Last time: Kopesh and Cien considered an alliance to take down Dracul.

Now: Viran, Sasha, and Kyr look into the connection of the temples.

Chapter 3- Searching the Stars

After a week of sitting with Tac and calculating a formula that could help them figure out which system had that constellation, Sasha and the others finally were off to their first system that Tac had calculated. Kyr and Viran were up in the cockpit of the Shadow Runner piloting them through hyperspace and toward their first system. They had discussed how this all felt like deja vu. It had barely been a couple months since the last temple they all visited before bringing back Oppie. And yet it felt like a lifetime ago since they did that. The difference this time is that they weren't splitting off to search multiple planets at once. Tac had started the calculations and only one planet had come up… for now at least.

Kyr had insisted that on the way out they make a stopover at Krownest, his armor was intact but had some damage, and his visor was cracked, and he wanted to visit his armorer. They had landed at a small outpost, Viran had mentioned it was called Grackleclaw, and Kyr had disappeared into town with a small pouch clanking at his side, and his weathered armor glistening in the cold sun. Viran and Sasha waited impatiently on the ship. Several hours later Kyr returned, the pouch now empty, his armor cleaner than they could ever remember seeing it, and some of the blemishes from the recent battle, and ones that had been there since they had known him had been worked out of the armor, and his cracked visor shone with clean, new transparisteel. He made little mention of the side trip before they hopped back into space and continued their journey.

Sasha was sitting in the back lounge looking through her holoprojector of notes. Again. She had lost count the number of times she had turned the projector on and looked over her notes in the last month. But looking at it now was distracting her from thinking about the fact that Dracul was back.

As she flipped through the notes, a familiar nag pulled at her mind. Sasha knew it was Cien trying to reach out to her as she recognized her presence almost immediately. Kind of hard to forget when she practically lived in Sasha's head for a week trying to get her to spill information about that holocron fragment Oppie had had. An unsettling pit filled her stomach. The last time Cien called out to her, Sasha was dragged into a briefing room on the Bloodstorm and was witness to Draculs return. The stiffness in her chest from the kick throbbed suddenly as she thought of Cien.

The nagging pull didn't stop no matter how hard Sasha tried to ignore it. With a groan, Sasha sunk onto the couch and closed her eyes, reaching out with the Force.

"Fine, let's get this over with," Sasha grumbled under her breath before she completely succumbed to the mind space. That is what she called the darkness inside of her mind that she had been stuck in with Cien for a week and what she had used to talk with Oppie when he was in the void. It sounded cooler than just saying 'going into her head'.

There before her was Cien. Sasha folded her arms as she stared at the Sith.

"What do you want?" Sasha asked, irritated slightly, but trying to remain composed.

Cien couldn't help herself from smiling maliciously. "Now is that any way to greet an old friend?" She asked.

Sasha sighed and rubbed her eyes. "We are not friends. And I was in the middle of something." Sasha then looked up at her. "Also the last time you called me, Dracul sent me flying back. Let's just say I'm not thrilled to see you at the moment."

Cien's brow furrowed and her smile faded away. "He sent me flying back, too." She growled. "Whatever you were in the middle of I assure you my proposal is more interesting."

Sasha stared in disbelief. Cien was sent flying too? Why? Wasn't she loyal to Dracul? Sasha felt her own brows furrow. "What is it?" She asked with a slight hint of worry in her tone as she slowly dropped her guard. Not the wisest move to do in front of Cien, but something in the back of her mind told her it was okay.

"Last time I summoned you, I was certain he was about to kill me, and I was hoping you and your band of…" She paused, trying to think of the correct word, "Jedi, might be able to counter him with the forewarning I gave." She sidestepped mentioning that she had only done so out of spite for the dark lord, and in the hope that they would prove a thorn in his side before their own demise. "As you can see he didn't kill me, but I have no interest in continuing under his rule, especially since I am certain he knows I have already betrayed him and is simply drawing out my death sentence." She paused, and bit her lip in an uncharacteristic show of unease, and discomfort with the situation. "He has everything he needs to enact his plan, and soon I will be disposable to him; a loose end. I suggest that we work together to keep his plan from coming to fruition."

Cien saw the hesitation in Sasha's face. "I know we have a history, but we have a common enemy." She couldn't believe she was doing this, but she echoed the words of Kopesh from before; "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Sasha felt her chest tighten. She was not completely on board with the idea of working with Cien, but given the circumstances…. "How much time do we have?" Sasha asked, her voice shaking.

"Of that I don't know." Cien admitted with a grimace. "Months, weeks perhaps. He has never bothered to fill his acolytes in on what his plans were for this stage, I invite you to draw your own conclusion as to why."

With a gulp, Sasha rubbed the back of her neck.

"I… I will talk with the others," she said. "But I warn you now that they may not be too thrilled to hear from you."

Cien raised an eyebrow at that. "Believe me, the feeling is mutual. Don't dawdle, Sasha. You have seen through me a glimpse of what he is capable of. What little I know of his greater plan is that he wishes to force that upon the galaxy as a whole. That serves neither of us."

"Alright, I will talk to the others," Sasha said. She paused for a moment before deciding it was time to leave the mind space. "Cien, please be careful." Sasha wasn't sure why she said that to her. The words just left her lips almost naturally.

Cien gave her a strange look, and simply nodded as she faded into the darkness. Sasha opened her eyes and stared at the holoprojection before her. She wasn't exactly looking at it, more its general direction as she went over the conversation she just had with Cien again in her mind.

Sasha didn't know how long she stared off into space, lost in thought the whole time, but she came out of it when Tac rolled up from the cockpit. He whistled at her.

"Huh? Oh hey Tac," she greeted him with an off smile. "Have we arrived?"

Tac beeped at her, confirming her question. Sasha nodded and headed for the cockpit. When she got there, Viran and Kyr were already in the process of pulling the Shadow out of hyperspace.

"Hey, Sash," Viran said with a smile. "I was just about to come and get you. I guess you could sense we arrived then?"

Sasha shook her head. "No, Tac came to tell me."

"You have a good trance thing?" Kyr asked as he kept his attention forward.

Taken back, Sasha stared at Kyr surprised. "How did you know I was meditating?"

"I went back to get some caf, you were doing that thing." He wiggled his fingers as he usually did when talking about the mysticism of the Force.

"Strange, I didn't sense you," Sasha mumbled under her breath to herself. Viran heard it and made a face at her when she wasn't looking. That wasn't good that she couldn't sense anyone outside of the mind space. Something to keep in mind for the future.

The alert went off and he quickly put his hand back on the lever and pulled the Shadow Runner out of hyperspace. Before them was an ice world, strewn with some stunted and iced over forests, but nothing that stood out. No outposts were visible, and the planet was simply named with a catalog number.

The deja vu of the temple visits were running through Kyr's mind as he called back. "Tac, you want to start scanning for a temple or something?" An excited whistling replied as they settled into an equatorial orbit.

Viran glanced over his shoulder at Sasha. "Do you sense anything?"

Sasha had been searching from the moment they broke the atmosphere. But nothing was reaching out to her. "No, I've got nothing."

"Tac, you sure this is the right place?" Kyr asked, and received a rude warble in response. "Just thought I'd ask. Sheesh"

Sasha kept concentrating on anything in the Force that might call out to her from the planet. She felt lifeforms of creatures that most likely lived on the surface below. She felt those aboard this ship. But she didn't feel anything related to the temples. The more she tried to find something the more she felt nothing. Opening her eyes, Sasha sunk into the seat behind Viran.

"Still nothing?" He asked.

"No, nothing," Sasha said rubbing her forehead. This amount of concentration was giving her a headache. It also didn't help that she had been staring at a hologram for hours then shared her mind with Cien again. But this headache was simply nothing compared to what Cien had done to her a year ago.

A few minutes passed by in silence before Tac whistled, he picked up a set of refined metals on the ground that looked like they might be from some ruins of a building or an encampment of some kind. Having no other leads they dove into the atmosphere, gliding over the snowscape and circling in low. There was nothing visible, except for a small hill with a stand of snow covered trees that rose out of a veritable ocean of snow, broken up by only a few other islands of hills poking up from the white field. As they circled in, they were able to get detailed scans.

"Looks like someone was here, but a long time ago." Kyr said, interpreting the results. "The planets in the middle of a bad ice age. The metal is from what looks like the remains of buildings buried under this ice sheet, a small city or something." He was briefly curious as to what might have happened to the former inhabitants of that city, but they were hundreds if not thousands of years in the past now. "If this is the place the time frame might match up to the temples, but there's no way we can investigate the ruins under 300ish meters of solid ice."

"Is it safe to land?" Sasha asked.

"Yeah, it looks like the ice can hold the ship," Viran said as he flipped through the scanner.

"Then let's land. I want to get a clear visual of sky to see where the constellation might have been," Sasha said with a nod.

"Sure." Kyr said as he brought the ship in, over the highest concentration of metals he could find. Powering down the ship he got up out of the seat and led the way around. Tac stayed on the ship since his wheels wouldn't work through the snow. They stopped at the head of the ramp, Sasha and Viran had retrieved their heavy jackets and were with him. Kyr took point walking down the ramp, even though the scanners hadn't picked anything dangerous up. He was glad to be in his sealed suit though, the temperature was low, especially with the windchill factored in as it drove across the endless plains of snow covered ice. He definitely appreciated being out in the field again, with his armor frosting over and his blaster slung before him. They were in the early evening and there was a sunset building up to magnetic east. His chest ached a little from all the movement and the still sensitive ribs that had only recently healed, but he didn't dare mention anything to Sasha. He coughed as he breathed in the air, still chilled even after going through the buy'ce filters. A lingering side effect of his punctured lung which he hoped would clear up soon.

Sasha and Viran followed close behind Kyr. Viran was living his best life as he loved this weather. Even though he still had his heavy jacket on, Viran would never leave this planet if he didn't have to. Sasha on the other hand hated the cold. The Force and her jacket were barely enough to keep her warm. She tried to keep her visible shivering to a minimum. As they trudged along, Sasha took notice of Kyr's cough that was most likely happening due to his still healing lung. He had assured her he felt well enough to travel. However, it didn't seem like an immediate issue at this moment, but Sasha would mentally take note of it and keep her eye on him just in case.

Soon they came to a halt a reasonable distance from the ship that gave a clear view of the sky as it slowly darkened.

Kyr spoke up. "It should appear there?" He said, pointing at an angle slightly above the southern horizon, "A planet like this, no moon, no light pollution, we'll see every star - how can we pick it out?"

"Tac gave me this," Sasha said as she pulled a small droid cam from her pocket. "It will scan the sky while this data pad will pinpoint the constellation." She added as she then pulled the data pad out from inside her jacket where she was keeping it warm. "But I'll activate it once the stars become clearer."

Kyr smiled, bemused under his helmet as he recognized it as the cam he took with him when he had to go on missions without his buy'ce to relay coordinates to Tac for artillery spotting. He guessed it would work just as well for stargazing. He took his helmet off and looked around the snow covered landscape, it was like standing on a frozen ocean, with a few small stands of trees looking like islands. An odd mirror to the same sight he had seen on more tropical planets, but engagingly beautiful in its own way. He inhaled deeply and regretted it as it turned into a cough. He recovered quickly and looked around to enjoy the scenery more. "I wonder who lived here." He mused, trying to distract Doctor Sasha from his cough.

"I don't know," Viran answered as he was kneeling down and examining the metal shapes under the ice. "But whoever they are, they are long gone. I'm just trying to see if I can make out anything underneath us."

"Well good luck with that," Sasha said with a smirk as Viran was knelt down in a strange position to try and get a better look under the ice.

"Here, step back." Kyr ordered. Viran glanced up at the Mando as he raised his right arm, and Viran jumped up and away. Kyr let loose a gout of flame from his gauntlet, clearing out the snow and smoothing out the upper layer of the ice. When he turned off the flame projection the ice was left polished and a little clearer. Then he and Viran both stepped forward to look down through the ice at the entombed shadows.

Sasha stayed back as she wasn't entirely comfortable standing on that ice at the moment. Viran and Kyr, however, continued to look down inside.

"What do you guys see?" Sasha asked as she tugged her jacket a little closer to herself.

"Well… it looks like a city alright. Kind of hard to tell how far down it goes, but it looks really cool," Viran said then glanced up at Sasha. "You should come see for yourself." Sasha hesitated for a moment. "It's fine. The ice is solid." He tapped the ice with his boot to emphasize his point.

With an uneasy sigh, Sasha took a couple of careful steps forward. Soon, she was standing right next to them, looking down below. She stared in awe at the city below. Beneath a few hundred meters of cloudy and dirty ice stood the skeletons of towering buildings as the glacier had flowed around them and was in the process of scraping the landscape clean. Almost as if caught in the middle of an explosion, the buildings were breaking apart in huge chunks, dragged along as bits of debris flowed a little slower or a little faster. What facades might have adorned the outsides of the buildings had been pulverized to dust, leaving on the metallic bones that were lasting only a little longer.

"Well, I guess we know what the sensors picked up." Kyr said.

"Yeah, that's incredible," Sasha nodded as she continued to look through the ice.

Kyr put his helmet back on and switched on his infrared vision as night settled in, scanning the horizon. "Wonder if they're still alive on this planet somewhere."

"I seriously doubt it," Viran said with a shrug as he turned his gaze from the icey floor they had just been staring into and towards the horizon. To be more specific, the setting sun that had disappeared behind the horizon line. "But if something is still alive on this ice block, it's probably just wild animals of some kind."

"Wonder how tasty they are." Kyr mused as he trudged into the snow a little to get a better view of the stars that were beginning to show in force.

Sasha looked up at him with an amused smirk before looking towards the stars. She noticed how many stars were visible on this planet and it was purely breathtaking. With that though, Sasha activated the droid cam and let it hover around scanning the night sky. As it hovered and scanned for their constellation, Sasha looked at the data pad to watch live what it was picking up. At first, nothing showed up as there was still too much light in the sky then as the sun completely disappeared and they stood in pure darkness, the galaxy lit up the night sky like a marvelous art piece. There were star clusters and milky streaks across the sky. Sasha looked from the data pad in awe as the little droid got to work on figuring out where the constellation was. As she stared, Viran grabbed her free hand and held it as he stared with her.

Tac beeped, confirming that the constellation of the temple planets was visible from here. The stars were highlighted, some of them stood out in particular to the naked eye, while others were faint and lost in the noise of the cosmos and could only be picked up with the highlights that Tac provided to the datapad and to Kyr's visor. They stood for a moment enjoying the view before responding.

Kyr cleared his throat and regretted it since it made his chest hurt again. He cast a sly glance at Sasha and Viran. "This is nice, but what have we found here?" He asked. "No temples, if we could have used those buildings for alignments like the temples then it might have gotten us something, but this is feeling a little like a dead end."

Sasha sighed in defeat as she looked from the sky to the datapad. "You're right. And I can't sense anything here related to the Force, unlike the other systems where I could sense the temples." Sasha looked up at Kyr and Viran with a slight frown. "So now what? Tac only calculated this planet."

Tac, who was listening over the comm line, broke in with a warble that the search criteria had actually turned up three other planets while they had been out. Viran relayed this to Sasha. That perked her up a little.

"Three other planets to check huh?" Sasha smirked. "Then let's get going before…" She cut herself off for two reasons. One was because she still hadn't told the boys what Cien had relayed to her. About them working together to bring down Dracul. She knew that she had to tell them soon as they were now on an unknown time constraint. And two was because the wind had gotten significantly colder now that the sun was gone. So a big shudder passed through her as the wind blew by. She pulled her jacket a little closer around her.

"Before what?" Viran asked curiously.

"I was going to say before we freeze out here," Sasha said. It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't the entire truth either.

Kyr looked at her curiously for a moment, then shrugged and started trudging back to the ship. "Sounds good to me."

Sasha hurried to trudge after him as her muscles and bones were stiff from standing still so long in the freezing temperatures after grabbing the camera and shoving it back into her pocket. Viran followed after her. When they got to the ramp of the ship, Kyr was already boarding when Viran grabbed Sasha's arm. Sasha glanced back at him to see a worried look on his face. Ever since they started dating, Viran could easily tell when something bothered her. Now she understood how Oppie and Viran felt when she would occasionally read their minds. Whether on accident or on purpose. She came to halt next to him at the foot of the ramp.

"Sash, what's going on?" Viran asked. "You have seemed out of it since you woke up from your meditation."

She sighed. "So you picked up on that, huh?"

He smirked at her. "You can't hide anything from me."

She smirked then frowned. "I heard from Cien again."

"What did she want?" Viran asked with slight disgust in his tone.

"She reached out to warn me about Dracul," Sasha started. "She said that he has big plans in the works and that they will bring doom to us all if we don't act. She also suggested that we work together with her to bring down Dracul."

Viran gaped at her. "What?!" He asked a little too loudly. "Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

She narrowed her brows at him. "I was going to. Everything else just happened so fast."

"You're not going to take her deal, are you?" Viran asked.

"Dracul has returned, Viran," Sasha said. "And whatever he has planned has spooked even Cien. As much as I hate to say it, I'm considering what she has said."

"WHAT?!" Viran nearly screamed. "Have you lost your damn mind? We can't trust her Sasha. Don't you remember what she has done to you? To us? How do you know what she says is legit? She could be fooling you so she can use your mind again."

"Of course, I remember," Sasha said, slightly taken back by his tone. He had never spoken to her that way. She didn't know how to react. "And I don't trust her. I know what she can do to me and what she might be planning to do. I just said I was considering her deal. Nothing more. I haven't said yes yet. But we can't ignore the fact that Dracul is out there and has something awful planned."

"Oh? And what is it?" Viran asked a little too harshly.

Sasha glared at him. "I don't know. But I'll tell you when I do." With that, she stormed onto the ship and left him behind.

Kyr was in the lounge area at the gally station grabbing a small bar to snack on when he saw Sasha coming through. "We've already laid in a course for the next site, we picked the closest one." He informed her, in a tone that was slightly too upbeat.

Sasha didn't respond. She instead marched her way to the private compartment and slammed the door shut behind her. Or well closed it as aggressively as she could close an automated sliding door. Viran appeared from the ramp a moment later, closing it behind him. He also didn't say anything to Kyr. He just made his way to the cockpit. Kyr hesitated for a second, and then followed into the cockpit to take them off to the next world.

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