Junko paused uncertainly in front of the entrance to her igloo. Something felt… off… about today. Perhaps it was just the fitful sleep she'd had the night before, or maybe it was finally getting to her that she'd spent nearly six months apart from even one single other intelligent life form. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, probing the Force for further details regarding her uneasy sense. But there was nothing.
Sighing, she did a round in the igloo, checking her equipment and supplies one more time before heading out for the day. The batteries for her data tablet and various trackers and recorders were fully charged. Her bedroll, change of clothes, extra data cards, and firemaking supplies were packed away in thick, watertight bags. The cord connecting the wind-powered generator resting in her hollowed out cold sump to the modified mill outside was still safe in its casing. She would check the condition of the mill once she got outside, as she did every morning. What could it be that was bothering her? She chucked a few extra ration bars in her daypack in an attempt to appease her nervous sense, and began the crawl out of her ice dome. I guess I'll just have to wait to find out, Junko thought as she crawled upward towards the snowy surface surrounding her shelter.
She looked over the stubby windmill outside the igloo for any signs of damage and, content with her findings, started her tracker and heaved her daypack onto her shoulder. She slid her other arm into the straps and poked the snow with her ice pick as she began walking, gently probing with her Force sense for signs of life. Maybe she could hitch a ride with a tauntaun if she came across one.
This was Junko's 204th day on Hoth. She had been counting, though this was more for her research notes than anything else. In six days, someone sent by the Council - perhaps her Master, or another member of the Exploration Corps - would pick her up. It seemed so odd to consider that after all this time alone, with only lichens and ice and the occasional tauntaun for company, she would be returning to civilization and the Jedi Temple. The igloo now far behind her was the fifteenth she had built. The other fourteen had been built more or less in a line along the planet's equator. Junko had explored in a circle around each of them, taking day hikes as far as she could go, continuously recording elevation, geographic location, temperature, pressure, and windspeed with various pieces of equipment hanging off her belts and backpack. She stopped every now and then for water or a ration bar or to take notes or to record an image of her surroundings. She moved every couple weeks or so, walking as far as she could manage and then taking a few hours to construct an igloo for the next week or two of surveying. At this point in her mission, Junko was very proficient at building the snow shelters for herself, and could do it efficiently in nearly any conditions if she had the right tools. Junko was also decently practiced by this point with Tapas, a Force power that allowed her to channel the Force to provide extra warmth for herself. Despite being Pantoran and having greater resiliency to cold environments than humans, Junko was profoundly grateful she had bothered to learn Tapas before her departure. She was quite warm at night in her well insulated bedroll and igloo, and on days when there was fresh snow she sometimes even found herself shedding a layer or two. But during her hikes, out and exposed to the elements, she could get quite cold, particularly when she stopped moving or on exceptionally windy days.
Back at the Temple, Junko had volunteered for this mission immediately. She had been so eager to prove herself as a newly inducted member of the Research division of the Exploration Corps. She had relished the thought of doing her own geographic research, after helping her parents keep climate and crop records as part of their farming business for so many years on Pantora. She didn't regret volunteering so readily for the mission - not at all. Her spirit had thrived in the peace and quiet of nights alone in her igloo, the endless hours of hiking and documenting her findings, and in being able to meditate for as long as she desired, uninterrupted by tasks or timelines or other people. She even loved the cold - well, mostly. Due to chaos in the Outer Rim, the Jedi Order hadn't found her until her fourteenth year. She had received almost a full Pantoran education, and had attended the mandatory field trips to the snow-covered planet Orto Plutonia, which she had loved. The challenge of the desolate landscape had thrilled her, and she had connected well with the Talz inhabitants, even participating in an cultural exchange program with the colony and residing on the planet for a whole school term. Hoth was decidedly different than Orto Plutonia, with a landscape formed by both ancient volcanic activity and millions of years of repeated glacial episodes, while Orto Plutonia was much younger, and had been shaped primarily by hydrologic erosion before a drastic and recent change in climate had covered it in snow. Nevertheless, Hoth reminded her fondly of her time on her moon's planet, and she was, for the most part, happy to be there.
That being said, it was days like today - extra windy, extra cold, when she couldn't find a darn tauntaun anywhere in sensing range - that she was glad to think the trip would soon be over. She pulled her heavy hide wrap tighter around her face and grimaced in the blustery wind. While it was far too cold today for fresh snow to be falling, the wind was picking up and whipping around any loose flakes it could find on the snow-packed ground, reducing visibility and making her glad her outer layers were waterproof.
Junko had been hiking for about four hours, which was typically the point where she would stop for lunch, wander a bit more, and then turn around to avoid being out of her igloo after nightfall, when her tracker beeped to indicate low battery. Junko frowned. That's strange, she thought. Everything was fully charged this morning. Junko stopped walking and pursed her lips in annoyance, swinging her pack around and resting it on the ground. She checked her various instruments and was surprised to see that while it was the elevation recorder that had beeped, her datapad, weather monitor, and camera were all running low. While of course, all her batteries were rated to last in colder temperatures, everything did drain a little faster in the constant -40॰C environment. Still, a fully charged battery pack should have lasted her at least a couple days or more. She sighed in frustration and reached into the bag to grab one of the many backup battery packs she hauled around each day. Her brow furrowed further as she pushed her arm deeper into her bag, coming up empty. Empty?! She rummaged in her bag hurriedly. Not only were there no battery packs - zero of the four backups she usually carried - but her ration bars, water tubes, and various small pieces of equipment like her headlamps and a couple scarves were gone. She pushed her hand to the bottom of the bag, past the bigger items like her wraps and emergency blaster, and found a hole the size of her fist. She turned the bag over to see ragged, gnawed edges. Chewed through? Junko frowned again. There were no rodents on Hoth. And it's not like a tauntaun could have nibbled subtlely on her pack while she was on a break or something. Wampas were completely out of the question. Not only would an approaching wampa be impossible to miss, but such a large, carnivorous creature wouldn't have given her backpack a single look when a more meaty snack was nearby, like Junko or one of her many tauntaun mounts borrowed using the Force ability to tame beasts. At least I know now what all that foreboding I felt this morning was about. She thought darkly. She shook her head, both curious and annoyed by the turn of events. Oh well. She thought. I have extras of everything back at base. I'll just retrace my steps, and hopefully I'll find at least some of what I've dropped. And I'll have to do some more research… perhaps there's a yet undiscovered rodent species on this planet. The hole in the backpack was just an inconvenience - not life threatening by any stretch of the imagination. Recording elevation on the walk back wasn't that important, anyway, as she'd collected continuous coordinates on the hike over.
Junko patched her bag quickly using a makeshift sewing kit she compiled from various tools in her pockets and an extra wrap in her bag. She packed some snow into a container and held it under her wraps, chilling her slightly but melting the snow enough to drink a bit. She hefted her patched bag onto her shoulders, picked up her ice pick, and started back the way she came, looking down periodically in hopes of seeing an unintentionally discarded battery pack or ration bar. Junko hadn't been walking long when another one of her instruments beeped at her.
"I know, I know," she muttered. "We're all low battery," she said, thinking of her restless sleep the night before. As she shook her head and started moving again, she frowned. The wind had picked up, even from this morning, and was buffeting her from side to side a little bit. She had seen some golden sunshine peeking through at a couple points earlier in the day. If it had been clearer elsewhere on the mountains and the air had warmed sufficiently to create thunderclouds, this was the right time of day for storms in the mountains. Better move a little faster. She decided, doubling her pace. She could eat extra ration bars in her igloo and rest up tonight.
The wind only picked up further as she made her way back to her camp, and the warmer weather brought fresh snow. Visibility became so poor that she pulled out her tracker for direction, only to remember it didn't have any batteries. "That's alright," she murmured to herself, "There's still a little juice in my datapad." But when she pulled out her datapad, she saw that the battery had been drained completely. The same was true of her weather monitor and her image recorder. She stood in the building snow and blinked. "Well," Junko finally said aloud, pulling out her hand compass from an inner pouch in her coat. "Good damn thing Hoth has a magnetic field."
Junko set out yet again, using her compass and trudging through the rising snow. She hadn't ever had to make her way back from a hike without her digital tracker, and wasn't as familiar navigating with the compass. In addition, while of course she had paid attention to her path on the way over and knew the general direction in which her igloo lay, she knew she wouldn't be able to trace her exact steps and hoped that between her limited navigation and the buffeting winds, she wouldn't manage to walk past her igloo. Perhaps the winds will die down before then, she thought hopefully. Almost as if in response, a large gust charged her from the front, knocking her backwards and off her feet. The irony was not lost on Junko. "Oh, alright!" She called back into the wind, irritated, "I see how it's going to be!" She got back to her feet and kept moving, wishing dearly that today hadn't been the day she'd decided to explore one of the ice fields, overall devoid of landmark topography.
The winds continued to pick up, and soon Junko could barely see her own legs or her hand if held out in front of her. She paused and sighed, looking at her chrono, thankful she'd brought an analog backup. She'd been walking back for nearly three hours. She had three more hours until dusk. Given that she'd taken four hours to get to her lunch spot, and how much slower she was with the snowstorm, she figured she had probably an hour and a half, maybe two, left till her igloo. Plenty of time. Right? Right. She held up her compass to continue walking, and to her dismay, the hand did not settle in the right direction, but continued bobbing, slowly making its way around the whole compass. "You have got to be kidding me," Junko complained. She tapped the compass against her belt, hoping that maybe she could jostle the instrument inside back into working condition. No such luck. Junko sighed and closed her eyes, reaching out with the Force, hoping for at least a tiny pull in the direction she was supposed to go. But she sensed nothing. There is no emotion, there is peace. She reminded herself. She was facing the direction she wanted to go, at least for now. She would walk another hour and a half, she decided, and prepare to make a temporary camp if needed, should dusk begin to fall before the skies cleared or she reached her igloo.
Junko had only taken a few steps when she heard and felt rumbling. Avalanche! She thought, identifying the sound. If she was where she thought she was on her map, she should be far enough from any of the surrounding valley walls for even a large avalanche to be a problem - one of the only benefits of having chosen today to tromp through the ice fields. Still, she braced herself, facing the direction of the rumbling, just in case.
Unfortunately, Junko was not where she thought she was on the map. A wall of fast-moving snow slammed into her front, forcefully stealing her breath and pushing her backwards even as it enveloped her. SWIM UP! Her mind screamed. Junko swam in the flowing snow, doing her best to keep her head and arms above the wave. The snow rose around her, despite her best efforts, threatening to stifle her movements. Just as Junko pulled her arms in front of her face, creating what she hoped would be an air pocket, the wave began to slow and dissipate. Eventually, the flow ceased altogether, and Junko dug around her torso and legs, gingerly climbing out, and falling repeatedly as she did so in the unpacked snow. Finally finding hard ground beneath her feet, she sank down, resting her trembling limbs. There is no emotion, there is peace. The mantra played by reflex in her mind. There is no emotion, there is peace. She repeated, intentionally this time, biting her lip as if to stopper up the well of emotions bubbling up from pouring out of her mouth. How can there be no emotion? She wondered wildly, feeling unwanted tears stinging her eyes. I might die here.
No. She thought sharply, in response to her own feelings. That's unnecessarily dramatic. It's not dusk yet.
But I have no idea where I am, a small voice in her head replied.
Even if the sun sets… but the thought died in her mind. Nights on Hoth could get up to -60॰C without windchill. The still falling snow gave her hope that tonight might be warmer than other nights. However, even in a temporary shelter, which would be difficult to build without her tools back at her igloo, without dry clothes and her bedroll, she would be in trouble. If she survived the night, she might not have the consciousness or strength to find her igloo in the morning. If the bad weather persisted, she might not be able to find her way in the morning anyway, regardless of how much strength she had left.
She had to try. Without her tools, it would be difficult to build as robust of a shelter as she needed, but she still had a couple hours before sundown, and could at least get enough of an igloo built to protect her for one night. She could probably even start a fire and maybe dry some of her clothes. She nodded to herself, pushing up on knees still wobbly from the exertion of fighting against the avalanche… and promptly tumbled down a tall pile of scree.
When she stopped rolling, Junko lay on her back at the bottom of the slope, winded and aching. When her breath returned, she sat up gently and did a quick check - it didn't seem like anything was broken, though she would be bruised for days. Ha, she smirked darkly at herself. And here I am, thinking I have days. I'll be lucky if I'm alive enough tomorrow to even feel my bruises. Though when she looked around her, Junko wondered if the Force had smiled on her at last. She had fallen into a sort of alcove protected overhead from the snow by a low bedrock outcrop and on two sides from the wind by the slope down which she had tumbled. I must have rolled down a moraine, she mused. She couldn't stand up fully under the short outcrop, but there was enough covered space that she would be able to build a fire here, if any of her supplies had survived. There was also space for her to lie down if she curled up, and she could maybe build a wall of snow on the open side to protect her from the wind. Junko warmed at the thought. She might just last the night!
Junko found a trowel in her daypack that had thankfully not fallen out earlier, and cleared away the thin layer of snow under the outcrop. Junko scooted to the rock wall and started rummaging through her pack and pockets to see what she had to work with to build a fire. As Junko reached into her bag, she heard a low, throaty warble. A warble? She thought, confused. What makes such a sound on Hoth? She looked around with her eyes while testing her surroundings with her Force sense. She could register nothing with either sense. The warble sounded again, and this time, Junko was able to see a small hole in the ground at the base of the bedrock outcropping that she hadn't noticed before. Curious, she crouched on her knees, peering into the small space, and saw a plump, snowy-white bird, sitting amongst a thin nest of lichens and short, dead grasses. It eyed her suspiciously, and then warbled indignantly. Junko's eyes widened. A previously undiscovered species! And one that she couldn't sense with the Force. She mourned the drained battery in her camera for a moment, before pulling out the waterproof tree paper and stick of graphite she had brought as an absolute last resort for taking notes. She sketched the bird, annoyed at her terribly inartistic skill set, and then jotted down as detailed of notes as she could manage. She marveled at her inability to sense the creature, and awed at the realization that she was probably the first sentient life form to have seen one of these birds, as no records had ever given evidence of aviary life on Hoth. Does that mean I get to name it? She wondered. I guess I'll have to think of something when I get back… if I get out of this alive.
Junko leaned back, wishing she had a ration bar to share with her new friend, until the bird hopped to the side of its nest, revealing a ragged patch of fabric that looked undeniably like it belonged to her backpack…
"Why! You absolute goon!" Junko bellowed, jumping to her feet. The bird warbled threateningly, orienting its body downward and fluffing out its full wingspan. Junko calmed immediately, kneeling to furiously writing notes - "protects internal organs with downward position when threatened," she noted, "uses wings to appear larger to ward off predator, warbles warning." With Junko distracted, the bird hesitantly tucked in its wings again. Junko looked up and sighed. As annoyed as she was at this bird and its dumb antics that had started all this mess, she felt increasingly certain that her life was not in danger any more. She also had begun to sense something else - not the bird itself - but that the bird, and that this encounter, was important. She had begun to feel as if it was not coincidental. And Junko knew better than to ignore those feelings.
Perfect time to meditate? She thought, amused. Though first I think I should finish this shelter and get a fire going… just in case. Junko spent the next hour compacting snow, making an additional wall, and starting a small fire with her kit, which had mercifully survived the day's adventures. Her underlayers had gotten damp from her "swim" in the avalanche, and while the fire was too small to totally dry them out, it got them most of the way there. Junko left her wettest layers off her body, pulling on the mostly dry ones and hoping that her body heat would take care of the rest. Her shelter built and her clothes comparatively dry, Junko moved to meditate. The Padawan folded her legs and straightened her back, closing her eyes on the odd, white bird, who had watched her, unmoving, the whole time.
It was difficult to focus, as Junko was agitated from the life-threatening circumstances that had defined the last few hours, and excited over the discovery of a new and intriguing species. But she managed, and an hour or so later, emerged from her meditative state to see dusk falling. Though she had no concrete answers, she felt much less hungry and tired, and was certain that this little partial cave was where she was supposed to be. The white bird sat in front of her, away from its nest and the hole in which it was nestled, its blue eyes trained on her face. She hadn't noticed the blue eyes before. She shrugged and made a note on her archaic paper.
"Why can't I sense you?" Junko wondered aloud. The bird continued staring at her. It warbled softly. Junko tried unsuccessfully to imitate the sound and laughed at herself. As the light faded, Junko continued sitting with the bird. Not taking notes, not making plans for the next day, but just… sitting in its presence. It seemed to her that the bird's eyes became increasingly brighter and bluer as it got darker, but surely that was just a trick of the light. Eventually, she nodded to the bird and said, "Well, I for one am exhausted and haven't eaten in a very long time and I think I'm going to go to bed. You'd better not make another hole in my bag while I'm sleeping. Or… or else." She finished lamely, chuckling at herself. Junko pulled out the extra wraps from her pack, laying them on the ground and bundling herself in them. She balled her pack up and tucked it under her head and let herself doze off.
Junko awoke to soft warbles in her ear. Though she awoke instantly, she swatted lazily at the bird, enjoying the warmth of her cocoon and not wanting to stir, lest she let cold air in. She frowned when she saw that it was still dark enough to be the dead of night. She checked her chrono and her eyes widened. "It IS the dead of night," she commented, giving the bird a sidelong glance. "Did you miss the part when I said I was tired? You woke me up after only a few hours of sleep!" Junko protested further, but then paused in her grousing. The bird's eyes were glowing a bright blue. There was no light for them to be reflecting, so how…? The light pooled around the bird, becoming fainter the further away it was, so the glow was clearly coming from the bird. "Strange…" she murmured, making a mental note to jot down her observations in the morning. She moved to lay back down, but the bird warbled insistently.
"Okay, okay!" She huffed. Junko begrudgingly uncocooned herself from her wraps, sad to let escape the precious body heat she'd collected in her makeshift bedroll over the past few hours. She punched a hole in her snow wall, muttering under her breath about "damned Force sensitive birds." She stopped regretting getting out of bed, however, as soon as she stepped out from under the overhanging outcrop. The fierce winds from earlier were completely still, and in the distance, the sky was alight with dancing lights that she hadn't been able to see from her shelter. "They're beautiful!" She exclaimed, turning to look at the bird, as if it could understand her words. Though oddly enough, it did seem to understand. Maybe it could read her sense. Or something. She stood, admiring the gracefully moving colors rippling through the starred night sky, and slowly realized that she could faintly hear melodic humming. She turned again towards the bird.
"What is it?" She asked. But the bird had started to toddle back towards their half-snow, half-rock cave.
"What?!" Junko started. "You drag me out of my warm bed only to..." She broke off as the humming grew just a tiny bit louder. As the humming grew, so did her sense. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had heard stories about Jedi who were out on adventures and had heard humming. She didn't dare to hope the humming meant what she thought it did, but she knew she had to follow it regardless. She nodded to herself, going back to the shelter only long enough to stow her remaining things in her pack (which she checked for new holes from that darned bird) and emerge again. She turned from the shelter and hesitated. She pursed her lips for a moment, then took a knife from her pocket and cut off a square from one of her extra wraps. "I don't think I'll need it," she said, reaching into the hole at the base of the bedrock outcrop to offer the scrap of fabric to the bird. The bird looked at her, cocking its head slightly, and Junko nodded to it, then turned and walked away.
She followed the humming, though it led her further away from the slope down which she fell. Junko crossed numerous small hills, and eventually she came to a cave - a real cave. She paused only briefly before following the humming inside. The cave was large enough to potentially host the largest of Hoth's residents, but wampas or not, this was where she was supposed to go. Although… she paused again, rummaging for her emergency blaster in her pack. Force leading and all, it still seemed like a good idea to be prepared. As soon as she pulled out the weapon, however, the humming faded so quickly and intensely that Junko struggled to hear it at all.
"O-kay…." she said slowly. "Guess it's not a good idea." She put the blaster back in the bag, and the humming resumed instantly, though much quieter than before. She took a deep breath, even more sure now that she was on the right path, even walking on sacred ground. Junko followed the humming for hours through twists and turns, becoming less and less concerned about finding her way back. It now felt as if the Force itself was physically pulling her, the compelling need to meet the source of the music so strong she couldn't imagine how she hadn't noticed the draw before.
Finally, Junko came to a place where the tunnel opened up. Until this point, the Force hum had drawn her forward, and without a light source, she had felt her way along the tunnel walls. Now, however, she could see that the tunnel opened up by the light cast by two impossibly bright, glowing blue eyes. No - three glowing blue eyes. Three? Despite being enraptured in awe, Junko frowned in confusion. She stepped closer and realized the third eye wasn't an eye at all, but a crystal, glowing the bright blue as the bird's eyes. In the faint blue light, Junko could see that this bird had some black speckles in its plumage. She smiled to herself - a different individual of the same species, and another note for her research. The bird stared, unwavering, at Junko.
"Is it… is it for my lightsaber?" She whispered, not expecting an answer, and afraid to mar the beautiful humming she could hear emanating from the crystal. The bird, of course, did nothing in response. Junko nodded, letting her instincts tell her that yes, this was her crystal, though she had not expected to find it for a long time yet, and had thought she'd be in the crystal cave with other Padawans on Ilum when she did.
With trembling hands, Junko reached out and let her forefinger and thumb graze the sides of the crystal, plucking it gently from where it was embedded in the tunnel wall above the bird. As soon as she had removed it, Junko ceased to hear the humming. Instead, it felt like the humming had become part of her. Like it was now her heartbeat - no, had always been part of her heartbeat and the rhythms of her breathing. She could feel the music zinging happily through her skin and in her bones. She grinned, curling her hand around the crystal, and followed the new pull she felt through the rest of the tunnels in the cave.
When she emerged from the cave, Junko was standing at the base of a mountain. In the distance and the growing dawn, she could just make out a faint, white mound in the middle of the icefield: her igloo.
Exactly one standard galactic week and one day later, a small cruiser carrying Master Fenton and a pilot landed at the coordinates Junko had sent them once they were in communications range.
"Junko," Titus greeted her warmly. "I trust your mission has proved fruitful and…" he paused, perhaps sensing the crystal. "...meaningful?" He finished.
Junko nodded. "There were many unexpected challenges, Master," she replied. "But none more fruitful or meaningful than the one that led me to this," Junko said, pulling out the bright blue crystal she had found in the cave.
Titus' eyes widened in surprise. "A permafrost crystal," he identified it. "These are exceedingly rare."
"A permafrost crystal," Junko repeated, testing out the new term.
"It is not yet time for you to construct your lightsaber, my Padawan," Titus commented. "And you have expressed interest in the Consular class, which typically wields a green saber."
Junko nodded thoughtfully. "I had always planned to have a green lightsaber. But… this crystal must be the right one for me, right?" She asked. "I heard it singing."
Master Fenton smiled and nodded at his Padawan. "Yes, I think this must be your crystal. Keep it safe until the time comes for you to assemble your lightsaber."
"I will, Master," Junko grinned, pocketing the crystal and walking with him further into the ship. The cruiser took off, and Junko watched from a window as the topography she'd so meticulously studied and recorded faded in the distance.
Fruitful indeed, she thought happily.