Jogo," a second man interjected.

"You're one to judge!" the man spat. "Arue'tal." Bel'anna didn't need to speak Mando'a to know that the word was an insult. Mandalorians treat each other with utmost respect unless someone is a coward. This man looked anything but cowardly. His dirty blonde hair was shaggy and hung into his blue eyes, but it was hard to focus on the rest of his face when the matching scars on each cheek were so pronounced. Each scar looked like an sky-facing crescent with two downward strikes through it, and Bel'anna immediately wondered what the story was behind them.

The broad-shouldered man stepped up to Jogo. "Huntmaster declared her Grand Champion."

Jogo crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Bel'anna. "That true?"

"Do you need a demonstration?" She yanked her blasters out of her belt without a breath, aiming them at the ground but prepared to change their target.

Jogo didn't flinch. "Winning the Great Hunt doesn't make you one of us. Finish up whatever brought you here, and go."

"Never mind him," the second man said, giving the first a glare as he stepped into the light. "It's an honor."

"Nice to meet you too," Bel'anna said. Although she wasn't in the mood for formalities, she was always on the lookout for allies-and a Mandalorian could be her greatest ally yet. She holstered the pistols. "Got a name?"

"Torian Cadera." His eyes ran over her equipment. She was fully armored in durasteel from shoulder to toe, only having her helmet off so the Mandalorians wouldn't shoot her on sight. She was equipped with a jet-pack, flame thrower, dual pistols, dart- and rocket-launchers...the tools of her trade. Torian took it in and said, "Taking the head of one of our beasts?"

"That's right. Supposedly I'll know what head it is when its lying at my feet."

"I get it," Torian said, crossing his arms. "The sire of the brood. No one's seen it, but it's there. Its very heartbeat is in the walls."

"Better warriors than you have tried," Jogo interjected. "They never returned."

Bel'anna growled, "It sounds like you're looking for sympathy, but I'm here to get the job done."

"If the sire is here, it would be that way," Torian pointed to a gaping maw in the side of the rock face. "Even its offspring take a full arsenal to down. Weakness in the back of the skull, if you can get to it. Good hunting."

Bel'anna didn't need to check her equipment again; she was ready. Her long white hair was already tied back in a relentless ponytail, so she shoved her helmet over her head. Blue readings appeared in her peripheral vision, marking organisms that could be threats. Torian's face was lost behind a target marker. She turned and marched straight into the cave, the flashlight installed in her wrist armor active.

She killed three of the creature's "spawn" along the way. They were hideous, as tall as her but covered in craggy grey skin with bioluminescent tissue underneath. A few blaster shots through the eyes, a couple rockets, and they went down.

The tunnel opened up into a huge space. It glowed with the dim light of glowing mushrooms. Their blue light glinted off dripping walls. Bel'anna immediately noticed the pile of bones ahead of her.

Then the ground shook.

The beast thundered in from across the cave. It was thirty feet tall, and almost as wide. It galloped in on all fours, hunched over on hulking gray arms. Through his craggy skin, streams of lava glowed. His burning eyes were framed by massive horns, tusks, and a mouth overflowing with jagged teeth.

Bel'anna didn't hesitate. She launched an explosive dart directly into its throat. It rushed for her with a deafening roar. Bel'anna leapt off the ground and activated her jet pack at the same time, leaping over the beast's head as it charged under her. She turned and fired rocket after rocket at the base of its skull, pummeling the same point relentlessly. It buckled forward under the blows, howling in rage, but turned to face her. She blasted its face with her flame-thrower.

The explosive dart finally blew, breaking a huge chunk out of the beast's neck. It crumpled forward, no longer able to scream. Bel'anna smashed her durasteel boots into the back of its head, where she'd been shooting it, and her feet sank in as she pushed the beast to the cave floor. She punched her armored hand into its skull and beamed a laser directly into its brain.

The beast collapsed.

Bel'anna finally exhaled as she pushed herself up, taking considerable effort to extract her boots from the gore of the beast's scattered brains. This looks like a cleaning job for Gault. Although the Devaronian con man had turned out to be a considerable help on several of her missions, he was also a pain the butt.

When she landed on the floor, she examined the body. That was a massive skull—even all those rockets could have only knocked it out. Just to be sure, she directed her laser cutter at its throat and neatly sliced through its neck. The head tipped forward.

Bel'anna unhooked her comm from her belt and called Mako. The girl's image appeared over the device.

"What's up?" the cheery cyborg asked.

"I got a beast head for you to pick up."

"Oh…great," she said enthusiastically. "Can I send Gault?"

Bel'anna chuckled. "Sure, just get it on the ship within the hour."

"You got it."

Bel'anna didn't want Mako (or even Gault) to have to fight back into the cave, should it come to that, so she hooked onto the head with her grappling hook and used her jet pack to drag it out of the cave and back to the edge of the Mandalorian camp.

As she unhooked the head and strode toward the fire, Torian called, "She's back!" She approached the fire to wait for Gault. "How'd it go?" Torian asked.

"See for yourself." She gestured over her shoulder, and Torian's eyes widened at the sight of the five-foot wide head.

"Impressive."

The man from before—Jogo—shook his head. "How did you kill it when so many of my clan have failed?"

"If they were anything like you," Bel'anna said, biting back the acid in her breath, "They were too hungry for the kill to think about what they were getting into. Bounty hunting is as much about fighting smart as it is about fighting hard."

Jogo ground his teeth and looked away. "There must be something to what you say, if you killed it and they died." He looked up, then suddenly stood straight as a spire. "I salute your victory."

Bel'anna held up a hand. "Whoa there, no need to go overboard—" Bel'anna started, but next thing she knew, Torian had shouted, "Hail to the victor!" and the whole clan was whooping and shaking their fists.