Chapter 1

Obi-Wan walked down the ramp of the ship into the bright sunlight and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light. Snow covered the landscape and in the distance was a massive mountain. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but the view was the same. "Xanatos, did Qui-Gon say anything about weird climates on this planet?"

"No, why?" Xanatos asked, coming up behind him.

Obi-Wan pointed toward the mountain. "Look, there is not a speck of snow on the mountain but everything else around here is coated with snow." He pulled his cloak tighter around him.

Unhooking a pair of binoculars that hung on his belt, Xanatos surveyed the mountain. "You're right. No, Qui-Gon certainly did not say anything about this." He hooked his binoculars back onto his belt and shifted the pack on his back. "That does give us a place to start though. We'll set up base camp five miles from the ship and then get an early start in the morning."

Obi-Wan nodded and started walking toward the mountain. The cold air bit at his exposed skin and his breath froze into a white mist in front of him. They had landed in the middle of a clearing, the nearest tree looked to be several miles away. Obi-Wan stopped at a small mound of snow and used the Force to blow the snow away revealing a miniature green tree, its trunk only as thick as his thumb with its highest point reaching his knee. "What do we know about the climate?"

"Qui-Gon thinks the snow season has just begun here. His first survey showed a very lush, warm, climate on this continent. Did you read his reports?" Xanatos asked.

"No, I didn't. I figured that if I'm to be bored, I might as well have as little information as possible before coming so I won't get bored as fast."

"And what would you rather be doing?" Xanatos asked.

Obi-Wan shrugged, "Anything but this."

"Well you better get used to it Obi-Wan. We have another eleven months and twenty five days of survey work to do before we return to the Temple. Just be glad this is a rotational assignment. We won't be assigned another survey project for ten years after this one." Xanatos responded.

"How long will the survey of the moons and the space around the planet take?"

"Oh, maybe two months, if the moons are uninhabitable and there are no out of the ordinary areas of space. After your Master and Bruck are done surveying up there they will come down and join us." Xanatos smirked and patted Obi-Wan on the shoulder. "At least you won't be cooped up on a ship for two months."

Obi-Wan's lips twitched into a grin. "Yes, it is a good thing I was sick the day we were supposed to leave. How did you convince Qui-Gon to take Bruck with him anyway?"

Xanatos fixed the hood of his cloak as a sudden gust of cold wind pushed against the hood. "Because he likes doing the space survey and last time we were on a surveying mission we did the space survey first before joining the second team on planet. Unfortunately the space survey took six months to complete because of an unusual section of space and some anomalies with the planet's sun. So I told him afterwards that if I I'm training a Padawan by the time we go surveying together again, he'll take my Padawan on the survey mission." Xanatos shrugged, "So you being sick wouldn't have changed anything."

Obi-Wan scanned the horizon. The sky was a deep shade of blue with no clouds in sight. The snow was recent. He scanned the snow in front of him as he walked, checking to see if there were any animal tracks. A few minutes later he stopped in his tracks and knelt down to examine some paw markings. "I found our first animal track."

Xanatos knelt down beside him and took out his datapad. He used it to take pictures of the sample and then recorded a couple of notes on his datapad. "Good eye, Obi-Wan." Xanatos praised as he stood up.

Obi-Wan was silent, standing tall and erect as he listened with his ears and with the Force. "It's quiet here, but there is an undercurrent of tension." He closed his eyes and stretched out with the Force to discover the source of the tension. After a few moments he opened his eyes. "It's gone."

"Any idea what direction?"

Obi-Wan pointed toward the mountain. "It came from there."

Xanatos rubbed his chin in thought. "An animal hunting perhaps?" He shivered and he began to walk. "Come on, we still have a ways to go."

By nightfall they had established camp and after eat a warm meal and sending their initial report to Qui-Gon, they went to bed. Obi-Wan laid bundled under his blanket, the privacy sheet dividing the small room and trapping the heat in the shelter. He pulled the blanket over his head and rested his head on his arms. Sleep tugged at his eyelids and within minutes he was asleep.

Help me! The cry rang through Obi-Wan's dreamless sleep, jerking him awake. He gasped, eyelids flying open, his heart beating fast. He stretched out with the Force for Xanatos' presence and found him deeply asleep. He checked the bond with his master and sensed that he too was peacefully sleeping. Brushing it off as an overactive imagination, he fell back to sleep.

Outside the shelter a pair of pale green eyes stared intently at the structure, and then, was gone.