Last time: Kyr and Cien decide to stay a couple days to celebrate 2 years as a couple.

Now: Sasha has started improving in her health.

Chapter 14- A Strange Presence

"We can stop now, you know." Oppie's voice said as Cien walked into the training room to see how Sasha's latest session was going.

"I know, but I feel like I can do one more lap," Sasha responded, out of breath, but with a determinedness to her tone.

"Overdoing it can be deleterious as well." Cien said as she walked further into the room.

Sasha looked up from where she was standing at the end of the shooting range and pseudo therapy room. She was hardly leaning on the support rail, but was still supporting herself more with her right leg than left. Sasha smirked at her. "Fair, but one more time can't hurt," she tried to argue.

Oppie looked over at Cien slightly exasperated.

Cien had to suppress a bemused chuckle, she remembered Oppie worried that her stubbornness was being put towards not getting better, rather than diving into her recovery as he had expected. That certainly didn't seem to be the case now. "Kelce told me to be careful when I was helping Kyr. You're still recovering, pushing yourself too hard can cause problems too."

"I'm not winning this discussion, am I?" Sasha asked with an annoyed sigh.

"No." Cien stated.

Sasha sighed again. "Fine. I'll stop for today. You two win," she groaned with a roll of her eyes.

"Sorry we're mean." Oppie said with obvious amusement.

"All Xiv's are," Sasha said, stealing Cien's line. But she still smiled at him.

"Yes." Cien stated with a dignified air about her.

Sasha shot her a sideways glare before rolling her eyes. It had been two weeks since they returned from the beach and everyday since, Sasha had been in here with Oppie in some capacity working on getting her strength back. In fact, just last week, she was no longer using the chair as much. She started to rely on the crutches that were provided to her more. And according to Kelce, who was over the moon to hear she was doing better, if she kept this up, she would be back to her full strength in no time.

Oppie laughed at that. "Well should we go see what everyone is up to? I'll need to get dinner started soon."

"Yeah, we can," Sasha said as she looked around the room. She spotted her crutches back near the entrance to the shooting range and summoned them over with the Force. Catching them in one hand, she then tucked them under her arms and adjusted them accordingly. "Do you want some help making dinner?" She asked Oppie as she started to head out with them.

"Sure." Oppie said.

"I wanted to ask you both," Cien started, uncharacteristically uneasy as they started walking. "Have you felt anything strange in the Force the last week or two?"

"I haven't, really." Oppie said, "but you two are more sensitive than I am."

Sasha was about to answer then stopped herself as she thought about it for a moment. "You know, now that you've mentioned it. I have noticed something," she said with a slight shudder. "I actually was trying to ignore it as I wasn't sure what it was, but I kept thinking it might be connected to what happened on Myrkr."

"It feels like an odd presence that's been looking over my shoulder these past days." Cien said with a frown. "I admit it's making me uneasy, to the point of being nauseous." She said a little subdued.

Sasha exchanged a worried glance with Oppie before looking back to Cien. She bit her lip for a moment as she pondered on whether she should say what suddenly came to mind for her. "Do you think it could be Ikari or whatever happened back at that temple?" She asked carefully.

Cien stopped for a second, thinking back to what had happened before the events of Caranas. The visions that had sent both her and Sasha to Morgual. She had all but forgotten it in the events afterwards with the cartel. "I can't imagine there is any way she survived." Cien said, as she continued walking with them. "I watched her die in space, and I think I would sense her directly if she had somehow survived." She stated, but a part of her wasn't sure, thinking back to those visions.

"What happened at the temple?" Oppie asked, "was this when you guys left in the middle of the night?"

"Yeah it was that trip," Sasha answered. "We got there and discovered the place was completely empty. Well except for the voices that kept trying to bring us down while we were there. But we stumbled across this holocron that produced this hologram of some ancient Sith. He then brought the temple down on our heads. But there was no sign of Ikari."

"Maybe it was him, though?" Cien thought. "But the holocron was destroyed, it exploded." She said thoughtfully. In the back of her mind that presence was still there at the fringes, though, and it nagged at her.

"Then I don't know what it is or what it could be, but…" Sasha hesitated for a second. "But I did have a thought cross my mind." She said that as they entered into the living room where Viran and Kyr were sitting going through ship catalogs on their datapads while Lana played with her toys on her blanket on the floor. "And it's something I've wanted to discuss with all of you," she said, addressing the others as they entered the room.

Kyr looked up at her with a sunken expression. "You want A-Wings instead, don't you?" He said.

"What? No, we're talking about something else," Sasha explained.

"Oh thank the Force," Viran said with a sigh of relief. "But we can still get the X-Wing's right?"

"Knock yourselves out," Sasha huffed with a bemused smirk.

"Did you pick a paint scheme yet?" Cien asked them.

"Guys weren't we talking about something else?" Oppie looked between them, bemused.

"Yes we were," Sasha said, piggy backing off of Op's comment.

"Right. I was thinking green and black, but what were guys talking about?" Viran answered and asked simultaneously.

Sasha groaned inwardly at that before settling down on the couch next to her husband. She placed the crutches next to herself on the couch as sunk into the cushions with a relaxed, quiet sigh.

"That still seems garish." Kyr cut in.

"Why not red and bl-" Cien started.

"Guys." Oppie said, slightly annoyed and trying to keep from laughing at the same time.

"Right, sorry," Viran said, setting his datapad aside.

"What we were discussing before we got here is that Cien and I have been feeling a strange presence in the Force. We were trying to figure out who or what it is," Sasha explained, catching the other two up on the conversation.

"Yeah, it's a strange presence I've felt over my shoulder for the last week and a half or so, since we got back home." Cien said.

Kyr looked at her a little worried, "you didn't say anything."

"At first it was a very light presence, but it has kept growing stronger." She said, with some unease as she absently ran a hand across her stomach.

Sasha and Viran exchanged a worried expression. "So who were you guys thinking this presence is… was?" Viran asked.

"We thought potentially Ikari, but she's dead," Sasha replied. "We had thoughts of another potential option."

"Oh?" Kyr asked.

"We thought it could be the spirit of the holocron that exploded and brought that Sith temple down on Cien and I," Sasha explained. "And what I was going to add onto that before we got here was I thought that spirit… he might be connected to whoever put that bounty on me." She added, uneasily.

"Oh." Kyr said, glancing away.

Oppie cleared his throat. "We never did figure out who placed that bounty." He observed.

"Yeah, I have a couple theories on that, but none of them seem likely," Sasha said. "But right now, let's focus on one thing at a time. Let's try to figure out this presence before we start considering the bounty that's still on my head." She said that with more of a tone of an investigator on a case than someone who had shuddered at the thought of the bounty at all. She really was doing a lot better.

"You might be right that they are the same thing, though." Kyr observed, "if we have some spooky presence looming over us in the Force, doesn't that usually mean something or someone is about to come down on us?" He asked.

"Yeah that's usually how it works," Viran said, nodding.

Sasha glanced at Cien. "Could it really be that spirit? Is it possible he could have escaped and is after us?" She asked skeptically.

"No, I don't think so." Cien said, shaking her head, "this doesn't feel like another Sith lord. There's something familiar about it I can't put my finger on, but it doesn't feel dark, just… there, if that makes sense. Indifferent." She said.

"I noticed that too," Sasha agreed. "Have you ever felt something like this before?"

"I can't tell. It does feel familiar but I can't figure out how." Cien said, "admittedly with all of us in the house I try to block things for the most part since it can be a bit noisome at times." She said. "I could try to meditate on it later."

"Alright," Sasha said. "Let me know if you want some help in that search."

"Okay, so if it's not Ikari or this spirit guy, then who could it be?" Viran asked.

"That's that thing, we don't know," Sasha told him.

Viran hesitated for a second before asking this next question. "I hate to ask this or bring this up, but could it be Selina? Aside from you, Cien, the rest of us are not quite sure what happened to her. Could she still be alive?" He asked, very carefully.

Kyr visibly looked away with a slight shudder at that. Cien definitely noticed and she felt a pang of worry for him. Viran noticed as well and instantly regretted bringing "her" name up.

"She died, the same as Ikari." Cien said, a hard look shadowing her face. "I left her trapped in her mind with a construct of herself to… keep her company for a few hundred years or so until her body would finally die after a few days." She said quietly, not letting them know about the other layer she had added to that prison. "She had no command of the Force, and not even Force users have ever been able to break out of that."

Kyr looked away at that, still. But she noticed that he relaxed just slightly.

"So she's long gone too," Viran said, accepting that answer. "Does anyone else have an idea?"

"What about Cordova?" Sasha suggested after a long silence between all of them as they thought.

"Who's that?" Viran asked, confused.

"He was the head of security for the cartel on Caranas." Cien said in almost a low growl. "I hadn't thought of him, but when we worked out our deal with him, he did outright say he would betray us."

"When he said that, I thought he was meaning then and there, not months later," Sasha pointed out, uneasy. "But I've been thinking he might be the one responsible for the bounty. He's the only one alive that makes sense and… he's the only one I could think of that might go after me or you."

"But why now?" Viran asked them, worriedly.

"What was the deal you made?" Kyr asked, finally coming back to the conversation.

"The deal was that if we took out his boss, Havarea, then he would tell us where we could find you, Kyr. And then where we could find Op and Viran too," Sasha explained. "He kept up his end of the bargain."

"Maybe more completely than we thought." Cien said, darkly. "But," she paused, "that still doesn't explain this presence we're feeling. Unless they have a Force user under their employ?"

"It's possible, but I feel like we would have sensed them the last time we were there," Sasha pointed out.

"Then maybe the two are not connected. Maybe this Cordova is the one who put the bounty on you and maybe this presence is something else entirely," Viran suggested after a moment of thought. He snarled at the thought of this guy being the one who put the bounty on Sasha.

"The timing does seem suspicious, though." Oppie said. "We should be wary. Maybe we could check in on what's happening on Caranas, and see what is going on with the cartel and this Cordova guy?"

"I'd be up for a little visit to this guy and find out a little more," Viran said with a dark determination.

"If we do this, I want to go with you guys too," Sasha responded. "I need to know why he placed that bounty on me if he is the one who did it."

"But Sasha, you're still recovering," Viran said, turning to his wife and grabbing her hand. "I don't think it's best."

Sasha deflated slightly at that. "But I need to know Viran." She sounded like she was begging.

Viran frowned and looked at the others.

"We're safe here." Kyr said, "you recover, get better. And when you're feeling up to it, we'll go check this out together. And they won't know what hit them." Kyr finished in a low growl.

"Okay," Sasha said, distantly as she nodded.

"In the meantime then, let's keep an eye on that presence," Viran suggested. "And if anyone notices any change that's worrisome or that maybe provides an answer, let the others know as soon as possible."

Cien glanced at Sasha and nodded, since she was the only other one to feel it. Sasha nodded too, but didn't meet the others' gaze.

Kyr stood up. "I do think I'm going to go see what I can find out about what the Republic is doing on Caranas, though."

"Sounds good," Viran said.

Sasha glanced up at Cien and spoke to her through their link. I'm worried about this presence too, but Viran is right. We just don't have enough information to confirm what it is. Let's keep an eye on it and figure out an answer together.

Thank you. Cien responded, a hint of a grateful smile appearing on her face.

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