General Janeck Carr inspected the motor pool. He was a seemingly average humanoid dressed in the anonymous brown robes of the jedi order. The only item of note about Carr’s appearance was the leather blindfold he wore, a blindfold meant to conceal the smooth skin where any other humanoid’s eyes would be. Carr’s lightsaber was hung rather haphazardly at his belt, his right hand periodically brushed against it to ensure it was still there.
Beside Carr walked CC-1120, Commander Ty. The Ravens’ Commander tended to favor those old yellow markings all the Commanders wore on Geonosis. Janeck and Ty had met that fateful day in the shadows of the Geonosian Hives. Ty’s armor was considerably less shiny than it had been when they first met, constant repairs had left the armor’s paint looking patchwork. In some places the armor shone with the brilliant white sheen of a new coat, in others there was a dull ivory only achieved after months of exposure to unforgiving stars.
Ty wasn’t carrying his blaster rifle or wearing his jet pack right now, only carrying a pistol in his holster. Even his helmet was cradled under his left arm as he accompanied his general on a routine inspection, at ease, there was no reason to expect trouble.
The motor pool was a converted hangar, durasteel walls curved inward to form a 10-meter high vaulted ceiling. Exposed girders framed cat walks and hanging lights, illuminating the treasure of vehicles below. AT-TEs, speeder bikes, troop transports and more crowded the pool, to the point that Janeck was forced to walk a half step in front of CC-1120.
“Quite a collection.” Janeck commented, stepping around the forward stabilizer of a republic speeder.
“It was meant to be a stockpile for the first Selucamai invasion General.” The invasion of Selucamai had run into a dozen different negotiations, defections and sabotages, to the point that the Outer Rim Command had decided to just leave the planet alone for now. It’d be a hard nut to crack, but Carr had no intention of letting good ordinance go to waste.
“Will all this be missed?” Carr inquired his head tilting toward the ceiling. His brow furrowed, there was something at the edge of his mind, something that demanded his attention, but he was having trouble pinning down what that something was.
“Doubtful,” Ty began, “I’ve been looking into it, discreetly mind you. This entire stockpile seems to be the victim of bureaucratic--” Ty stopped as his general raised a hand.
Janeck held his hand up and touched it to his ear, his comm bead activated… but there was no ping back. They were being jammed.
“Ty,” Janeck whispered in Ty’s mind, “we have company.”
Janeck continued walking, Ty kept pace half a step behind his general. Ty didn’t know how to send a telepathic reply to his general, so he kept silent, waiting for further instructions. His eyes scanning with the practiced precision of a veteran clone commander.
He won’t find anything. Janeck thought as he noted his commander’s gaze. Even as Janeck’s distant mind tried to grasp the intruder, the presence slipped through his fingers. Thoughts, stray and vacuous hit Janeck like marble-sized hail. Here the nearly alien mind was counting the cards left in a sabaac deck in an imaginary game. There he was mentally constructing a droid’s power converter. There were the unhinged ravings of a lunatic the intruder had clearly memorized.
Janeck frowned, such scattered and unrelated thoughts were meant to throw off a Jedi’s ability to even see a mind. The practice was the mark of someone who had made a habit of hunting Jedi. The expertise with which he executed it, meant he was successful.
Commander Ty approached a step closer MISTAKE! Before Ty even whispered the first syllable of the word ‘General’ Janeck whirled around and using the Force threw Ty away. Then with barely a microsecond to spare, Janeck threw himself to the ground as a black monstrosity drove through the air above him. Janeck rolled to his feet, searching through the Force for his attacker. But the attacker was gone. Janeck put his hand on his lightsaber and hesitated. Images from the past flooded his mind, images of Sarissa Jeng, a fellow practitioner of Niman lost in a hail of sonic rifle fire.
Janeck tugged at his mind, no the NOW was important.
Before Geonosis, Janeck had thought himself a master of Niman, so why did he slip into Shii-Cho as the battle raged around him?
Like a dream, Janeck saw through the Force a metal clad arm, resting atop the roof of an AT-TE point towards him. Was that the now? Was Janeck in the past?
Niman had no weakness, so why did all his fellow practitioners die around him?
The arm twitched and a slug began to leave the barrel. With a violent roar, Janeck tore his mind from the past, from his shame, back to the present, igniting his blade he met the slug as it hurdled towards him cutting it neatly in half. The two halves collided with a Republic speeder behind him.
It was here that his assailant stopped hiding. It, for it could no longer be called a man, stood atop the AT-TE’s canopy, its height would easily tower over Janeck if he stood next to him, but it was thin, unnaturally thin. It turned Janeck’s stomach to behold its visage through the Force. Long limbs, bedecked in an unknown alloy, ending in sharp claws. Worse of all was its ‘face,’ a ghastly white mask wrought into some simulacrum of the human visage.  At first it stood like a man, then it collapsed to all fours as Ty’s blaster bolt split the air above it. Ty cursed as his shot failed to find its mark, still trying to line up the next. The creature’s elbows arced at an unnatural angle as it lept towards Ty like cannon shot.
Janeck let the Force flow through him and he thrust forward with his hand, sending the creature hurtling over Ty.
“Get Alpha Company!” Janeck screamed. Ty didn’t hesitate, he was out of sight in a moment. But it’d be minutes before he came back. The abomination hit the ground and skid to a stop some 4 meters behind where Ty had been. The creature looked back, empty eyes gazing at its prey. Janeck didn’t know if he had minutes.
Janeck held out his hand. The monstrosity leapt away a moment before the ground beneath its feet exploded. Janeck kept up the telekinetic assault.
The creature knew the clone would bring back reinforcements, but it wisely never took its eyes off Janeck. Always staying a step ahead of Janeck’s telekinetic attacks. It was staying on the defensive now, not approaching. With some shock, Janeck realized the creature was learning his timing. How long it took him to gather the Force, how long until his hand moved, how long before the blast left Janeck’s hand, the creature was studying it all. It was only a matter of time before the creature got his timing down and began his approach. Cold fear gripped Janeck’s stomach for a moment, before he rested control of his mind and pushed the fear down, no, he was a Jedi, he would NOT fear.
Janeck frowned, he thrust his hand forward yet again. The creature leapt out of the way, but the ground it had been standing didn’t explode. The thing’s eyes widened in surprise as it jerked to a stop in midair. Janeck’s hand outstretched, trembled with exertion, damn this thing was heavy.
“Clever Jeedai.” The thing croaked with an inhuman, mechanical voice. The voice the creature used was so horrifying, Janeck took an involuntary step back.
Janeck’s involuntary lapse was enough for the creature, thrusting its arm forward, it fired a slug striking Janeck in the knee. Janeck gasped and fell releasing the creature from its telekinetic prison.
The creature barely touched the ground before it lept forward in a blur and drove its nails towards Janeck’s chest. Running on instinct Janeck lashed out with the Force, sending the thing crashing through the canopy of an AT-TE. Janeck hit a knee, almost unconsciously using the Force to stop the bleeding from his knee.
Janeck held out his hand towards the AT-TE, calling the Force to fill him to the brim and just as it seemed he would explode from the power he called down upon himself, Janeck closed his fist. The AT-
TE, that glorious testiment to the might of the GAR, groaned and bent inwards. With a horrifying crunch the entire AT-TE crumbled like a piece of paper, grinding whatever was still inside it to dust, until that massive weapon was no more than a meter in radius.
Janeck bowed his head and reached out with the Force, he couldn’t detect anything from the metal sphere that had once been the AT-TE, clearly the thing was… no, no assumptions.
Janeck broadened his senses, searching for his assailant. He found the monster none to soon, rocketing towards Janeck with prodigious force. Janeck rolled out of the away, the thing’s claws scraping the air above his head.
The monstrosity, either assassin or bounty hunter, maybe both, slid to a stop, then stood to its full height and faced Janeck. Like a kath hound ready to pounce at the hint of a challenge, the thing watched Janeck through its cold porcelain face.
Janeck stood at an angle with the monstrosity, his saber held in his back hand, pointing forward as if to thrust. The Shii-Cho opening stance.
The monstrosity stood motionless, as if waiting for Janeck to make the first move. ‘If this thing is an experienced Jedi hunter,’ Janeck thought, ‘then he knows now is the most important moment, he knows the one who makes the first mo--”
Janeck realized his stance and his stomach dropped. Shii-Cho, he’d done it again.
In a flash, Janeck was back on Geonosis, his lightsaber had started to stretch to his side, the Niman opening stance, the stance he’d worked so hard to perfect. But then, Joclad Daava, Sar Labooda, Sarissa Jeng, he felt them die. He’d trained and studied with each of these Masters, their training had failed them, their form had failed them. Even after Geonosis Janeck never took up Niman again. The form was a failure.
The creature lunged, and Janeck moved through the fog of a dream, too slow. Claws raked against Janeck’s face, but he was still in Geonosis. A kick sent Janeck into a crate of ammo. He was fighting in the Colosseum. The creature’s arm stretched towards him. He was cremating Sarissa.
A slug began to leave the creature’s wrist-mounted barrel and a voice came from the dark at that funeral, it was the voice of Master Ki-Adi Mundi, Janeck’s master. His master whispered, “there is no death.”
Janeck was thrust back into the now in time to witness a slug hurtling for his head. Lashing out with the Force Janeck caught the slug and threw it to the side. The creature’s eyes widened at the sudden change in resistance. Janeck didn’t let up, reaching behind, he grabbed one of those crates he had been so rudely kicked into and threw it at the creature. The creature dodged, but as he did, Janeck seized the crate with the Force and squeezed.
A crate full of frag grenades went off in the creature’s face. Sending him flying twenty meters into the nearest transport ricocheting off and then slamming into the ground. Janeck didn’t give him a chance to collect himself.
Running forward with the blazing pace afforded by Force Speed, Janeck hacked at the creature’s prone form, only for his lightsaber to bounce off the monster’s neck. Janeck whispered a short “kark,” before the creature’s foot connected with his sternum, sending the Jedi flying through the air.
Janeck hit the ground with a crunch. He bit down a grunt of pain and righted himself quickly, only to find his right arm flopping uselessly at his side, somehow still clutching his lit lightsaber.
The creature took a moment to collect itself, rolling its joints one by one before standing with inhuman fluidity. It turned and looked at Janeck’s useless broken arm, still somehow clutching his lit lightsaber and opened its mouth.
Janeck through the haze of agony couldn’t recognize the sound at first, but when he did, he was appalled. The creature was laughing.
Janeck looked at his arm, then back at the creature. Janeck decided if today he became one with the Force, it’d be a day to remember. Janeck smiled the sick smile of a desperate man. There was something he never wanted to try, but now he didn’t think he had a choice. The creature stopped laughing as the sound of bones being telekinetically smashed back together filled the hangar. Grinding his teeth through the agony of manually fusing raw nerves together, Janeck stretched out his hastily repaired right arm perpendicular to his body, then he held his hand in front of him. The opening stance of Niman.
“Come on then you Nerf Herder.” Janeck whispered quietly, but somehow he was sure the creature heard him. “Let’s see who dies today.”
It didn’t matter if the Form was a failure, it didn’t matter if he died here, there was only the Force and this Form, the Form he mastered, was the way he could serve best. Even if that service was through his death.
Janeck wasn’t sure, but through the haze of agony, he thought the creature opened its mouth slightly, not in a guffaw, but in a smile.
The rest of the fight was a blur. The creature lunged forward, Janeck lashed out with the Force, the creature changed direction at the last possible moment, dodging the wave by milimeters. The Creature drove forward with its claws. Janeck parried with his saber. Janeck grabbed the creature’s head with the Force and drove it into the ground. The creature’s foot slammed into Janeck’s collarbone.
The fight continued, for how long, Janeck didn’t know. It couldn’t have been more than a minute all told. Though it felt like hours passed. Eventually, finally, Janeck fell. An exhausted bloody heap. The creature, breathing heavily towered over him.
The Bounty Hunter leaned down, stretching out its claws towards Janeck’s heart. A clean, maybe painless death was coming.
“You today Jeedai.” The creature uttered, finally answering Janeck’s challenge from an eternity ago.
Janeck smiled, not because he had given all he had, not because the creature had shown something approaching compassion here at the end. But because Janeck had taken this moment of respite, here laying on the ground, to slip into a shallow battle meditation and he now knew where his men were.
Janeck looked up from his prone position, and thrust out a hand. The creature reeled back prepared to receive another blast of telekinetic power. Instead the hangar doors flew open in a grinding cacophony. There, in the middle of a disused air field, was a Heavy Weapons team.
The creature saw the doors fly open, it saw the troopers, and it hesitated for the precious moment Janeck needed.
Thinking quickly, Janeck plunged himself deeper into Battle Meditation and plunged into the mind of one of his heavy weapons troopers. Janeck suppressed the Trooper’s fear and indecision and nurtured the protective instincts that would drive him to fire his rocket launcher at this monstrosity.
The Trooper fired a rocket aiming for the Monster. The Monster saw the flash and leapt up, nearly 2 meters in the air. The creature would dodge the rocket and reassess-- Janeck grabbed the rocket still in mid flight with the Force and redirected it straight into the monster’s chest.
The explosion blossomed, the shockwave hit the prone Jedi and Janeck finally passed out.

Two Weeks Later:
Janeck lay on his medical bed studying the datapad that held the after action report. Ty had written it in his stead while Janeck spent the last fortnight floating in a bacta tank. Janeck sighed rubbing his right arm. The medical droid had really laid into him about the state his arm had been in. They’d had to rebreak the poor thing in at least a dozen places so they could reset it properly. Janeck was somewhat thankful they hadn’t had to amputate, he couldn’t imagine having a hunk of dead metal on his skin. Janeck looked up, what must that monster he fought have felt? What hatred must he feel to wear a full body mod of Beskar?
Yes, feel. Commander Ty had assured Janeck that his assailant couldn’t have possibly survived the missile, but Janeck knew somehow, that creature had survived. Maybe they’d bonded in some sick way, fighting to the death like they did. Maybe Janeck just subconsciously recognized his faint echo in the Force. Whatever the reason, Janeck knew with absolute certainty, his assassin was still alive.
Janeck hoped if they ever met again, it’d be with at least fifty layers of durasteel between them.
Janeck set aside the datapad, stood and left his bed. Another week of Bacta treatments for him. Unread and unnoticed on that discarded datapad, was a single addendum. A record of an unidentified ship leaving the system only days after the attack.