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They stood outside the front doors of the complex, looking out into the deep purple sky. Phaelon looked to her sister, standing on the steps and nodded. Ilyra offered her a small smile. As silent as wraiths, the Jedi led her small team into the rocks and the darkness beyond.
Eight kilometers was nothing to a Jedi, and Ilyra assured her the Guardians were more than capable of keeping up, but Phaelon still worried. Each time she thought they may have been tiring, the men continued on without complaint. They reached the edge of their search zone ahead of what she had planned. And it was a good thing, too. The clouds were beginning to swirl and the wind to pick up, signs that a lightning storm was fast approaching.
The going was slow. Her team fanned out in a small arc to read the ground for any signs of passage, while Phaelon walked in the center feeling her way through the Force and often stopping to read the stones. She was just about to start getting discouraged when one of the men waved her over and pointed to several broken branches on a dead tree.
She nodded and touched them. Cammi had passed through this way with Jysella and had to brush against the tree to squeeze through a narrow space in the rock. With a smile, Phaelon stepped forward several paces and touched another place where the rock narrowed. Jysella had been here, the back of her arm touching the rock.
A quickly as it had started, the trail stopped. Coming into a big box canyon, Cammi hadn't touched anything. Phaelon scowled. What did that mean? To make matters worse, a gigantic bolt of white-hot lightning forked down from the black sky and illuminated the empty canyon.
o:o:o
One of her team saw it by the light of the next lightning bolt: a small hole partially obscured by a low overhang leading farther into the hills. Phaleon smiled. She knew Cammi would be too smart to have cornered herself when she had plenty of other places to hide.
Carefully, she edged close enough to examine the hole. Aside from the slaver, who knew what other nasty things used it to escape the lightning storms. Reaching out tentatively with the Force, she suddenly gasped and recoiled. Someone had reached out and touched her mind, just a faint glimmering of someone familiar. Jysella?
She reached out again, trying to feel for the girl's Force signature. Their bond wasn't strong enough for her to be certain, but she knew enough to say it was another Jedi at least.
Nodding to the team, she allowed half of them to crawl in first before she followed. It was a tight fit for the burly Guardians, but they pushed on. Cammi must have had a time getting Jysella through here, Phaelon thought to herself as she nearly cracked her head of a protruding bit of rock.
As they went, she would pause every so often to touch the rock and assure herself Cammi didn't have a disguised tunnel branching off the main part. She shook her head. You're giving that girl way too much credit.
After what seemed like forever, the tunnel seemed to widen again until finally they found themselves at the bottom of a deep arroyo. As she waited for the rest of the team, Phaelon again reached out with the Force, trying to feel for Cammi and Jysella.
It wasn't an easy thing to do – searching for someone you weren't wholly connected with. But finally, she felt someone touch her back. This time, it was stronger, more close.
"They're nearby," she whispered to her team.
o:o:o