The Gehennan Jungle fiend stood in a stream and drank noisily from the water flowing past it powerfully muscled legs. A pair of Chooth hounds cowered in a tangle of broken rock and brush nearby. Blood pulsed down the fiend's chest, but from her position perched within the pranched of a thick-bole acalia tree, concealed by the branches and the shroud of her cloaking device. Shadow Hunter could tell that the wound had slowed.

She felt badfor the animal. The wound would never heal properly in the wild. Infection would settle in around the wound caused by the broken spear that lay on the nearby bank, eventually turning gangrenous. She focused on the fact that it would have a heard death ahead of it if she didn't kill it.

Of course there was also the possibility the fiend would kill her.

That made Shadow smile, and she knew that if Lar'mekta had seen her, he would have taken her to task for it.

Quietly, smoothly, Shadow slipped out of the tree to the ground, slipping off her shoulder cannon and removing her glaive. She set both to the sode. For the last hour she had tracked the fiend, watching as the blood trail had thinned but never quite gone away. For all she knew that the Kast hunters that had injured the beast might have gone, or they might not have noticed the sound of a plasma weapon discharging.

On the other hand the Kast might be a short distance behind her and they may not take to kindly to trying to kill the Jungle fiend one of the had wounded. She decided to challenge herself and settled on using her wrist blades. Collapsed, they where easily stored in the housing fo her wrist gauntlet, but the serrated blade sprang out of the forearm brace and provided twenty inches of razor-sharp osnium. She reflected on her Earth history lessons for a moment and remembered that the Roman Army had conquered the world with eighteen inch blades.

She took a final quiet breath to focus her mind and deactivated her cloaking device, the eased through the brush towards the Jungle fiend. She moved in a crouch, like a tightly coiled spring. The beast wasn't foolish though. It had gained experience over the years, and - wounded as it was - it was especially wary. Shoulders rippling, the massive alien feline swung about just as Shadow emerged from the brush.

Shadow froze. The wrist blade hung lose and ready at her side. Beneath the rocks and brush, the chooth hounds laughed in anticipation, as if they knew that they would be eating in a few minutes one way or another. Before she could make a move though, she was alerted by the enhanced systems of her mask and cloaked herself before carefully moving off to where her gear was concealed. A single hulking Kast emerged moments later, carrying a wicked looking spear as the beast growled menacing at him, crouching low to the ground in anticipation of what was sure to be a bloody fight as its coiled muscles sent it darting forward and pounced upon the Kast, raking him with it claws as it tried to close its jaws around the hulking aliens neck.

Shadow recognized the Kast as the one she had come here to hunt, Varrik.

Gehenna.

As the closest hospitable planet to the Kast-controlled Cradle, more popularly known as Tortuga these days, Gehenna had become the jewel of the sector with Leran II's cataclysmic transformation into Dival, the ash-choked stage of Tortuga's brutal death-match battles. Strictly speaking, Gehenna was now the capital of the Kast-controlled alliance of pirates, slavers, and warlords, all over which Varrik nir Ra'assir ruled. True, the Kast Rivlak had made the Cradle his seat of power, the heart of his kingdom. But it had simply been a way to ensure his hold on power by maintaining a tight rein over the Cradle's enormous shipyards that maintained and provisioned the Kast war fleets.

It was simply the most basic rule for any dictator... Always make sure the Army is on your side. Thus, while Varrik ruled from Tortuga, Gehenna had developed into a highly commercial planet, the population of the planet safely living within great cities suspended in the skies of Gehenna. Not only was Gehenna home to various businesses and corporations, all seeking to make immense profits from the planet's total lack of legalities and laws, provided that the same laws as Tortuga were observed and enforced, but the entire planet's surface had been virtually divided into two distinct regions. The first region being dedicated to planetary infrastructure, from power grids and geothermal plants to mining facilities and research complexes, everything focused on maintaining Gehenna's self-sufficiency.

The other region, however, was dedicated as a huge game preserve, where all manners of creatures and beasts from across the galaxy were collected and brought forth from. All for the sole purpose of serving the Kast with abundant opportunities to slake their hunting instincts. Even Varrik made monthly trips to Gehenna to track down the most dangerous of animals and bring them down with his own bare hands.

Taking trophies, naturally, was a major aspect of Kast culture, just as it was for another particular culture. On Gehenna, these cultures were about to collide.

Varrik grunted as he moved away from the undergrowth, as he was not dressed in his usual armor and instead had gone with a simple piece of cloth covering his waist, having opted to return to his roots by hunting as he once had on Balat. Gehenna could not have the arid, nearly-inhospitable environment of Balat but it would have to do. Before him laid the creature, wounded by his fellow hunters who remained behind, allowing their lord the honor of the kill.

Gripping his spear in his hand, the Rivlak sharpened his focus upon the beast, noticing that it was still wary. The hunted understood its fate, but that would change nothing. Then, the beast leaped into action, just as Varrik reacted by raising the wicked spear up at the creature, the weapon skewering through its body. This barely slowed the wounded creature and it still managed to crash into the Kast, snapping at his neck as if trying to tear Varrik's throat. The Kast warrior had been through many battles, had reforged himself in the fires of combat, had led suicide assaults on dying worlds against insurmountable odds. He would not be laid down low by some angry beast!

Roaring, the Kast clasped his hand around the creature's throat and forced it up, allowing him the opportunity to force the table around on it by pushing it down onto the ground and getting on top. Keeping a tight hold on the monster, Varrik grabbed at a long hunting blade at his side and plunged the thing into its chest, a much more pinpoint attack than the spear, this time targeting what he believed to be a vital organ.

Distracted by the brutal strike, the creature hesitated for only a moment before flailing with renewed vigor. But that moment was all Varrik needed. It was time enough for the Kast to grab at the creature's mouth, to close his hands over its jaws and with powerful strength, snap the mouth apart and leaving the beast unable to fight back at all.

With a grunt, Varrik got up and pressed a foot down on the beast and snapped part of the spear off. The pathetic whimpers and weak struggles did little to move the Kast warlord. He would never forget the ultimate law of Balat, not when that law had made him what he was now.

The victor rules, the vanquished submits.

With a quick plunge, the broken shaft of the spear ended the creature's life. Varrik stepped aside then, allowing his fellow hunters to retrieve the beast and take it away, so that he might take the trophy of his choice later once it had been properly skinned and cleaned. Still, he did not relax. Something remained off.

Kast instincts spoke of another predator.

Shadow watched the Kast leader as he swiftly ended the life of his prey, the thick and powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders rolling as he moved with a deadly grace that caused the huntress to stop and admire the target of her hunt for a moment. He was an alien, but she had accepted the touch of Kaji before and had been taught the ways in which to choose a mate if she so wished too given her status as a female. He felt a primal urge wash over her and just stopped herself from growling and giving away her hiding place as another Kast hunter returned, dressed in more clothing than his leader and much shorter, with a more stocky build. He said something to Varrik in their harsh guttural language, her mask already working on translating, compiling and comparing it to the language samples that Kaji database had collected from previous hunts. She watched the massive alien turn and leave dressed in nothing but the simple cloth wrapped about his waist, deciding that this would be more than a simple trophy hunt.

Gathering up her shoulder cannon and glaive, the huntress stealthily backed out of the area and made for her ship to stow most of her gear except for a select few items before locking and cloaking her vessel.

Later, Kast hunting camp...

Night was coming , lengthening and deepening the shadows of the Gehennan Savannah which brought with it a different kind of prey for the hunters. Soon the sun was dipping below the horizon, full dark falling upon the planet and would be that way for some time before the moon rose. Shadow had known that it had been full last night, mentally calculating that it had been the third night and would soon be moving to a new phase. From her perch within a nearby tree, Shadow watched the Kast hunters gathered around a campfire eating a stew made from their supplies and the animals that they had brought down. They also seemed to be passing around a stone flask of some kind. She scanned the camp for her true quarry, finding him sitting away from the others and stoically partaking in his own meal...the solitude she could understand and appreciate, but she wondered if he isolated himself because no others understood the burden he carried as the warleader of what remained of his people.

The huntress had stripped down to a loin cloth, a tight wrap covering her chest, and wraps covering her legs and feet in order to fairly face her prey while she had only brought her mask, glaive and wrist blades. Peering through the automatic targeting systems of her mask at the gathered hunters, she knew that even as quick as she was she could have gotten off one shot from her shoulder pulse cannon perhaps two before they reacted. She had judged correctly that the cannon was not the way to do this. She planned to show her superiority to the Kast warriors. Dropping to the ground, the woman crept deeper into the shadows, getting closer to her targets.

The Kast obviously felt secure in their superiority to anything on the planet, otherwise guards would have been posted and more than that they would not have been facing the fire where they were so easily highlighted and ruining their nightvision with full dark coming on. Even as she slowly worked her way towards them, Shadow kept her eyes averted from the fire and used a combination of her periphial vision and the enhanced senses of her mask to guide her. She had been taught by the Kaji that what was seen from the corner of the eye was what was seen truest.

She counted five Kast, not including Varrik. Even with the masks filter system, she could still smell their strong musk even over the mesquite scented smoke coming from the fire. The Kaji had often told Shadow that she had the keenest nose of any soft meat they had ever met. They also said that about her eyesight and hearing. This was, in part, due to the training that Lar'mekta had put her through. She had been made to understand that she had more to prove as a ooman, facing combat zones, tests and trails. She had been shown how to use all of her senses in battle.

"-infestation was cleansed by the warmaster recently," one of the Kast said as he scooped a spoonful of stew into his mouth before he continued "I heard that this one was different, it happened on a station where a mindwalker was captured. The warriors said that one of the abominations acted like a mindwalker."

"A mindwalker dies just as easily as anything else once you cleave its head from their neck another Kast said matter of factly.

Shadow moved out of the brush, crouched down and eased one foot in front of the other and while it was interesting hearing them speaking of their campaigns, Her first thoughts were on determining how the hunters would split. Once she was behind the closest Rover she began to inch her way forward while the conversation continued, each commenting on the lack or abundance of prizes that they had been able to achieve so far. Hunkering down beside the front of the Rover, taking a fresh grip on her glaive. She shoved all extraneous thoughts and desires from her mind and achieved the focus that Lar'mekta had trained her to have. She took in a deep breath and let it it out. She moved in a single fluid motion, going for the Kast nearest her as she moved still crouched and closed on the alien as she rolled her shoulder forward, twisting her hips as she rose like a wraith from the darkness as she got as much strength behind the blow as possible. The blunt end of her glaive connected solidly with the side of her targets head with a loud thumping crunch. She kicked out and knocked the stunned alien into the fire as he rolled away clear of licking flames as the smell of singed flesh and burnt hair filled her nose.

She allowed her momentum to continue carrying her forward a graceful but deadly dance, the four other Kast were up and moving, bringing their spears and hunting blades to bear on Shadow. In a flurry of movement, the razor sharp osnium blade flicked out across the back of one of the Kast's leg as her wrist blades performed a similar action to another, though neither cried out as they went down. Her heart thudded to life in her chest, not out of fear but in exhilaration as she felt that delicate balance between being predator and prey screaming through her veins. She moved like a dancer, hauling herself up onto the back of the Rover, then threw herself forward before the two remaining hunters could react.

Before they understood what was happening, Shadow was amongst them, landing with the grace of a skilled gymnast. Her glaive lanced out and cleanly sliced through the thick corded muscles of his thigh as her wrist blades flashed. They slashed a jagged course up the last hunters calf and through the tendons behind his leg. She stood up, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she turned and headed towards the solitary camp fire of her true opponent. As she came into the light of Varrik's fire, she retracted her wrist blades before removing her mask and dropping to the ground.

In the fire. her obsidian hair shimmered like living shadows as she watched the Kast warlord, knowing that he would understand her gesture without words..there were of two cultures that spoke the same language.