Headbutts

News of a Death Watch Mandalorian who went by the name of “Antos Creed” had reached Heln’s associates and been passed along to the man while the Breakneck was skirting around among the Core Worlds.  They had needed to refuel, and Savell wanted to see about a fellow Jedi brethren who she kept in contact with.  Heln had to wonder who would have that privilege of being the cranky jetii’s friend.  He didn’t ask, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer out of the Pantoran.

He had been monitoring the comms when he received the message from one of his contacts and had finished plotting the coordinates when Savell returned to the ship.  She didn’t question anything about the sudden trip or the heavy surge of cold resolve that came off of Heln during the entire journey.  Most of the time, the woman was in her cabin doing whatever it was jetii did, or sitting silently in one of the seats in the cockpit.  Kay-Cee wasn’t much for conversation either, having taken on one of his less chatty personas.

It took them a few days to get to the Outer Rim.  The planet was one that had at one time been a bustling cityscape, but was now derelict and prone to crime.  The Republic’s reach didn’t extend so far as to help clean up the place, and the Seps didn’t seem interested in pooling the planet into their coalition either.  In short, it was a dive of a planet.

Heln landed the YZ-900 freighter on a local landing pad occupied by several other ships in various states of disrepair.  He paid the mandatory price for housing the ship and struck out into the city in his beskar.  No one except for the crew would be seeing his face.  He liked the anonymity of having a helmet disguising his features, and no one politely asked him to remove it.

A few of the Spice Heads and alcoholics littering the streets tried to wheedle money out of him in the crowded city that the spaceport led out into, but Heln just kept walking.  He noticed a bright red twi’lek walking towards him purposefully.  The man had a wounded-looking left lekku and scars along his left arm.  His clothes quickly clued Heln in to what he was.  Swoop bike gang member, leader most likely.  The twi’lek got up in Heln’s visored face, displaying sharp teeth in a grin.

“Hey.  You paid the spaceport yeah, but you oughta think about some protection money.  Place like this isn’t safe.”

The twi’lek was juggling a vibroblade in a hand, one that had various stains on the blade that let anyone who saw it know that it had been used.  Heln waited a beat, studying the man’s face.  He shifted a hand near his sheathed beskad, catching the twi’lek’s eye while he raised the other and rapidly latched it onto the wrist of the hand holding the vibroblade, twisting it back until he heard a sharp pop.  The twi’lek yelped and the blade dropped out of his fingers, clattering on the littered ground.  Several pedestrians moved away, creating a wide berth in case a fight broke out.  They seemed to know the drill of scenarios like this.

“Fierfek!  You’re crazy!  Leggo!” the twi’lek shrieked.

Heln gave the arm one final tug, eliciting another squeal of pain from the man before yanking him up close.  He kicked the knife away with the toe of his boot, looking into the face of the man that was contorted with pain and fear.

“It’s dislocated, not broken,” Heln snapped. “But it’ll be worse if you don’t beat it.”

He released the wrist of the man and watched as the twi’lek scrambled away, nearly plowing into what Heln assumed was one of his fellow gang members before they both ran off.  He swung his T-visored gaze around, daring anyone else to try anything.  The crowd kept their distance, and Heln wasn’t bothered again by pesky Swoop Bike Gang leaders.  

He followed what the lead had given him to the more run down district of the city where tenements were piled twenty stories high and the sewage systems leaked out into the gutters.  Lights buzzed and flashed on establishments for gambling and other vices that Heln ignored.  

Though he didn’t glance over his shoulder, he could tell that he was being followed.  He had seen a short individual in the crowd after the run-in with the twi’lek start trailing after him.  Whoever they were, they were good.  They kept behind taller people and disappeared for stretches at a time to make it seem like Heln had lost them, only to reappear when he should have let his guard down.  He had a feeling that they were looking to clean him out of his credits rather than a fight.  The individual was dressed in baggy garments with a hooded poncho of rough material.  Heln had looked over the individual carefully, and it didn’t appear as if they had any weapons of significance on them.  He purposefully made his path meandering to try to throw them off.  He didn’t need to be dealing with any pickpockets while his wife’s killer could very well be on the planet and within his reach.

He slipped into a narrow alleyway after having taken a dizzying amount of twists and turns that would surely have confounded any tail.  The walls of the buildings rising up around him were grimy, a sulfiric smell that he had grown accustomed to since striking out in the city more potent here.  A few womp rats scurried among the refuse piled against the sides of the buildings, steam rising from vents.  He jerked his head when he heard running footsteps and felt rather than saw his attacker ram him in the side.

Heln reached a hand out against the nearest building wall to brace himself, twisting to grab at the unknown assailant.  It was the hooded, poncho-wearing individual who had been tailing after him.  The individual danced out of the way and aimed a kick at Heln’s spleen.  He caught the foot that came arcing through the air and shoved the transient backwards.  His attacker lost his footing and fell into one of the refuse piles in the narrow alley with a loud string of swearing.  Heln had a vibroblade in his grip when he noticed that the attacker had his beskad. 

He looked down at his side, perplexed that they had managed to wrest that out of the sheathe.  When he glanced over at the transient again, the smaller man was trying to get his hands around the hilt of the heavy weapon.  The fellow could barely raise it and was struggling to get up, using the beskad as a kind of leverage.  Heln cleared his throat, causing the poncho-wearing individual to look up in time to get a boot heel planted square in the middle of the chest, sending him sprawling backwards on the ground.

He lunged forward in one movement, pinning his attacker with his boot while they wriggled and cursed on the ground.  Something was off.  The voice didn’t match what he assumed the transient was.  Leaning in close, Heln reached out to flip the hood back of the poncho.  There was a sudden movement and Heln’s fingers experienced a sharp pain as his attacker snapped his teeth on them.

“Osik!” Heln swore, ripping his hand back and simultaneously causing the hood to fall back.

Shaking his hand, he threw a glance back at the transient and stared.  It was a human girl, teenaged by the looks of it.  Her cheeks were freckled and sunken in, sporting a black eye on her left side and bruises and cuts on her face.  Tousled red hair spilled all over.  No parent would let their child come to such a state.  Heln assumed she must have been as homeless as she looked.  She was still clutching his beskad tightly in a two-handed grip.

Heln reached down to grab his weapon and was almost bit again.  He instead snagged the girl by the jaw before her head could pull back, earning a fiery look.

“Udesii, udesii.  I’m not going to hurt you,” he said calmly.

Still maintaining his hold on her jaw, he lifted his other hand to remove his buy’ce.  The girl’s grey eyes narrowed as she studied his face.

“I’m going to let you go.  Are you gonna bite me again?” he asked wryly.

The girl’s mouth shifted to the side as she seemed to be considering.

“No.”

Heln let go and was promptly headbutted.  He swore violently and felt something bony jab him in the side while the bright lights in his vision cleared.  The girl leapt out from his hold and tried to skitter away with the beskad.  Heln reached out and grabbed her by the poncho, causing the girl’s feet to fly out from beneath her with a yelp as she fell flat on her back, the beskad leaping out of her grip and sliding across the ground.

“I didn’t say you could take that,” he snapped.

“It’s not like you kriffin’ need it,” the girl snarled back as she struggled to remove herself from the Mandalorian’s hold.  Heln got up, buy’ce tucked under one arm while he hauled the girl to her feet.  He gripped her by the back of her shirt to keep her from slipping out and leaving him holding a poncho.  She glared lasers at him.

“You got any parents ad’ika?”

“I’m not your daughter,” the girl spat, still wiggling around.

Heln raised his eyebrows.  So she knew Mando’a.  Either she grew up around Mandalorians or she had picked up on the language, though Heln couldn’t see how she would have living in the Outer Rim.  He couldn’t just leave her on the streets, not when it looked like she was living hand to mouth.  Tugging his buy’ce back on, he led her over to the beskad and lifted it without so much as a grunt, replacing it in the sheathe at his side again.  The girl scowled up at him as he looked down at her.

“Are you going to let me go or what, di’kut?”

Wherever she was from, she had picked up on a lot of Mandalorian swear words.  Heln would have to see about that.  He kept his tight grip on her clothes, leading her out of the alley.  The girl aimed a kick at his shin, boxing at him with her bony fists.

“What are you doing?  I said let me go!”

Bracing himself momentarily, Heln lifted the girl by the scruff of her collar and hauled her over his shoulder.  Her frantic, angry kicking only increased as she howled and swore harder.

“Hey!  Hey!  This is kidnapping, you know!”

“You don’t have any parents,” Heln said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think that counts.”