Last time: Kyr saw a bunch of actual ghosts. Sasha and Viran nearly got blown up in a ghost town.

Now: Kyr goes to a crazy populated planet. Sasha and Viran encounter memories of the past.

Chapter 5- Tour Guides and Painful Memories

Kyr drummed his fingers on the console in front of him. Bored. Everything had been inventoried. So many times. They had even cleaned the ship, a little. All of his guns had run through the firing range many, many times.

Tac was busy knitting up a storm in the lounge, an entire wardrobe existed for the cat-to-be, and he had taken into account the average size and weight of lothcats and was working on completing the set for when the cat-to-be grew-to-be an adult. When they had passed by an outpost Kyr had gone to get a drink or five, and then taken Tac shopping at a craft store, and he had gone nuts spending Kyr's money on a whole collection of yarn. Since Tac didn't have a sense of softness or proper touch, Kyr had had to feel the cloth for him. He had garnered a few strange looks in that store, a well armed Mando, fully armored, rifle slung against his chest, standing there and comparing the yarn samples and arguing with his droid. They had found a nice mixed material that was incredibly soft, and he'd made the mistake of suggesting that they didn't know if they would get a little girl or a little boy kitten. After a seconds processing time, Tac had insisted that they get appropriate colors for both, just so they were prepared. Usually that sense of preparedness worked well for Kyr, since he could generally depend on Tac to have several different plans for the fire support he had to call in. He hadn't ever thought the same sort of tactical and strategic foresight in his T1C unit used for blowing enemies to smithereens would apply to preparation for receiving a pet kitten.

Oh they had also visited a few temples. More than a few. The stories were varied, and they were starting to run together now. The last one had been underwater so he'd had to hire a Mon Calamari guide to take him in a submersible down there. Tac thought it was great, he liked the fish. He had questioned why the submarine was not properly armed though.

The alarm for hyperspace exit started ringing through the cockpit, and he reached for the control levers, staying slouched in the chair, and lazily flicked the levers down, bringing them out of hyperspace. At least this world was supposed to be another populated one.

It was, there was a starbase in orbit, and he could see many, many ships flitting through the atmosphere and orbital space. Not a lot of ships, it was by no means a Coruscant or a Corellia, but it was more populated than Kyr generally preferred. It was also a weird planet, one of the few he had encountered that wasn't dominated by one specific biome. He could see vast swaths of desert, polar ice caps, mountains, forests and everything in between, the world was an unexpected kaleidoscope of different colors. Probably just had an eccentric enough axial tilt and orbit that it hadn't ended up settling on one particular dominant biome. Weird.

He contacted orbital control and requested a low orbit slot while he considered his options. The imager would have a hard time finding the temple, though the planet's holonet might actually be of some use here. He set the sensors to scan for the usual arrangement of the temple, hoping it had not been trampled over. Apparently this world was a bit of a tourist spot, specifically because of its incredible variety of biomes. In one day tourists could rent a speeder and go from searing desserts to tropical islands, to mountain top ski chalets. The whole thought of that much climate difference packed into one tiny planet seemed so strange.

"Tac!" He called back to the lounge. "Can you get on the holonet for this place and look for something like the temple site?" He called. He heard a warbling beep of acknowledgement from down the hall in the lounge.

About twenty minutes later he heard Tac come around the corner, saying he had found something, and gave coordinates. Kyr wasn't sure if he should believe his luck, this was the fastest they had been able to find a temple once they got to a planet. Tac went back down the corridor, whistling and beeping excitedly. Kyr was distracted and it took him a second to realize what the droid had said. He turned in his seat "Wait, what do you mean stop at the gift shop?"

He settled the Shadow Runner at the closest landing field, which was still a good distance away. Apparently the temple was preserved in a 'heritage site', and that meant it had a gift shop. That Tac insisted they visit. Kyr had rented a speeder and they had set off. It was a thirty minute or so ride to get there, and when they arrived, Kyr hopped out of the speeder and hefted the droid out of the passenger seat, and then surveyed the site. He was crestfallen.

It was swarmed with tourists of every type, every species it seemed was here, and the place had hundreds of people, an entire battalion of tourists were out in force. And his Mandalorian armor and well armed presence did garner some curious, sometimes fearful looks. He hadn't felt this uncomfortable since that time he had stumbled into an entire hangar bay full of troops trying to escape from that Star Destroyer.

Tac loved it though, he went wheeling off to make friends with a stand that looked like it sold some sort of fried breadpaste tubes covered in cinnamon sugar. Kyr followed him over, and Tac asked him a question.

"No I'm not buying you a," he glanced at the sign, "cher'oh. You don't even eat, why do you want one?" He asked, incredibly puzzled.

A few warbling beeps popped back at him.

"How would having a cher'oh help you blend in? Besides you're not the one everyone's looking at." He looked uneasily around, apparently bright coppery beskar and a blaster pistol at his hip made him stand out. He tried to look as friendly as possible, then realized that behind the T-visor it probably just made him look even scarier to these tourists.

"Tac come on, let's just go."

Tac warbled his disappointment and headed off towards the ruins behind Kyr. As they approached the temple, trying to figure out where the stela was in all this mess, a docent stepped in his way. "I'm sorry sir you and your droid aren't allowed here." She glanced at the diminutive astromech droid looking longingly at a pratshal stand, "If you would like there will be a guided tour in another six minutes." She said sweetly.

Kyr looked down at her, not sure what to do. This was, truely, the toughest resistance he had encountered thus far on this mission. The guys with the flint arrows at least let him get the scan done first before interfering.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Kyr said "I didn't realize."

"That's fine sir, if you'll wait over here with the tour group I'll be leading it soon." She said with a dazzling and friendly smile.

She made him feel uneasy. "Thank you ma'm." He said politely, and then heading off to join the indicated group. Tac followed along behind him, quite enjoying their impromptu status as tourists. He was currently eyeing some balloons. He whistled a question up at Kyr.

"Well, yeah but they don't have much control, they just kinda... float, so they wouldn't deliver it with much precision." Kyr observed back at him, also eyeing the balloons. They shuffled in to join the crowd that was formed for the guided tour. He looked down at the droid, and muted his outside amp so he could speak to the droid privately. "Can you get the scans you need if we can't get to the center of the site?" It looked like it was roped off. Probably one of the most formidable barricades Kyr had ever witnessed.

Tac considered for a moment, then warbled that he would, if he had some extra time.

Kyr unmuted himself and asked the fellow next to him. "Excuse me," he asked politely. The Rodian turned to face him and stepped back in surprise, looking up at the T-visor. "Do you know how long this tour lasts?" He asked.

"Uhh.. I believe twenty minutes or so." The Rodian said, unsure.

"Thank you." Kyr muted himself again. "That should be long enough, right?" Tac whistled his agreement.

"Thank you for your patience everyone! My name is Candi, and I'll be your tour guide today for this heritage site. The temple is believed to be…" The docent girl began. Kyr's mind started to wander as he glazed over. This was horrible. They slowly shuffled forward at a pace that would make a snail depressed. Tac loved it, and listened attentively to every point while he took the scans as they slowly made their way around the site.

Tac bumped into his thigh plate, making the beskar ring a little. That snapped Kyr out of his stupor and he looked down at the droid. "What?" He asked.

Tac whistled and warbled a question up at him.

Kyr rolled his eyes and then stuck his hand up, the Docent stopped her presentation upon noticing. "Yes sir?" She said in a voice so sweet as to give one cavities.

"My droid wanted to know what type of stone these are."

"Ah, that's a great question, they are made out of a dolomite material that is actually not found here, it's believed to have been quarried at a site 600 kilometers away…"

Kyr stopped listening then while Tac hung on every word. He pulled some loud music up to listen in the privacy of his bucket while he waited for the torture to end.

They finally, finally, worked their way around to where the stela was. He inspected it surreptitiously, noting, again, the same important events depicted, and the local panels. All he saw was his helmeted figure standing next to… Tac? Tac had never been on one of these panels before. He looked down at the droid then back up to the scene. It looked like there was another figure attacking Kyr. He looked closer and saw that he was wearing a hat of some sort. The droid was, not Kyr.

"And we're walking, we're walking, please keep up sir. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have about the stela after the tour." The docent said. He kept following with the crowd.

Kyr privately called Tac. "You done yet?"

A couple of whistles and a warble responded to him. Halfway there. Kyr sighed in the privacy of his buy'ce. He was starting to feel like a snack though, maybe he would try a cher'oh when this was finally done.

They continued around the site. Every question he had ever wondered about the temples was discussed, he even got answers about the sites, apparently they were dated to be over 8,000 years old, that put them back in the days of the Old Republic, back during the heyday of one of the Sith wars, which was darned old. They didn't know who built them which was a shame. That was the one thing he was disappointed not to find out, Kyr really wondered about that. They also didn't know what the stones were aligned to. Ha, amateurs. He thought.

The tour finally dissolved at the end of the site directly into the gift shop. Tac started wandering off, and he was about to follow when the docent stepped in front of him.

"I hope you liked the tour, sir, I noticed you studying the stela, did you have any questions?" She asked with a keen smile.

"Oh, no you did a good job of answering all the questions through the tour." He said, feeling a prickling sensation on the back of his neck.

"I'm very glad to hear that, if you have any questions at all feel free to come see me." She said.

"I will. Well actually there was one question-" He started to say.

"Yes?" She looked at him with sparkling eyes.

"You don't know who built this place?" He asked, wanting to see if there was more information.

"No, there are several theories." She began. "That's actually what my doctoral thesis is on, it's possible it was built by a native species that went extinct millenia ago before the first explorers found this planet."

"Well that couldn't be it," he mused, "they wouldn't have been able to build the other -" Kyr caught himself and stopped talking, but too late.

"Other what? Other... temples?" Her face took on a deadly serious facade, like a sniper that had found a new target. "What other temples? This is the only known temple."

"Oh, right then sorry I meant, I… er… uh need to go check on my droid." He said, trying to escape.

She grabbed his chest plate to keep him from turning away. "What do you mean by other temples?" She looked feral.

He looked down at her little hand holding his armor plate like a vice grip. He was genuinely frightened. She seemed to realize that she was accosting a visitor and pulled back. "Ahem." She coughed. "What I mean, sir, is that there are no other temples that we know of by these same builders, but if there were other temples their value would be beyond imagination."

He looked down at her "Oh I dunno I can imagine a lot."

"I meant academically." Her eyes narrowed again.

"Ah, right, well, good luck on finding those other temples, I mean, if they exist." He said, trying to get away.

Just then Tac rolled up. In a new hat. A very touristy hat.

Out of reflex Kyr checked the current time and remembered it as their reference for the alignment calculations.

"Oh, well, there he is, would you look at the time, I need to get going but… I uh..." He stopped, the docent was staring daggers at him, and her petite hands were balled into tight fists. "Look, I'm not saying that there are other temples, but if there were, maybe it would make sense that the stone's alignment has something to do with them." He said. "Especially at this time of day." He added.

Her eyes narrowed, and then widened as the realization dawned. Kyr escaped while she was distracted, out to their speeder. He looked longingly at the cher'oh stand but decided he needed to exit hostile territory as soon as possible. If they survived this mess and got Op back, maybe he would come back some day to give her the other temple locations.

Sasha was beginning to lose count of the number of temples they had visited. They visited so many on this adventure. To be fair they visited a few every month and so far they had been gone for almost six months since they left Artemis and Kyr. But considering all the time traveling in between each one as well as the several times they stopped at an outpost to rest up at an local inn as they couldn't take it with the bunks. Thankfully, when Viran had gone through the ship he had found a small safe that was tucked away by the ISB agents that owned the ship prior. It was filled with Imperial and some non-imperial credits. Viran assumed they kept it on the ship as the Empire probably wanted to make sure their top agents had everything they needed to get the job done. So those credits had become useful when they ran low and needed supplies or food or fuel or wanted to stay at an inn for a night.

Also during their time traveling, Sasha continued to communicate with Oppie. It wasn't every night that she spoke with him, but she tried to at least give him a weekly update. Sometimes they were able to chat for almost an hour and other times he would just disappear mid sentence as if their signal was cut off. Anyway, Sasha didn't divulge every microscopic detail in her updates. She would tell him about the temples they visited, the stelas, and occasionally the strange things that would happen afterward to them. But she couldn't bring herself to tell him about how time was actually passing in the real world while he was trapped.

She had no idea if it would make him feel better knowing how much was actually passing or if it would be better to tell him when he finally returns. It was horrible for her not to tell him, but her anxiety made her worried about how all of this was making him feel. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, she guessed. She also didn't tell him about her and Viran. It wasn't that she didn't want to. Their conversations never gave her an opening to tell him. But she knew that she needed to tell him soon. Just how soon was soon?

The next coordinates they were following placed them in a system that was only several parsecs from Vestora. In a strange way, it felt like they were headed home, but they knew they were going to a completely different system of planets. Or to be more accurate, a small moon outpost that was used by the Separatists but was destroyed by the Republic during the Clone Wars. Viran guided the ship into the atmosphere while Sasha told him where to land. The temple was nowhere near the remnants of the battlefield, but still seeing the remains of tanks, fighters and the scars of the battle from the shuttle made them frown. It had been almost sixteen years since the war ended and Empire Day was creeping up in the next few months.

Viran landed the shuttle practically on the front steps of it as there was nothing preventing him from landing so close. Just like they did on all the other worlds they visited, they would walk up to the temple and set up the imager in the same spot every time then they would go inspect the stela. But before they split off to do that, Viran stood beside the imager with his arms folded.

"What's up?" Sasha asked, noticing his body language.

"It's just that…" he paused for a moment. "We have been at this for so long now. It's just becoming one big vicious cycle."

"I know," Sasha said with a nod. "But we need to do this to bring Oppie back."

"I understand, Sash. I just wish that we didn't have to go on this wild bantha hunt for as long as we have," Viran said with a frown.

Sasha raised an eyebrow at him. "I agree that it's been tedious, but it hasn't been all bad has it?" She asked him with an inflection as she came over and wrapped her arms around him.

Viran snorted. "Well no. I love spending all this time with you and traveling across the galaxy. It's like a dream. It's this part," he gestured to the imager and temple. "This is the part I wish we didn't have to do as much. That way Oppie would be back by now."

"Yeah, I agree on that end," She said as she dropped her arms. "But a small part of this is really intriguing as whoever built these temples and the stelas has been able to see into the future. And the fact that all of these are connected somehow. I have so many questions that I want answers for."

"Well I doubt we will ever get out answers here as these places are thousands of years old," Viran pointed out. "I guess it will just be a continual mystery."

Sasha nodded. "I'm going to check out the stela. Are you going to join me or hang out with the imager."

Viran considered for a moment before he spoke up. "I was actually going to go for a walk, but I'll be back by the time this thing is done." He jabbed his thumb toward the imager.

"Alright, be careful," Sasha advised.

"I think these visits have made me more careful," Viran said with a chuckle.

Sasha chuckled too before heading over to the stela while Viran went on his walk. When she reached the stela for this temple that would predict their fate, Sasha made a puzzled face. There was nothing wrong with the depiction. In fact, it just showed a ship that looked kind of like theirs leaving the planet while a large set of eyes watched from above. What the hell did that mean? She was still standing there, puzzling, when Viran returned.

"What's wrong?" he asked, concerned and breaking her from her daze.

"Oh umm.. It's just this stela is… odd," Sasha said as she gestured up to it.

Viran glanced up at it then his face contorted into the same puzzled expression.

"What does this even mean?" Viran asked.

"That's what I have been trying to figure out," Sasha admitted.

"Well whatever it means, the imager is done and we should get going," Viran suggested.

Sasha nodded. "Yeah, okay."

She turned to face him for the first time since he returned. That's when she noticed what he was holding. It was a blackened and busted Clone Trooper helmet. Sasha frowned.

"Where did you find that?" Sasha asked.

Viran glanced down at the helmet that was tucked under his arm. He then held it up in front of her.

"I found it on my walk," Viran said with a frown. "There was no body with it. It was just on it's own. I don't know why I grabbed it."

Sasha placed a hand on the helmet and brushed away the dirt on it.

"Do you remember the clone that we would run into every once and while at the Temple?" Sasha asked him.

Viran nodded. "Yeah, I remember. I just don't remember which Jedi was his general or what his name was. But he was super cool."

"Scamp," Sasha said. "His name was Scamp. It pains me to think what happened to him or what he may have done. There were so many clones like him that just were changed just by a mere phrase."

Viran nodded again. There was a silence between them. Sasha didn't even realize that tears were coming to her eyes until one fell and landed against the helmet. She wiped away her tears and shook her head.

"We should go," She said.

Viran followed after her as she returned to the imager. He set the bucket down on the altar as if it were a memorial shrine and helped her take down the imager. With the imager down, they returned to the ship and left the moon without another word spoken. As they broke the surface, they contacted Kyr and Tac once again with the new images. As soon as they got the coordinates, they made the leap into hyperspace leaving the moon and the memories of the war behind. Little did they realize that the eyes the stela alluded to was a pair of scouting TIE fighters that happened to be flying nearby in the system. And the fighters had spotted their vessel.

A Star Destroyer orbited around a nearby moon in the Vestora system. This ship was one of many in the fleet under Moff Jiardon. Unbeknownst to the Captain, the Moff kept a destroyer in orbit of the system by order of the Lady Cien just to keep an eye out for the Jedi she was tracking. That assignment was given several months ago and nothing was spotted from the scouts and patrols.

An admiral sat behind a desk in his office suite aboard the vessel. This ship made as good a station as any to oversee his sector, and it was mostly stationary. He was working through some reports on his data pad when a buzz came over his comms.

"What is it?" The admiral asked as he rubbed at his temples.

"Sir, apologies for the interruption, but I have an update from one of our fighter patrols," the voice on the other side said.

Straightening up, the Admiral leaned forward.

"Oh? What did they find?" He asked.

"Sir, they spotted a ship with an ISB transponder code exiting the moon in the nearby system. The markings match those of a shuttle that was last spotted on Artemis several months before the agents were killed in an hunting accident," the voice said.

"Excellent," the Admiral grinned. "Thank you commander."

He hung up the call and placed one to Moff Jiardon. Finally, their pointless patrol mission gave them something to work with.

Cien's meditation was interrupted by her commlink buzzing on the small control console in her sanctum aboard the Bloodstorm. Tearing her eyes open with a deadly snarl, she flicked the proper key with the force, activating the channel.

"I was not to be disturbed." Cien said in a calm, but deadly tone. "What is the meaning of this?"

"My lady, please accept my apologies. You have an incoming communication from Moff Jiardon, and you asked to be known of this at once." The terrified minion said on the other end.

A single eyebrow raised as he said that. She had always been the one to initiate communication with Jiardon when she had a command for his forces. He was only supposed to contact her if he had found something regarding those Jedi whelps. So, what did he find?

"Put him through," Cien said as she rose from her meditative position with a sense of grace.

"Yes, my lady," the minion responded before closing his line to her.

Cien moved over to her holoprojector table in the room and activated the hologram. A moment later, the esteemed Moff stood before her as a small figure so she could look down upon him from a great height. He was kneeling before her, his gaze to his shoes. She smirked as she truly loved having this kind of power and authority over people beneath her. Especially one so 'high ranking' as this Moff. Their technicians had discovered old Sith prerogatives programmed into the modern day Imperial comm network, and her face appeared before him as a gigantic holographic specter, looking down upon him.

"Moff Jiardon, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Cien asked graciously, hiding her annoyance. She tried to coddle his fragile psyche as best she could, Dracul ruled through fear, she would rule - ruled - through other means, by actually inspiring loyalty.

"I have an update regarding the search for the Jedi," he said as he raised from his kneeling position. She was slightly annoyed he did not hold his kneeling position until told otherwise, but he would learn proper protocol at a later time.

"Oh? Go on. You have my attention," Cien said with an interested smirk.

"My scouts spotted an ISB shuttle leaving a moon in the Calervon system near Vestora. It matches the markings of the shuttle you reported from Chikara," the Moff said as he stood at attention.

What were they doing there? "What is on the moon? Were your forces able to ascertain their mission?" She asked, not liking that she had to ask him for information.

He looked pleased to be able to answer - whether it was because he saw her lack of knowledge as a chink her her authority, or becuase he was glad to be proven useful she could not determine. Probably some mixture of both. "They seemed to spend some time at the ruins of an old stone temple of some sort, my scouts inspected the coordinates after their shuttle entered hyperspace. I will forward you the data they reported."

"Thank you, Moff Jiardon. I will contact you when it is time to make our next move." She said graciously.

That brought a smile to his face. "I will await your call, my lady."

His image flickered out as he bowed to her. Cien growled as she slammed her hand on the table. For months, those two children had eluded her. It didn't help that she had been severely injured and was in recovery for the most part, but the fact they were able to escape still made her angry. But another temple? Could it be part of the same system?

As the data scrolled in, she recognized it instantly. The same as the site where Dracul had died, bequeathing her her current status and title, and also the same as that temple where she and Kopesh had disabled that useless Jedi master nearly two years ago and Dracul had killed him after. This had to be related. She remembered the feeling of the Force there, from that night when she had fought Sasha and nearly killed her, before the girl's master had arrived and ruined everything. And now they were at an identical site. But why? She had only vague ideas of Dracul's plan, but he had wanted to use the lessons of that blasted holocron and the location of that temple to transport him to some other worldly space that would let him access any time or place, he had said. Could it be they might have some plan to bring their master back, if they could find a way to use those same powers to reach back to him?

Or out to him? Suddenly that distant growl from the darkness all those months ago, that sounded so much like Dracul trying to reach out to her during her own convalescence, which she had happily ignored, came back to her. Could they still be alive somewhere? Could they have survived that explosion that had so grievously injured her?

There was one way to find out. A sinister smile spread across her face as she returned to the cushions, where her meditation had been interrupted.

Sasha, reaching out to the Force for that familiar presence of the girl, what are you up to, dear child?

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