Last time: The Jedi and Kyr arrived to the planet and met the keeper of the temple.
Now: They check out the cave.
Chapter 3- The Cave
The Jedi and the Mandalorian followed the path up along the side of the ravine, it was steep on both sides, one side heading down towards the dry river bed, and the other upwards towards the peaks above. They reached the rock shelf that the hermit had told them about, and had to search for a few minutes to find the obscured cave entrance. It was a steep climb down several meters of boulders into a low ceilinged cavern, they stood there hunched, Kyr turned on the torch on his blaster and saw that it continued down a way, in a lazy curve off to the side. Loose scree was underfoot, and the ceiling looked like it grew higher as it went off to the distance.
"Well, this looks like it might be the place." Viran said.
"Then let's get moving," Sasha said a little too eagerly. She activated her lightsaber to provide more light for them. Viran did the same.
Kyr started moving forward, but was brought up short by a distorted message from Tac. He stepped back to the entrance.
"Can you hear me now?" Kyr asked into the line, Tac answered with a positive warble. "Good! What's going on?" He asked, holding his hand up to the side of his helmet to press it a little more firmly into his ear. He looked up at Sasha and Viran, his face hidden under his buy'ce but his body language tensing like he was entering a fight. "Okay, bring the Shadow Runner to our position, there's a rock shelf you can land on." He turned to the Jedi, "Tac just spotted an Imperial scout doing a low pass over the ravine."
"Blast, that means that the Empire may not be far behind," Viran cursed.
"Do you think they tracked us here from the last temple?" Sasha pondered.
"Dunno, guess it doesn't really matter how they found us, they're here now. Sport's right, if they spotted the Shadow, and they should have, then his buddies won't be far behind." He considered for a moment. "You guys stay down here, and figure this out, I'll go setup a welcoming party for them."
"Are you sure you won't need help?" Viran asked.
"Yeah, I got this Sport, it's just Imps. With any luck it was just a random scout and they won't follow up on it for a day or two, and we'll be long gone." He said, already turning to head back up the entrance.
Viran shrugged. "Alright if you're sure."
"Kyr," Sasha spoke up.
"Yeah Sash'ika?" He said, stopping to look back.
"Be careful," She said.
"If I have to be." He said with a smirk audible in his voice, before turning back to head up the boulders at the entrance towards the daylight.
Sasha felt her breath hitch in her throat as she heard Kyr say that. The last time she uttered those words to someone it was Oppie and then the next time she saw him, he disappeared shortly after. So hearing Kyr say the exact same response in the exact same way made Sasha very uneasy. She watched as he walked away from the cave entrance while feeling the heavy wave of deja vu hit her.
"Sash," Viran's voice pulled her out of her trance as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Come on."
Sasha nodded and followed Viran down into the cave. They moved at a slow pace to avoid slipping as the ground underfoot was not stable. Using their free hand, they used the wall as support while their other hand held their sabers. The further down they went, the darker it got. Soon the only source of light was their sabers emitting a bright blue and green. It took them a great deal of time to trek down to the bottom of the cave, but once they reached it, they could feel the ground even out under their feet.
Shining their sabers up, they found themselves in a cavern that had images and murals drawn onto the walls. Sasha and Viran approached the murals and looked them over.
"What are these?" Viran asked. "They don't look like the stela images. They almost look like something entirely different."
Sasha scanned her eyes over the images. She noticed that the images seemed to form a story based on the way they were drawn. Looking closer, she noticed the order the images were in and what was happening in them.
"I think… I think these are instructions," Sasha said as she continued to examine them.
"Instructions? Like how to bring Oppie back?" Viran guessed.
"I think so," Sasha said with a nod. "But I'm not entirely sure yet. Let's find where these start and go from there."
Viran nodded and they split up to serve the cavern. They checked every single mural trying to find the first one. It took them about fifteen minutes before either of them found it.
"Here!" Sasha said, pointing to it. "This is where it starts."
"How can you tell?' Viran asked as he came up to examine the one she was looking at.
"Look at the image on your left. Then look at the one on your right," Sasha instructed. Viran glanced at one then the other then back again. "Don't you see? The image on the left is the person leaving the opening. The image on the right is the user standing in front of this very image. And then next to that it is showing what the next step is to learning how to use the folding technique."
Viran's gaze shifted, following the sequence of images until he turned to face the whole cavern. The cavern itself was larger than the bunk space on their ISB shuttle or the lounge on Kyr's ship. And there were so many of the paintings on the wall, it wasn't going to be a simple task.
"Sash, there are so many steps. How long is this going to take?" Viran asked. "I mean look around here. It could take an hour or longer."
"Well then, no time to waste," Sasha said.
While Sasha started with translating the images, Viran grabbed his commlink and moved closer to the exit so he could get a clearer signal. He placed a call up to Kyr.
"What did you guys find?" Kyr's voice filled the commlink.
"We found some instructions on how to bring Oppie back," Viran explained. "It's gonna take a while before Sasha knows what to do."
"Can you define 'a while'?" He asked. Tac had just let him know that a troop transport shuttle had jumped into orbit and were starting to head down. As Tac landed he had directed him to land against the rock face, where the shield would overlap into the cliff face that hid the cave. Last thing they needed was an orbital strike triggering a cave in. He had hopped aboard to the armoy, leaving his carbine blaster hidden somewhere handy outside the ship, in case he needed to get to it, and now he was moving down the trail, marking points for artillery barrage and missile strikes, and keeping an eye out for good sniping positions. He carried his verpine with him, and slung across his back was the DLT-19D he had taken off the Death Troopers. He had also grabbed his rocket pack, since he might need the mobility here. Usually it was bulky and heavy, and he preferred to keep it displayed in the armory. But this was gearing up to be a special occasion.
"Let's say… 45 minutes. Tops," Sports voice answered.
"Uhh.. okay, sounds good, keep me apprised." Overhead the Sentinel class shuttle roared. He wondered if it had gone over the comlink.
"Uh… what was that?" Sport chimed with a hint of worry.
"Dead stormtroopers." Kyr said, grimly.
Up the trail, Cien was hidden behind some boulders, figuring out how to approach this. The copper clad Mandalorian had crawled out of the cave, and she had observed him moving down the trail, looking like he was scouting the terrain. Her comlink had chipped, letting her know Moff Jiardon's forces had started arriving. He had ordered his assets into place, and they were starting to trickle in as faster ships arrived before others. The fool's scout ship had apparently been spotted though, letting the Jedi and this… Mandalorian know what was going on. She knew of Mandalorians from her own time, but had heard little of them in the current era. What little she knew was that they had turned pacifist before falling to a civil war at the end of the Clone Wars, she wasn't particularly impressed with them then, nor was she now.
As he moved off, she slipped in behind him and down into the cave. Pausing to let her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness before delving deeper.
REVIEW!