STAR WARS: HERALD OF FURY

Teaser Chapter - Ben

No longer startled, the genetic mutant charged him in frustrated fury. Ben's eyes widened. It was fast and by the force, its outstretched claws were enormous. He reached out and with a force pull, knives dislodged from flesh and found flesh again, at the base of this third da phelu’s skull. Falling to its knees, it slumped into a puddle of water. It was over.

"That’s some fancy work, Jedi--ur, Commander," said Sergeant Chalmers, who must have observed this melee via drone feed. "Can’t say I’ve ever--"

"Shh." A rumbling. Ben listened carefully -- the noise wasn't ahead, but above? Likely from a neighboring tunnel.

Eventually, the sounds ceased. Ben broke the ice. "Your praises were nearly unfounded, Sergeant. I feared I hadn’t been fancy enough. Let’s advance alpha team. We can reconnect with the other tunnel up ahead, and get to our first drill spot."

Ronk, who typically ran point, nodded as he passed Ben. Have I earned that skeptical soldier's respect? Maybe he won't question the Jedi's purpose any moment soon.

Ben knew this was the way to affirm the Jedi's value to the galaxy: to be in the trenches with people. Less preaching, more doing. And not just with soldiers, but with teachers, farmers, factory workers, and even miners. Public works were needed more than covert ops.

In the middle of those thoughts, screeches were heard in the vast, cavernous corridor opening up ahead. Ben gritted his teeth. The mutants they'd heard rumbling earlier had found them. So much for caution.

"Get ready Alpha team," Chalmers warned. Obi-wan felt a slight tremor, and the cries of da phelu grew loud. Ahead his HUD identified fifteen, no eighteen, piling out into the cavern. They saw his soldiers, and hissed at Ronk and Aro.

"Ronk, Aro -- fall back," ordered Chalmers.

This many against just the five of them? If the da phelu rushed... Ben might be able to hold them off for a little, but from the sounds echoing in the chamber, even more were coming. They needed reinforcements.

Ben opened a channel. "Beta team, we need your backup. Immediately."

"What’s that, Commander?" came Sergeant Fett’s voice. "Oh hell. Party’s already started? Thanks for the belated invite, sir. We’re on our way."

"Find a target and fire on my mark," Sergeant Chalmers directed alpha team, "And then retreat to safety." This would be a desperate attack. Ben pulled out his lightsaber, and was about to ignite it when the oddest thing happened.

The horde of da phelu ran away.

The ground trembled again, and screams came from the adjoining tunnel they needed to pass through. A few more da phelu ran out. The last one only made it a few paces before something lashed out and wrapped around its leg. The creature screamed as it was wrenched back and disappeared out of Ben’s field of vision. A loud snap and crunch summarized its fate.

"I thought the da phelu were on the top of the food chain?" Specialist Aro asked aloud. Ben's thoughts exactly.

Of course, while the da phelu had made the mines their new stomping grounds, it wasn't unthinkable that even more dangerous predators might follow after them.

The beast was awesome to behold. Nail-like quills coated the back of a multi-faceted carapace, which overlay its massive frame. Despite its size, it was more sinewy and cut, than a mountain of muscles. Rodian mythology’s symbol of death, the ghest, lay before them. Ben wondered how something this large could get inside the mines. It couldn't have entered in through the path they traversed, but there were many tunnels. He brushed aside the thought to deal with the immediacy of the situation.  

"Alpha team - hold steady," urged Chalmers. With the force, Ben felt the soldiers' anxiety -- they hadn't prepared for this, few of them even knowing what this beast was and how they could possibly put it down.

In addition, the fireteams didn’t have the time, resources, or strength to expend to fight this beast. They needed their ammo to take out terrorists instead of using it to decorate Rodia’s most fearsome creature. He could demand a retreat, but they had to get through the ghest’s lair to reach the first drill point. There was no alternative. Perhaps he could persuade the creature to leave them alone?

With the force, Ben urged the ghest to go after the da phelu. They were an opposition the ghest knew it could defeat, a guaranteed source of food. The soldiers were just passing through, not a threat.

But the beast was proud.

Turning its gaze away from where scrambling da phelu feet echoed, the ghest made a quick estimation of alpha team. It made no roar, just a wide toothy smile which exposed several rows of teeth, and launched itself straight at Specialist Aro.

"Fire!" ordered Sergeant Chalmers.

Alpha team let off a volley of blaster bolts, making insignificant pocks on the creature’s carapace. As the creature closed on Aro, she let off a stun blast, which produced no visible effect on the creature. Rolling out of its way, she would have dodged it, when a massive tongue coiled around her waist, lifted her out of the air and swung her directly on to the carpet of spikes on its back. She screamed in pain. Chalmers got a blast off that damaged one of its legs, slightly distracting it.

Ben needed to end this quickly. Now that producing light and sound no longer mattered, he ignited his lightsaber, and charged the monster. The ghest dropped a bleeding Aro to turn its attention to Ben. 

The Jedi made a force-enhanced leap to quickly close the gap with the creature when he realized his mistake. He couldn’t change directions in mid-air to avoid the ghest’s tongue. Despite his best efforts to avoid it, the tongue wrapped around his right wrist. He tried to swing the plasma blade to cut at the creature, but the the tongue kept his wrist firmly in place.

The ghest opened its serrated mouth. In that moment, Ben remembered training from Master Yoda, to not rely too strongly on a man-made weapon. Stronger, the force is. Concentrating, Ben pummelled the beast's tongue with force pressure before it  could snap him into its massive mouth.

In fury, the ghest tossed him aside, and he slammed into a rough wall. The impact knocked the wind out of him and he dropped his lightsaber. Not good; have to keeping moving.

He arose just before the ghest's leg came crashing down on where he lay. Specialist Ronk had moved the wounded Aro out of the way, so Ben sprinted to cover behind an old stope, avoiding the ghest’s quills as it rolled at him. Then he juked out of the way of its tongue. Thankfully, he was more nimble on the ground.

Sergeant Chalmers threw him his K Shotty, which the force helped bring into Ben's hands. The ghest bashed the large stope, and it buckled under the blow. Parts of the ceiling came down, but Ben obeyed the force's nudgings, which led him safely out of harm's way.

In the temporary confusion he made a bold move, leaping forward and getting under the ghest. He took two blasts with the shotty at its more tender looking underbelly. The ghest screamed in pain. Ben scrambled up, hoping to clear away before the beast retaliated. His instincts told him he wasn’t going to make it.

A blaster bolt pierced the air a half meter above his head. The creature screamed again. Ben followed the bolt’s point of origin back to a soldier. Sergeant Fett. As he made it out of harm's way, he peered back to see that Fett had taken out one of the ghest's eyes. It was wounded, which meant he might end this quickly. He summoned the lightsaber back to his hands and turned it off.

Fett and the alpha and gamma team soldiers pelted the monster with blasters, and Obi-wan probed through the mental "space" -- although it wasn't anything like the physical -- with the force and located the primal instinct coursing through one emotional trail. It had to be the ghest's.

In Ben's experience, the most effective means of ending a battle was to convince one party to give up. So he enhanced the creatures sense of its own wounds, adding noises in the creature's mind to believe more soldiers were coming and more blasts were firing. That's right, mighty one -- this fight isn't worth it. Ben suggested a path of escape where the da phelu had fled before.

The bleeding creature scrambled away.

"Hold your fire," Ben ordered. "We're not out for blood."