Last time: Sasha and Oppie settled for the night in a cave to wait for help.

Now: Cien and Viran try again to reach Sasha.

Chapter 24- Try Again

The sun was disappearing over the horizon as the three ships sat there in the high atmosphere, scanning the planet. They had found no sign of either Sasha or Oppie or even potentially this Von Signa guy. But the scans weren't done yet. However, Viran's patience was. He hadn't moved from his seat in the cockpit since they arrived, his eyes remaining glued to the surface as if something would magically change. But nothing did. He was half tempted to take the controls himself and do a low sweep of the planet. Like buzzing the comm tower type of maneuver, but over the jungle to see if that would prove useful. But he restrained himself from doing so at the thought that maybe doing that could put his family in even more danger. So Viran sat, watching and waiting, on the edge of his seat anticipating.

Because they were in such a low orbit, trying to skirt the edge of the Force-less field below them and increase the resolution of the scanners as they scanned the surface, this was actually the seventh sunset they had seen in the last standard day they had been here. Their orbit taking them around the planet at an accelerated rate so they could maintain their altitude as they searched. By some reckoning, they had already been here a week, seeing seven full cycles of the sun moving over this planet, and he sighed at that realization. It certainly felt like it had been a week since they had arrived and started this search. But in actuality it had only technically been one day on the planet below.

Cien had come in and out of the cockpit during the day, while Kyr and Viran had maintained their vigil, talking only a little while they hoped at any second to have some sort of lead as to where to go. She quietly came in and heard his impatient sigh as she leaned over the back of the navigators seat. "Maybe since we are so close, now, we might be able to use the Force to find them?" She suggested quietly, finally suggesting it after she had been trying to avoid that option. Her own impatience and fear for Sasha and Oppie had finally outweighed her want to avoid another terrible migraine.

Viran glanced back at her before looking away. "I've been trying. Unless you mean the mindspace which I don't want to do that to you. Not after last time," he said dejectedly.

"I'm okay trying it again. If we're here only a few hundred kilometers away from them, maybe we can reach out to them more easily than when we're thousands of lightyears away." She suggested. "Especially if it means finding them now rather than days from now."

"I guess it's better than nothing," Viran said before looking at her. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She answered, "though I need your help for it." She admitted.

"Alright," Viran said with a sigh. He stood from his seat, his back cracking in the process from remaining the same spot for so long. He looked to Kyr. "Come get us if you find anything."

"Sure thing, you guys let me know if you need anything." Kyr replied as they left the cockpit.

Viran and Cien made their way through the lounge and past the door to the bunkroom, to the secluded meditation room. The door slid open, and the space still had the remnants of Viran camping out here during their transit. Both sat down in meditative poses, and Cien reached out her hand to Viran, and he grimaced, looking back up at her.

"You sure about this?" He asked with a bit of concern in his voice.

"Yes. This might save us days." She replied, still holding her hand out.

He reluctantly took her hand, and closed his eyes. He appeared in the now familiar darkness of the mindspace, and Cien walked into the light to greet him.

"Concentrate on Sasha like before." She said.

"Okay," Viran said, doing as she instructed, focusing on his wife and hopefully her presence in the Force. Or at least here in the mindspace.

Cien did the same, concentrating on her best friend, her sister. She felt the familiar headache building in the back of her mind. Here in the mindspace, such things were distant, so she had some time to look. Sasha was still so faint, compared to the usual bright beacon she stood out as.

There. Still as if from an incredible distance away, her ghostly form was in the darkness, and Cien pushed forward. Walking for an unknowable distance to approach her ghostly form. Viran followed after her, close on her heels. When they got close, Sasha's form appeared before them. She appeared to be lying down, most likely asleep for the night. However, when they got closer, they both noticed the horrible state Sasha was in. Her left leg was in a splint, her skin looked pale and gaunt as well as dirty, and she looked positively ill. Viran felt his heart tighten slightly at the sight of her so unwell.

"What happened to her?" He breathed out in confusion and a small hint of fear.

Cien tried to think through her building headache. "She looks sick." She observed, a little distractedly. She was trying to use her abilities to pinpoint where Sasha was, but her presence was still so faint. She had to focus on Sasha just to try to keep her present, usually she could focus outward and see the world around her, and get something like a compass heading, some sense of where she was. But if she pulled focus outward so much, she would lose Sasha. She tried focusing harder, trying to figure out where she was.

"Sasha…" She asked quietly. If Sasha could do anything on her end to help bridge the gap it was worth trying to capture her attention.

Sasha seemed to stir slightly, but Viran wasn't sure if it was from Cien saying her name or something else.

"Sasha! Can you hear us? Please say something, hun," Viran called out to her.

Again she only stirred, but did nothing else. Suddenly, a shadowy arm reached across Sasha, wrapping the blankets that were around her a little tighter.

"Is that Oppie?" Viran asked.

"I think so." Cien said quietly, with a grimace.

"Looks like he is taking care of her," Viran observed with a furrowed brow. "At least he is okay from what we can sort of see."

"Yeah." Cien said. "Can you see any landmarks, anything that can help us find them?" She asked.

Viran looked around them and tried to see if could see anything beyond Sasha. He wasn't sure, but it looked like she was lying on dirt. That wasn't helpful.

"No, nothing that would tell us exactly where they are," Viran said, annoyed. "I only see dirt."

Cien tried to think if there was anything else. At least they knew they were alive. And as difficult as it was to reach Sasha, it was a little easier, so that meant they were probably in the right place. But she looked so sick, time seemed so short. "Maybe we can -"

Suddenly something shifted in the Force. Before Viran could say anything, he felt a pulling motion and the next thing he knew, he was thrown back into reality. Falling backwards as his head throbbed, Viran barely caught himself before he flopped completely back. He caught himself, pressing a hand to his forehead as a migraine hit him like a bantha. Taking a moment to get his brain to calm down, Viran groaned as he sat up.

"Cien, you okay?" He asked, clearing his blurred vision. She was lying slumped against the wall, fallen out of her meditative pose, and a small trickle of blood was rolling down from her nose. "Kriff." He cursed as he crawled forward to check on her. "Kyr!" Viran called out as he got to her side. But he remembered that Kyr probably couldn't hear him. He staggered, very unbalanced to his feet and reached the companel, his head swimming for a moment as he did that. He pressed the call button to the cockpit. "Kyr get in here!" He called in a panic before rushing back to Cien's side.

"Coming!" He heard Kyr call back over the panel.

Viran carefully tried to wake Cien as he waited for Kyr. He gently shook her shoulder. "Cien, come on. Wake up," he urged, worriedly.

She stirred slightly. "Viran?" She whispered quietly as she grimaced.

"Shh, it's okay," Viran reassured. "Just take it easy. Are you alright?" He asked quietly.

The door opened and Kyr stepped through, "what happened?" He asked with a tone somewhere between worried and frantic.

"We were using the mindspace to look for Sasha and something just knocked us both out of it," Viran explained. "Cien was unconscious when I called."

Kyr knelt at her other side. "Cyar'ika?" He asked worriedly.

"The lights." She said with a grimace and tried to cover her eyes.

Kyr got up and turned the lights in the room off, only the muted glow from the corridor came through. He knelt back down at her side, looking up at Viran then back to his wife. "What happened?"

"It just cut out." Cien softly.

"But we were able to see Sasha before it did," Viran added. He frowned deeply. "She isn't doing well." His voice quivered slightly as he said that. He then noticed something he hadn't since they came out of the mindspace. "What the hell is with the Force?" He asked more himself than them in confusion. The Force felt distant, almost diminished compared to when they first entered the mindspace. It was kind of freaking him out that he couldn't feel it all that clearly all of the sudden. "Cien, do you feel that?"

Cien was still grimacing, "yeah, it's faded." She said quietly.

"We just passed over a really dense spot of forest, I wonder if we flew over a big concentration of Ysalamiri or something?" Kyr suggested.

"Can we move?" She asked quietly.

"Yeah, we should get away from this area," Viran agreed.

"Sure." Kyr said, getting up and hurrying from the room to go adjust their orbit.

"I'm sorry we didn't learn anything." Cien said to Viran.

"It's alright," Viran said, sitting next to her. "We did learn that Sasha…" He hesitated. "That Sasha is ill. Which means we need to hurry and find them soon." He clenched his fists as a sense of worry washed over him.

"Yeah." Cien agreed weakly, wiping her mouth and looking at the blood that was left on her fingers.

"You okay?" Viran asked.

"I think..." she paused, "can you help me get to my room?" She asked.

"Yeah," Viran said. He moved to a kneeled position and got an arm around Cien before helping her to her feet.

"Thank you." She said softly, using his help to get up.

"Of course," He said as he carefully guided her out of the room and towards her shared bunk room with Kyr.

Kyr came around the corner as they entered the lounge and moved to help. "I adjusted our orbit, is it any better?" He asked them as he worriedly reached out to help Cien.

"Yeah," Viran said with a nod as he felt the Force coming back. "Thanks." He moved back slightly, still helping Cien, but gave Kyr an opening to help her.

Kyr took her arm as she moved, mostly covering her eyes. "We need to find Sasha and Op quickly." Cien told him as they moved down the corridor.

"I know," Kyr replied, "I'm half tempted to see if the Admiral would let us borrow a couple of ships for the search." He said as they approached their door.

"I hate to admit it, but I don't think we have enough time to wait for them to get here," Viran admitted with a grimace. "But any extra help would be nice."

Kyr nodded as their door slid open. "Are you going to be okay? Do you want me to see if we can get Kelce in here to check on you?" He asked Cien worriedly.

"I just need to lay down, I think." She said, reaching over to turn the lights out. "Let me know if you find them." She said as she closed the door.

Kyr looked over at Viran. "You okay, Sport?"

"My head hurts a little, but… no," He admitted looking away. "Seeing her like that…" He shuddered. Viran tried to compose himself. "She looked so sick and broken. I don't know what happened down there, but if we don't hurry I… I…" He felt his throat tighten as he struggled to say the next part.

"Let's go talk to Scamp and see if we can get some more eyes on this, then." He suggested.

"Yeah, okay," Viran nodded as he blinked away the couple of tears that he didn't realize were trying to escape. He turned and walked back to the cockpit.

Kyr put an arm across his shoulder with a soft pat as they walked back to the cockpit together.

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