Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Attack of the Hutts”! In the previous installment, the Drengir have really infiltrated Sskeer’s mind and he’s a huge asshole about it. Luckily, Keeve talks him out of it and everyone lives happily ever after. Basically.

Except that the Starlight Beacon is currently being attacked by a Drengir that was manifesting itself in a Hutt corpse…

And that the Hutts have arrived on Sedri Minor to take it over…

But, yeah, other than that, everyone lives happily ever after!

Except me.

Star Wars: The High Republic (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [July, 2021]
Written by: Cavan Scott
“Attack of the Hutts”

Look at the cover! Sskeer is dying! Keeve is sad! I’m not emotionally invested in either of these characters!

Eventually, after the Hutts show up that is, a battle ensues. Keeve whips her lightsaber around blocking all manner of enemy fire. Even though Ceret is weak as shit, he thinks he can cart civilians to safety using only his well-oiled muscley back bolstered by THE FORCE!! A Hutt advances on the group with a giant, 10-story monster of a beast of burden that I don’t recognize because I’m not the biggest Star Wars nerd on the planet (yet).

Ceret sucks so hard at keeping this beast at bay that he gets crushed under its giant foot, and if he isn’t dead then my name ain’t Mortimer Aloysius McGriddle.

Before the battle, though, the Hutts – led by Myarga the Benevolent – tried to diplomatically tell everyone to “get the hell of their planet”. Avar Kriss contests this “our planet” business, stating quite calmly in botched Huttese that Sedri Minor is not in Hutt space. But it’s really quite simple: the Sedri Minorians signed a contract for the Hutt cartel to protect them in return for regular payments of grain. So nyah.

Sskeer sees the racketeering for what it is: racketeering! He gets so flibbin’ flabbin’ mad that he starts attacking the Hutts with his viney arm, having been overtaken by the Drengir again.

“I am attacked!” yells Myarga. “Blast them to atoms. Tear them limb from limb!”

This is the moment when Keeve realized that Sskeer was definitely no longer Sskeer anymore, for realies. Mercenaries exit the Hutt ship in droves, blasting their blasters with red blaster laser blaster fire.

As both Kriss and Keeve twirl their lightsabers daintily, Kriss reaches out to the Starlight Beacon for backup. She forgot quickly that the Beacon is being overtaken by Drengir, so, uh, take a backseat.

A Padawan named Imri gets impaled through the back by a vine, leading to a series of grimaces and groans. Vern, a green humanoid alien Padawan, is like “not today”. She uncorks her lightsaber and starts slashing like nobody’s business, tearing up vines left and right.

Don’t die on me yet, Imri! There are so many busy panels like this one ahead of us!

Having established that, no, you can’t have any fucking backup, Kriss and Keeve return to their nimble lightsaber work while Ceret and Terec attempt to neutralize the big Hutt horsebeast. Now that they’ve reunited, they share a sloppy French kiss and a grope or two before schwinging their own lightsabers and continuing into the fray.

“The Hutt’s army won’t stop until their commander is free,” Kriss yells. “Sskeer, you have to release her!”

Sskeer is so far gone that he basically drools and burbles. Myarga is still wrapped up in vines, spitting and cursing. Keeve tries to get through to Sskeer, but the part of him that’s still there understands that he can’t control it. Keeve says “fuck this” and hacks the vines off at Sskeer’s shoulder, sending him into a tizzy of shrieking and crying.

This leaves Myarga free to instill his wrath upon ye who double-crossed him (which is everybody). Kriss sends the Hutt flying, imploring him to look at the bigger picture. There’s a force that is threatening both Republic and Hutt alike! Can’t you see it with your disgusting, wet eyeballs?

Sskeer talks in black speech balloons, scaring Keeve. Did she think severing the roots would stop him? Hardly! He fashions a blade out of his flopping viney tendrils and goes after Keeve, who continues to try to talk some sense into her Master. It is a foolhardy endeavor, to be sure. “You’re better than this!” she says wrongly.

Meanwhile, Kalo What’s-His-Face mumbles about the folly of working out a contract with the Hutts as he smuggles as much as he can into a sack. “Work for the Hutts, they said. You’ll become rich, they said. Well, there are easier ways of making money. Less dangerous ways of making money, for that matter.”

A group of local aliens stop Kalo at the doorway. Kalo stammers and declares that he’s arranging a shuttle for safe passage of anyone who wants to leave! Heh heh! Yes, yes!

Local Alien #41 calls Kalo a dirty, filthing, cunting liar. This is all Kalo’s fault in the first place, all these Hutts and underground monsters.

Yeah, but look on the bright side! One less son to worry about!

The punching doesn’t last long, because the Hutt beast barrels through the wall of the building looking for fresh meat. Elsewhere, Keeve continues to try talking to Sskeer which has been an exercise in futility from the get-go. Now they’re fighting each other with lightsabers – Master vs. Apprentice. “Master, please. I know you can beat this. I believe in you.”

Sskeer snaps out of it momentarily to give Keeve a word or two of why he did all this in the first place. Keeve incorrectly guesses that Sskeer needed to find out what the Drengir had planned. It’s really because his connection to the Force is fading fast; he has a hard time sensing the dark side in anything anymore. A can of Spam flew under his radar, for example. He was ashamed to tell Keeve, but now that he’s backed into a corner here there’s no other choice but to spill all the beans.

Anyway, these Drengir are impossible to beat. Cut them down like weeds and they grow twice as fast. There is one last chance for survival, however… “but you’re not going to like it,” he tells her.

It’s probably related to butt plugs and hornets, unfortunately, but that’s the price to pay for freedom.

Speaking of talking sense, Kriss is still trying to get through to Myarga that they need to join forces to stop the bigger threat. She proves it by rerouting the Beacon’s Drengir-related distress calls to her comm link so that Myarga can hear about every planet being taken over… including, but not limited to, Nal Hutta! D’oh!

“The entire frontier is under attack by the Drengir – and neither of us can stop them on our own,” Kriss insists. Myarga is at an impasse here. The Hutts join forces with the Republic? That’s crazy nutso cuckoo. Myarga looks around helplessly as Kriss decides to leave the planet – their planet – for the Hutts to fix. Myarga doesn’t want Kriss to be hasty! Heh heh. “Warriors of the glorious Hutt cartel! Fight with the Jedi! With the Jedi!”

Brings a warm tear to your eye, don’t it?

Sskeer has an idea for Keeve: relay to the Drengir that any meat they touch gets spoiled, diseased. Exhibit A – Sskeer himself. A mind touch is what will do the trick. Consequences be damned! Just do it! Hand on the ol’ noggin. Let’s go, hup two.

Keeve grabs Sskeer’s head and he screams. “The harvest is rotten,” Keeve says into the Sskeer Intercom. “It will poison you all. You need to run. You want to run.”

Drengir suddenly fall back, much to Myarga and and Kriss’ surprise. “Unclean. Unclean,” the plants mutter. Myarga thinks these assholes are a bunch of cowards, and he ups the ante on fighting back.

Maru reports to Kriss that the Drengir on the Beacon seem to be retreating. Almost as if they’re afraid. No one knows why, but Kriss sees this as an opportunity to fuck off from Sedri Minor and never look back.

And poor Keeve, she is cradling a dying Sskeer in her arms. Spoiler alert if you looked at the cover. Oh well.

Final Thoughts

Trading one life for millions, this is a no-brainer. Throw Sskeer to the wolves if it means destroying those pesky Drengir. Why am I the only one who thought of this?

Stupid comic book writers. See you next time.