Kashyyyk

"Tunnels? Underneath the roots, you say?"

"Yes, Hett, there is a giant tunnel complex beneath the trees and they are inhabited! The things that are living inside of them aren't friendly either, so unless we do something now then we're going to be fighting a two front battle when the Swarm hits!"

"Anakin, calm down. We're not thinking you're a liar or anything, it's just that we need to approach this in a calm and orderly fashion."

Fuming, Anakin sat down at the table with the other leaders of the defense. Opposite of him was Hett, and between them sat the military leaders who had come along with the refugees. Tarfful was present as well, rather understandably since this was his city, after all. As he shifted into a more comfortable position, Hett began talking again.

"Obviously we have to deal with this threat now, but how? From what you said, Anakin, these tunnels are massive. Just getting a force that could reliably sweep through them would be a feat in and of itself, and we're not going to be able to exactly cover it up. Anakin, did you find any more entrances other than the one in the alley?"

He shook his head. "No, I walked in a pretty straight line and that place was huge. I probably didn't even see a tenth of the place, but I would be pretty surprised if there was only that one entrance." The others looked at him quizzically, and he hurried to explain. "I mean, a city doesn't only have one entrance, right? If you want to be able to get in and out quickly, it would make sense to have multiple entrances."

One of the captains, a…Anakin didn't know what he was, but he had four completely black eyes, a bony crest on his head, and appeared to have four thin arms. He drummed his long fingers on the table, tilting his head as he thought. "Makes sense, especially for a sabotage unit like this one probably is. You don't want to have only one exit to your hide, it gets discovered then your operation is finished. Lots of exit points means you can bomb and break things all over the place quickly, and go right back to ground."

Tarfful growled, and the human sitting beside him began to translate for those who couldn't understand Wookie speech. "He says that multiple entrances would be a security risk as well," at this point he paused to listen to Tarfful before speaking again. "But that the other entrances will be quite well hidden if they're there, since the Wookies haven't found anything out of the ordinary." Tarfful nodded his head, before roaring and grunting once more. "He says that it doesn't matter too much; we've already found an entrance and we need to first scout it, to check what's inside before we send in a force."

The others at the table nodded at this, murmuring their assent at the Wookie chieftain's suggestion. Tarfful leaned back in his seat, smiling, and then Hett stood up.

"We will deal with the problem of a possible panic if the problem arises. Commanders Xanth and M'cord, you'll be able to keep the people calm while we prepare a team?"

The same spindly alien nodded, as well as a, to Anakin's eyes, morbidly obese man with a rather strong tinge of red in his skin. It was fascinating how the multiple flabs of fat on his chin seemed to jiggle, along with the rest of his body as he nodded. He abruptly stood up, and opened his mouth to speak as well as revealing a mouthful of pointed teeth. "Xanth and I won't fail you, Jedi. You can count on us!" Laughing, he jogged out of the room, the floor shaking with each step he took. Xanth followed as well, seemingly gliding across the wood with the way his robe covered up his body.

Ignoring the fat man, Hett continued. "Continuing, Anakin and I will investigate-"

At this announcement Tarfful roared, causing the other Commanders to jolt upright in their seats. The translator began to do his job. "He says that he will go as well, that this is his city and home and that he'll…um, alright, well, he demands to be a part of any expedition down there is the gist of it. The other things he's saying aren't exactly fit for polite conversation." Slightly perturbed by Tarfful's vehemence the translator nervously shifted in his feet. He didn't even know that one could do that to a trandoshan with the victim surviving.

Hett paused, before nodding. "Alright then, Tarfful. You, Anakin, and I will investigate the tunnels below. We'll leave keeping the peace and order to Xanth and M'cord, and the rest of you will gather up a task force to sweep the tunnels in an in-depth manner. All agreed?" As they nodded, Anakin's right hand turned into a fist. He'd have to work with that Tusken again. The logical part of his mind told him that there was no reason to hate Hett. His fellow Jedi have been nothing but polite towards him, and it wasn't as if he had had any responsibility or involvement for his mother's death. However, the emotional side of him screamed at him to strike down Hett, to slay the Tusken scum before he turned back to the savage ways of his people and got innocents killed.

He angrily shook his head as he walked out of the room, trailing behind at the back of the group. Get a hold of yourself. Now is not a time to attack people over grudges. Hett is an honorable, trustworthy Jedi, and he had no relation to the Tusken's who killed her. Get your head in the game already, you're going back down there soon and if you keep this up you could get someone killed!

He clenched his fist. He would prove their doubts about him wrong, and he would not give in to his illogical hatred. Not now, not ever.

Tarfful whined as the stench of the trash heap hit his nostrils. It was bad for a human, but for a sensitive wookie nose it was simply awful. Bearable, yes, but if he didn't get away from that stench soon he was going to throw up. Anakin smiled apologetically, sympathetic to the chieftain's plight.

"Don't worry, Tarfful, the smell doesn't go far into the tunnels."

Hearing this, and seeing the mound of trash in front of him, Tarfful grunted again, before running straight at the mound. Right before he slammed into it, he jumped; his powerful legs allowing him to crest the pile without actually touching it. He smiled in triumph as cleaning the stench away from him with his fur would be a monumental task, and as he fumbled on his belt for the miner's helmet that they had acquired for this mission Hett and Anakin dropped down beside him…along with a small shower of trash from where Hett's feet had accidentally clipped the top of the mound. Evidently his force-assisted jump had not been up to snuff. Anakin grinned as Tarfful glared at Hett, who was in the process of apologizing. While he had managed to get his emotions under control (for the most part) it was still amusing to watch the Tusken Jedi apologize to the Wookie chieftain for showering him in rotting trash. It also helped that the ridge Anakin had cleared was higher than Hett's, showing the difference in strength if not skill, which was if nothing else a nice boost to his ego.

He was still smiling as he turned on the light on his helmet, illuminating the area around them in a soft glow and sending a cone of far more intense light right into the wall. As Tarfful checked to ensure that his bowcaster was properly working and loaded, Hett and Anakin got their lightsabers ready. There were hostiles down in these tunnels, and even a half-second to draw and turn on their weapons could get them killed.

"Anakin, Tarfful, are you prepared?" Hett had turned on his helmet as well, Tarfful too, and both of them had their weapons readied. Tarfful bellowed and beat his chest in response, and Anakin simply nodded.

They glanced at each other, then as one stepped forward into the darkness.

"This is stupid."

"I know, stop complaining."

"Why should I? The whole thought behind this is retarded."

"It's annoying."

"So? This job is annoying. It's a waste of time! We already have a-"

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to shove your head so far up your ass you're going to taste your breakfast again." The human grumbled but mercifully stopped griping.

To be fair, Duura agreed with him about this assignment. They already had an entrance to the tunnels; why look for more? Hell, if it bothered them so bad, then pump the tunnels full of gas then light em up. Look for where fire jets appeared, and bam: You've cleared the tunnels, and found all the entrances. Quick, easy, and painless for all involved who weren't in them when they flicked the switch. Why was he so unconcerned towards the fact that the tunnels were heavily exposed to wood and partly made of wood, and that the great trees would thus almost certainly suffer severe damage from his proposed plan? Simple. He was a trandoshan.

Duura had been one of the bodyguards of a particularly wealthy refugee in the mass exodus away from what was now called the 'Swarm'. While said refugee was now dead due to his suit rupturing and thus suffocating in the non-methane based atmosphere of Kashyyyk, Duura himself was still alive due to the fact that no one really wanted to bother with race rivalries at this stage. He had killed wookies before, yes, but not on Kashyyyk and only when they got in the way of his job (although he had taken a bit more pleasure than he needed to during the acts), and given that they would almost certainly need every able bodied warrior soon none of the natives could be bothered to pick a proper fight with him.

Granted, that didn't mean life here was easy either. More than once he had reached his own little tent to find that something had knocked over his possessions, and generally made a mess of the place. The portions he received at the meal times were smaller than those of his compatriots, at least when he received it from the locals, and a myriad other nuisances that, while not overtly hostile, made it clear that they didn't want him here.

He grunted, shifting his shotgun so that it rested in an upright position on his shoulder, the butt in his hand. I can't wait to get out of this dump. Damn wookie primitives; don't even have a proper waste disposal-

The next moment both the shotgun and his companions blaster rifle were held at the ready, prepared to fire at any time when they heard a noise come from one of that various trash heaps surrounding them. The sound of flies was omnipresent; however flies did not make hissing noises that sounded suspiciously like air escaping.

Duura slowly began to walk forward, the man behind readying his rifle in case the tougher trandoshan needed fire support of some kind. Fixing a heavy duty combat knife to his shotgun, he reached out and tentatively poked the pile….then jumped back cursing as the entire thing crumbled, a massive wave of unspeakably foul gases, liquids, and debris sweeping past him and covering him in filth. The human rapidly backpedaled, covering his mouth and nose while trying not to retch from the stench. Duura, however, saw something that almost made him completely forget about the trash. Almost.

A massive tunnel, perfectly circular with smooth, rippling edges, stretched into the ground before him, abruptly turning from a vertical drop to a 45 degree angle incline about five feet down.

Duura ordinarily would have popped down to check what was inside, scouting around it for a minute while his companion radioed for backup. However, something told him that he wouldn't need to scout around: possibly due to the suspicious claw marks surrounding the edges of the hole, or the faint growling, hissing, and chittering noises emanating from the hole, or the gaping mouth filled with many, many white teeth rushing right towards his face-

*BOOM*

Duura panted as he reloaded the shotgun, the headless corpse of the monster slamming into him and thudding to the ground. He kept his eyes on the tunnel and roared out an order to the man behind him, glancing behind as he did so. "Oi! Radio back to-Damn. It."

His human companion gave a shuddering gasp and fell to the ground, sliding free of the long red talon-no, scythe that had impaled him. Another one of those white beasts growled at him as it slipped out from beneath the trash heap where it had been hiding, and it made the mistake of thinking that he would be frightened by what it just did, or its growls. Duura had seen Acklay hunt; seen colleagues and rivals get sliced to pieces in front of him or get crushed under the fists of a rancor. He had been to Tatooine and had nearly gotten killed by a Krayt dragon. A little something like this wouldn't frighten him and didn't.

Before it could react, Duura had already raised his shotgun and had it pointed at its chest. But the trandoshan didn't fire; rather, he raced forward and slammed the long bayonet attached to the end of his weapon into the beast's chest, lifting it shrieking into the air before firing a round into the center of its mass. The sheer force of the shot blew the beast apart, showering Duura in gore. The mercenary wiped his face of the blood and viscera, clearing his vision and cursing as he saw what had happened to the man.

The creature obviously was intelligent; not just an animal cunning but smart enough to recognize radio equipment when it saw it. While it had gotten his attention with the killing claw, its other limb had sliced the communications gear that the human had been carrying in two. Duura was now cut off from home base, as it were, in the middle of enemy territory when they held every field advantage he could think of.

Well, shit.

Anakin, Hett, and Tarfful all immediately stopped as they heard the booming retorts of some firearm off in the distance, followed by chittering and screeching noises from whatever inhabited the cave. There was a pregnant pause, before Anakin spoke. "So someone has made contact with them. Hett?"

"Yes?"

"Forward or back? I mean, we know someone has found them, and I think getting out of this place to flush it properly is a very good idea." Tarrful roared and nodded, showing his support of Anakin's analysis. Hett frowned, before nodding.

"Yes, it is. I would have preferred to map out more of this system though, but from what we've seen so far we could wander for hours without success. We'll go back then, quickly, and return with either a proper task force or blockade all the entrances that have been found."

The group turned and began jogging back to the entrance they had used, however Anakin could not help but wonder. Last time I was almost killed by whatever lives in these tunnels, and I doubt every living thing here went off to wherever those gunshots came from. Where is every-

"Anakin, down!" The Jedi instinctively ducked and felt something rippling overhead, heard the screech of some beast behind him and the thud as it struck the wall, knocked away by Hett's push. As he got back to his feet and Tarfful began laying down fire with his bowcaster he got a good glimpse of what had nearly killed.

He had seen more terrifying creatures, he had to admit. At first glance the beast wasn't some sort of demonic bogeyman. Oh yes it looked imposing, as even in its' apparently perpetually hunched over state it looked to be at least as tall as a man, if not taller, and the heavy claws that two of its four arms bore looked like they could do some serious damage. But that seemed to be the extent of the real threat; its other arms had bony hands in place of claws that were so thin they looked like twigs, and its frame, while bony and covered in carapace, seemed to be devoid of any real musculature. While its' mouth was full of needle sharp teeth, shown as it snarled at them, the mouth didn't seem very well suited to biting. All in all while it could certainly be dangerous it wasn't nearly as lethal as, say, a droideka.

And then it moved so fast that he almost lost his head entirely before he raised his lightsaber in time to block. Tarfful saved his life that day; the suppressing fire he was laying down slowed the creature as it focused on dodging the bolts while trying to kill him. Even with that he was hard-pressed to block the creatures-wait.

As Hett entered the fray and they began to push the creature away, Tarfful's constant assault finally managing to land some hits on the carapace, Anakin noted two things: One. Its carapace must be far more durable than he thought since Tarfful's shots were doing far less damage than they ought to, i.e. leaving scorching burns instead of craters and its reaction times were quite frankly absurd.

Its claws were never making contact with their lightsabers; rather, what appeared to be going on was it was inferring where they were going to strike, how they were going to block its strikes, and was acting to avoid those confrontations before they even happened. The contradictory visions he was receiving from supported this, his Force Sense constantly giving changing impulses as the creature shifted from one target to another. Had there been only one of them he would have been overwhelmed for sure.

But there wasn't, there were three, and although Hett and Anakin were covered in small scratches and in Hett's case; a nasty gash that ran along his side, the creature pulled back with a screech having lost one of its hands and a good chunk of the arm as well.

A standoff ensued; neither side wanted to reignite the fight. Anakin panted heavily, trying and failing to read the creatures motions. It kept on shifting from one stance to another, as if it couldn't decide on how to attack them or which route to take as it fled. Dammit, what do we do? We can't turn our backs on it because it'll shred us if we do so we can't run, and I can't figure out just how to attack it! It's openings are constantly moving, if we take any longer we'll-his thoughts were cut off as more screeches and growls began echoing through the tunnels. Was it-? No, it couldn't have, could it? Combat instinct is one thing, but actively trying to delay us for reinforcements?

"Tarfful! Cover us!"

The creature leapt away, shrieking as the Wookie chieftain unleashed a hail of bolt on its previous position. Anakin and Hett leapt back, unleashing a wave of Force energy at the creature, slamming into it mid-leap and sending it screeching into the darkness of the tunnel. There was no need for words at that point, all three simply turned and ran.

Behind them they heard the ever-growing sound of more and more beasts chasing them, heard the screeching and roaring and the clatter of chitin and talon as the creatures swarmed after them.

Come on come on come on almost there, just round the bend and- Anakin's train of thought stopped entirely as they turned around the corner into the final stretch of the tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel they could see light peeking through the entrance.

The floor was level and rough, providing traction without impeding their movement in any real way. It was about fifty meters to the end of the tunnel; a distance that they could make easily.

It was a shame that there were over a dozen of the damn creatures in the way.

AN: Before anyone asks why I had that scene in between Anakin and co. moving into the tunnels and their encounter with the Genestealer: Do you want to read ten, fifteen pages of them moving through a bunch of identical tunnels?

Also, am working with Master of the Blood Wolves, Rustic94, and Artark on a collaborative piece: Inheritance Cycle and Discworld crossover.

EDIT OCTOBER 28, 2015:

Now, I'm sure that you all have guessed by now but this story is on hiatus. Do I plan on finishing it? Yes. However, right now I'm in college so I have a lot of other responsibilities to take care of; plus I will admit that there are other pursuits like games that are taking up my time as well. Also: I want to get better at writing.

Good news: I'll see if I can't get out another chapter in the next two weeks. No promises though; it's going to be rough ahead.