Chapter 21
The shuttle christened the Rimfire by its sentimental captain and command crew, but officially designated Lambda-1138, curved through the upper atmosphere of Felucia, spores and splashes of moisture slashing across the viewports as it descended. The once grand edifices and soaring skyscrapers of Kway Teow thrust into the sky below the shuttle, rising up to embrace it as it dropped through the air to the landing platform awaiting them on the edge of the city below. Moss, mold, and all manner of alien fungi crawled their way up the sides of the crumbling edifices, inevitably losing their futile war against the ravages of time and erosion. Years ago, before the Clone Wars, the city had been the capital of this wild and untamed world, the crowning achievement of decades upon decades of attempts to carve a modern civilization from the deepest wilds of the jungle, despite the protests of the violent and hostile natives, the stubborn refusal of the virulent flora to give way. It had even served as the headquarters for the Commerce Guild during that time period, where Shu Mai herself, the Presidente of the same organization, had kept a secure compound. But like so many cities on so many worlds, the Clone Wars had not been kind to Kway Teow, and what was left was little more than a settlement scrabbling for purchase and survival in the ruins decimated by war. At least, until the Empire had arrived on the world, taking it for their own after the reformation of the Old Republic into the New Order. In the relative peace and security the Empire was currently experiencing, there was little more than a few scattered bases, outposts, and even a top-secret prison denoting the Empire's presence on the planet, save for Kway Teow, the base of the Imperial garrison stationed here. In the waning years of the Clone Wars and the nearly two decades of intervening time Palpatine's New Order had had to consolidate its power and influence, the Imperial presence had little more to do than oversee the control and interrogation of prisoners, as well as capture and enslave Gossam holdouts who continued to provide resistance to lawful rule and order in the galaxy. And despite the occasional skirmish with Felucian natives and the monstrous fauna that hunted the deeper, darker portions of the jungles, the Imperial troops stationed here had little to do other than become accustomed to the monotonous schedule of processing prisoners and slaves, overseeing daily affairs on a backwater world that possessed little technology beyond ten-year-old refreshers.
To most observers, the planet would have held little interest beyond the unique flora that covered much of its surface, millions of square kilometers of jungle that they might find fascinating or terrifying, depending on the particular observer's level of cynicism. But an atypical observer, one who could sense the Force, would have found the planet far more interesting, for Felucia's ecosystem was unique in the fact that the flora and fauna that had evolved here had done so with such interconnectivity and near-symbiosis that the world appeared to have a Force presence of its own. The Living Force was strong and powerful here, produced by the millions upon millions of living creatures that called this world home, and in turn were sustained by it. The planet seemed to exude mental and spiritual energy from its very soil, reaching out to bolster and draw upon the energies of all that walked its surface, or approached its atmosphere. At one time, the more esoteric and secretive divisions of the Empire's upper echelons had identified this world as having an unusual presence in the Force, and had deigned to study it and the delicate, metaphysical balance maintained by its own ecosystem.
However, that balance had been thrown into complete chaos, disrupted entirely by several localized events that had nevertheless caused unpredictable and catastrophic fallout across the entire physical and psychic landscape of the planet. There had been rumors of Jedi holdouts and fugitives aiding the Jungle Felucians in their assaults on Imperial outposts and personnel, then unconfirmed reports of an unknown individual who was purported to possess "magical" abilities far beyond what had even been recorded from the displays of most Jedi of the bygone age, apparently someone who had had an issue with the Jedi rebels. What could be gleaned from the scattered reports and examinations of those who had been sent to investigate the scene suggested the indiscriminate slaughter of over a legion of Imperial strormtroopers, along with dozens of natives, and potentially at least one Jedi, though what happened to the Jedi's allies or the person who had been so intent on destroying them was still unknown. The Empire had sent reinforcements and quickly regained a foothold on the world, but continuing reports had revealed a marked change in the world overall since these events. A sickness had settled into the fungi, the glowing lights becoming dimmer and shifting more toward gray in their pallor. The already-aggressive fauna had become ferocious and primal, to the point that Imperial patrols had lessened in recent months due to the high likelihood they would encounter small packs of jungle savages, often accompanied by large predators, such as rancors, whom they had somehow managed to train as their mounts and beasts of assault. And the reports of these natives often displaying powers and abilities beyond the realm of the norm continued to flood in, reports that had moved up the ranks of the Imperial hierarchy until they attracted the type of attention that had drawn the Rimfire's passengers here.
The Lambda-class T-4a Shuttle circled the moldering landing platform on the city's outskirts before the pilot engaged the landing sequence, and the shuttle descended vertically, its outer wings folding up in a graceful arc to meet the height of the dorsal fin. A slight shock shivered through the vessel's frame as it made contact with the platform, and the boarding ramp at the front of the ship extended and lowered, admitting a hot, fetid wind laced with thick spores. Those seated in the passenger hold of the shuttle unbuckled themselves from their crash restraints, then began filing out of the shuttle and onto the platform, led by a Devaronian woman in maroon robes of zeyd-cloth over pieces of armor made from ultrachrome. The contingent of Imperial personnel that followed her comprised a squad of Inquisitorium Dark Troopers, hulking, heavily-armored products of the Dark Trooper Program, armed with heavy repeating blasters, blaster pistols, and shock staffs. Behind these came an even more menacing squad of humanoids clad in gray armor, their faces shrouded by threatening masks that evoked to those who remembered the fearsome visage of the Droid General Grievous. Their gauntlets and boots were decorated with durasteel blades, and wrist-mounted blasters graced their vambraces. Unlike the dark troopers, who walked with deliberate, heavy steps that sent thunderous vibrations through the boarding ramp, the stormtroopers who followed them moved with quick, loping gaits, as if they were beasts on the prowl, primal predators that had just picked up the scent of a fresh kill. Their breaths came in ragged, rasping gasps that shivered through the respirators built into their masks, and they had an unsettling habit of flexing their fingers, scraping the blades adorning the digits with a shrieking sound and flash of metal.
Despite the strange and highly-specialized squads of stormtroopers exiting the shuttle, it was obvious that they all answered, and paid deference, to the Devaronian woman who walked at the head of their procession. She was tall and thin, almost gangly, her stride elegant and purposeful, having a dangerous lean to it, as though she were perpetually in a battle stance, ready to attack or defend herself. The robes and armor she wore sheathed most of her body, her feet and hands clothed in high boots and dark gloves, so that only the skin of her throat and face were visible, which was covered in thick, downy fur in ranging shades of silver and white. Her snowy white hair was shoulder length, bound into a knot at the back of her head, swept back from her tall, pointed ears and narrow, severe face. Her light eyes shown like twin suns with the intensity of her stare from beneath a brow that contained the barest hints of a pair of circles where horns might have grown from her forehead, had she been a male of her species. Despite her composure, she could not suppress a slight cough at the consistency of spores in the air and the slimy moisture she felt from humidity slithering into her nostrils and violating the sensitive tissues of her esophagus. As she walked, the heavy layers of her robes swayed, revealing the equipment belt strapped around her waist consisting of a few light pouches and a cylinder of silvery duranium wrapped in circular rings about a handle of darker metals. The cylinder was over a decimeter in length, a small loop at the open end keeping it clipped to her belt, while its length necessitated that it bounced slightly with the movements of her thighs.
The Devaronian woman in maroon robes approached the Imperial lieutenant and squad of stormtroopers that had arranged themselves at parade rest to greet the visitors. The lieutenant was a thin, gaunt man with dark hair, the ends of which were slick with sweat; despite having been posted on Felucia for several months already, he did not appear acclimated to the climate. She could see the discomfort rolling off of him, crimson waves that boiled off his skin. His eyes, which were supposed to be rooted to a spot several centimeters above her head, flicked down to the cylinder at her belt, having been placed just to the front of her thigh so that it was displayed openly, but not brazenly. The crimson vibrations turned black with fear as he recognized the weapon for what it was, and tried very hard not to let that fear show on his face, even though his eyes widened and his pupils dilated slightly when they roamed to the squads of specialized stormtroopers following behind her. He snapped smartly to attention, even though she could smell the stench of human sweat that was tracing lines down his spine. "Inquisitor," he greeted her in the accent most Imperial officials and military personnel seemed to be adopting these days. "Welcome to Felucia. I must apologize for the somewhat...scarce reception, but had I been given more warning as to your arrival, I would have been able to better prepare..."
The Inquisitor gave him a cold look, and the small smile that opened her lips wide enough to bare her sharp incisors had even less warmth. "I'm certain you would have, Lieutenant. Though I require no such greetings nor acknowledgment. I am here on a mission of my own, and will expect full cooperation from you and your men on any and all aspects of my time here." She leaned closer, and the dark waves wreathing his form grew wider in length. "But only if I ask for it. Is that clear, Lieutenant?"
The man swallowed. "Of course, Inquisitor...? Forgive me, I do not know how to address you, ma'am."
"Inquisitor is fine," the Inquisitor replied, taking a deep sniff of the air. His fear was practically intoxicating, and she was going to enjoy every microsecond of this small, guilty pleasure that she could. "You don't need to know my name, just as I don't need to know yours for us to work together."
The lieutenant eyed the fearsome stormtroopers arrayed behind her, then gave a sharp nod. "Of course, ma'am. I await your orders."
The Devaronian nodded, pleased. She could already feel the heat beginning to rise beneath her robes, the sweat starting to bead on her skin as Felucia's oppressive humidity and the thick cloth of her robes contributed to raise her body temperature. She drew on the Force, let it rise within her body, the lines of silver tracing her anatomy and lowering her temperature to a more comfortable level, to the point that she was practically exuding cold air around her. She took another step closer to the lieutenant, and felt him stopping himself from taking a reactionary step backward. "I have read your reports regarding the most recent activity by the natives, particularly these Shamans who lead them. I have seen the scouting and surveying maps you have submitted, but I am not as familiar with this planet or its terrain as you are. So, for now, I require your services, and those of your men. I need to know where the largest concentration of these...Felucians are. Where they tend to gather, where their strongholds or villages or whatever you might call them are located. And I need you to take me there."
The waves of fear suffusing him suddenly seized, and the lieutenant had to work his jaw several times in order to find the words he would use to answer her. "Inquisitor...the reason we have not already gone to the place where the Felucians gather is because it is...it is impossible for us to get there, much less eradicate the savages entrenched there. The jungle is too thick for walkers and artillery, and I don't have enough men for a frontal assault, nor are any of them trained to deal with the Shamans, who...can kill with their minds."
"Which is why I, and those under my command, have been sent," the Inquisitor replied patiently in a tone of voice that suggested the reason for her presence should be abundantly obvious. "You will take me to this place, and you will support myself and my men and let me deal with those who can 'kill with their minds'."
The lieutenant took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. "Of course, Inquisitor." He turned to give orders to his subordinates, while the dark troopers and primal Terror Troopers spread out to find where they might be of most use. They left the Inquisitor to stand alone for a moment on the rusting, mildewed platform, and while her eyes looked out over the decrepit heights of the former Commerce Guild stronghold, her attention was on something far beyond what could be seen with the naked eye. Despite the darkening horizons, she saw the world in a kaleidoscope of shifting colors, twisting, warping, and convulsing all about each other in an infinite canvas that she could not only see, but touch, feel, taste, smell, and hear. The colors were effused by the fungus, the animals that moved through the jungles, the very permacrete and durasteel beneath her feet. She took a moment to bask in the beauty, the complexity, to pick out individual strokes and sample them for herself. She could feel the strange and exultant relationship this planet had with the Force in its entirety, how it was like an organism all its own, creating its own energy field to strengthen and feed the Force, to develop and maintain those who walked its surface. And the Force here was far from balanced, having descended to the Dark Side for unknown reasons, though most in the Inquisitorius who had studied the events on this planet for the last few years believed the imbalance had been resultant of the cataclysmic events that occurred here. She reached out with her own bands and waves of color to sample those convoluted strands that reacted to her presence, and she felt a moment of ecstasy as she touched the Dark Side on a deeper level than she had in a significant amount of time. She felt a smile crease her lips. She liked the taste of this planet. There was something true in the way it felt on her skin, the slimy caress that raised the hair on the back of her neck in pleasure. The Dark Side suffused this planet, bled into her skin, in a base and primal way. It was power in its purest, most wild form, as if it were daring all those who approached to attempt to master the passion it offered.
She looked forward to the challenge.
The stairs creaked with every step they took, their surfaces were slick with mold and treacherous with rust, though Foyi and Rayf descended to the ground from the top of the landing platform with little hassle. Foyi kept her discblade in her right hand, her left continuing to grip the railing of the stairs as she clambered down the slippery steps, her senses tuned beyond herself for any signs of danger or approaching threat. The miasma of the Dark Side made the waves of the Force sloshing across her consciousness tepid, cold, and bewildering; with such an imbalanced and ill world, it was going to be nearly impossible to rely on her danger sense to warn her of incoming assaults. And judging by the calls, shrieks, and roars she could hear in the jungle surrounding the Separatist ruins, this world was full of threats that she would prefer to have warning of their approach or ill will toward her.
She reached the spongy, muddy ground, the dirt and the mold slowly climbing up the lowest tiers of the stairs, her boots sinking deep enough to submerge the toes. She tromped through the scattered fungus and the debris left by wartime and dismantled by erosion. The Separatist compound surrounding her was a cluster of buildings constructed from severe permacrete and barred by durasteel blast doors, some of which hung open due to malfunctioned servos, or simply torn asunder by excessive force, the faded carbon scoring revealing the explosive sources of the energy required to rip blast doors free of their frames. Much of the permacrete was crumbling, the fractures that had formed in the walls and ceilings of the structures rife with mold colonies, their destructive growth having already collapsed two of the small buildings in the complex. Foyi waited for Rayf to walk down the last of the stairs and join her, and with hardly a sound, the two of them crept quickly and quietly through the complex, Foyi holding her discblade overhead in preparation for a telekinetic throw, while Rayf held his WESTAR-34 before him, his free hand resting on the hilt of his wan-shen blade, waiting to draw it if necessary. They peered into the dark recesses, the fading light slanting musty beams of illumination through the spore-choked interiors, revealing little more than overturned and empty crates, weapons racks, plasteel storage containers, and ragged bits of permacrete thick with mold. Occasionally, they found discarded and broken blasters, belts of grenades that had never been given the chance to be utilized, and blaster-scarred pieces of various models of battle droids. Much of the detritus was in the process of being swallowed by the jungle, and thus there was little left of use.
Foyi finished her initial sweep of the complex, wiping sweat from her brow and pulling uncomfortably at the collar of her shirt, as it was already sticking to her skin. How anyone could live on this planet for long, much less operate sensitive electronics and droids without major equipment failures, was beyond her. They had barely been here but an hour or more, and though the sun had already set far past the ragged and ridged horizon, the air was still stifling, as if she were walking around swaddled in a blanket in the dead heat of Yanibar's summer months. So far, she had seen nothing to indicate that this site had been visited anytime in the last ten years, and she pinched the bridge of her nose in consternation as she felt a migraine rising through her skull and down her lekku. It was so difficult to concentrate here, with so many turbulent waves in the Force, assaulting her mind like the endless crashing of water against a sea cliff, eroding tiny slivers of the cliff in the process. She focused on maintaining her mind within herself, closing herself off from the wider realm of living and unifying energy. She meandered through a ruined structure that had most likely been an armory of some kind, then walked out into the night air, her eyes momentarily drawn to the blues, yellows, and purples of the fungi all around her, noted how many of them seemed to be drooping and withered, burdened by the oppressive weight of the Dark Side.
She heard a shuffle, and instinctively raised her discblade again, but it was only Rayf as he passed in the shadows, walking through the black maw that was all that remained of one of the smaller buildings. Some sort of guard post, if the defunct autoturrets on the roof were any indication. She followed him inside, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom again, and saw the building held a collection of small rooms which appeared to have once contained an entrance and lobby area, an alcove protected by transparisteel where a guard had once been positioned, and several doors that led into other portions of the building. Rayf was in a crouch on the floor, his gaze remaining locked upon the permacrete directly before him. Foyi leaned against the doorframe entering the room and stifled a yawn; she felt more sluggish than she had before coming to this planet. "I haven't seen any sign that anyone uses this place for anything since the Clone Wars. Perhaps Yuelo actually did lie to us..."
Rayf did not even glance at her as he answered, his fingers coming down to trace some shape he saw in the mud and mildew scrawled over the cracked permacrete at his feet. "Maybe not. Have a look at this." She trotted to his side and dropped into a crouch, peering at the terminus of his gaze. Amidst all the mud and small clusters of mold, there was an impression in the mud that had yet to be disturbed by the jungle's perversions or running, ruinous water. The impression certainly looked to be the edge of a boot or foot, though the contours had sharper edges than was normal in boots, and where the apparent foot had stepped on the permacrete, there were scuff marks in the dust, as well as scrapes of lighter color where something metal had drug across the crumbling surface. Rayf met her gaze and said, "Something's been this way recently. Something of the droid persuasion would be my guess."
"A Battle Droid?" Foyi breathed.
Rayf shrugged. "Could be. The footprint fits the profile the best I can remember, and these scrape marks were made by something metallic. If it is a droid, it looks like it might be dragging one of its feet."
"So, a malfunctioning Battle Droid," Foyi surmised, her eyes sweeping across the floor. She scuttled forward in a crouching crabwalk, keeping the scrapes and partial smears in the mud that marked the passage of their theoretical droid. The tracks led to the far end of the room, where stood an open door barely large enough to accommodate someone of Rayf's width; though he was not overburdened with excess weight, the doorway and the passage beyond was claustrophobic in its contours, and she remembered that the original B1 Battle Droid models that had seen such prevalence throughout the Clone Wars had been little more than metal skeletons. They would not have required much space to move around, and were not afflicted with fears of tight spaces. She moved as quickly through the passage as she could, her hands catching on the ridges that had once held glow panels protruding into the space, making it tighter yet. She heard Rayf grunt behind her as the blasters on his back kept catching on those ridges; for someone who used to Force to reach full attunement and oneness with his own body, he was not always particularly grateful.
The thin tunnel opened into another space, a hallway perpendicular to the one they had just vacated, lined by open, identical doorways that allowed admittance to rooms that were carbon copies of each other, with short flights of stairs that descended into the cramped spaces within, occupied by slabs protruding from the far wall that might have been meant as beds. She had the impression that she was in a detention area, where the Separatists must have kept prisoners for detainment, interrogation, and eventual execution. These only drew her eyes for a moment, however, as she looked down at her feet and found more scrapes and tracks in the dust, numerous pairs of myriad sizes, all tramping over one another to form discombobulating smudges across the fractured floor. Rayf emerged from the passage behind her, glanced down at the floor, and gave a whistle. "Pure sabacc," he exclaimed breathlessly. "The ugly slug's as good as his word."
Foyi began checking the prison cells in a hurried, frenetic manner, her rational mind telling her Tama could not be here, as she would never stay within a cell that had no door or security system to keep her inside. But her subconscious, feeding on the illogical hope in her chest, thought she might turn into the next cell to find Tama waiting for her. There were plenty of signs that the cells had seen recent use, determined by the scuff marks in the dust and collected spores on the floor, the grime slicked across the durasteel surfaces of the cots, the occasional pile of excrement in a corner. Such remains still raised a tremendous stench when she approached, which suggested they had not been there long. She checked the interior of nearly twenty cells before she discovered there were no more to search, and she strode back into the hall between the rows, where she found Rayf at the end of the hall, examining a cylindrical power generator that was about knee height, its energy cells dark. She jogged to his side as he fiddled with the generator's controls. "The cells are all empty. And unlocked. But it looks like there were people in there recently. All of the cells show signs of recent habitation."
Rayf cursed under his breath, then slapped the top of the power generator. With a flash of light and an angry, temperamental growl, the generator hummed to life, its energy cells glowing with renewed power. Rayf made a few adjustments to the controls, and Foyi jumped in surprise as red-tinged energy fields sprang into existence in the open doorways of the cells, bathing the entire detention block in a crimson glow. Rayf stood, a satisfied expression on his face. "That's why there's no doors. They just switch on the ray shields when people need to be kept inside, and don't have to worry about doors being hacked, bashed, or blown open. It was pretty common for the Seps to detain their prisoners like this, though the cost of the energy requirements had to be weighed against the value of the prisoners in question. So if someone installed this generator after the fact to revitalize the detention fields must consider whoever he or she was keeping in these pens valuable."
"I think we found the Shepherd's holding area," Foyi breathed. She felt a tightening of her chest as she imagined Tama trapped behind one of those ray shields, alone, afraid, with no way out. Foyi had to turn away from the cells as the images her mind conjured became too traumatic. Rayf slapped the generator again, and the ray shields flickered off as the glowing cylinder powered down. Foyi cleared her throat so that the emotion welling up there would not strangle her, and was happy to discover her voice remained steady. "Though where could he have taken her? If she was here, she's been taken away quite some time ago. Perhaps...a week, or more?"
Rayf turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. She could feel the serenity he was imparting to her, the calm assurance that her sister would be all right, though he did not physically say the words. "Can you sense her? Do you get an impression of her presence in the Force, a direction we might move toward?"
Foyi closed her eyes for a moment, finding the solemn, serene, and detached center of her being and using that as a foundation, a strong rock against the crashing, unfathomable waves, reaching out into eternity from it. When fully immerse in the present, when submerged in the Force, the past and the future had little meaning to her, existing simultaneously at the behest of her consciousness. She sunk below the lashing, tumultuous whitecaps and reached into the depths, sending tendrils and currents out to deflect the attentions and existences of other presences. She reached further, swimming deeper, ignoring the clamor of the Dark Side, its undertow threatening to throw her off her course, to set her adrift and be lost to its maddening passions. The presences of animals, beasts, and people arose in her consciousness, but she continued to shove past them, looking into events that had already occurred, and yet seemed to exist at the same time as her present. She began to see shadows, images, feel emotions of those who had passed through here; it took her a moment to realize the fear, anguish, and pain that assaulted her senses was too raw to have occurred much further than a week or so ago. But they were merely the top layer of an immense, haphazard swell of lost emotions and bygone lives. This prison had seen horrors, and the Force continued to hold onto the terror felt by those who had been trapped here, who had passed through onto new and unknown terrors yet awaiting them. She swam deeper, searching, her mind examining each presence, each set of emotions, for the briefest of seconds, before passing on, looking for something familiar.
And then, she found it, a presence she knew almost as well as her own, a mind so familiar and close to her own, she suddenly felt lonely realizing it was just an echo. It was Tama, lost in a miasma that slipped between various states of consciousness, her emotions suggesting more confusion than fear. Foyi had the impression that what little time her sister had spent in the cell block had been while she was deprived of cognizant awareness. Perhaps she had been knocked unconscious? Drugged? Stunned?
Foyi ripped herself free of the past with a gasp, becoming aware of Rayf staring at her. She felt drained, adrift, as though her mind had momentarily left her body entirely and was experiencing vertigo upon reentry. She stumbled, but Rayf caught her before she could fall, helping her remain upright until she could stand again on her own. Despite how much she had slept, and the meditative trance she had used for healing, her wounds still pained her, still made her weak, and stretching so far and deep into the Force was a taxing effort even when she was perfectly healthy. She met Rayf's gaze with a mixture of confusion, exhaustion, and the glimmers of hope as she exhaled heavily. "I think...I've got her."
Rayf opened his mouth to answer, but Foyi pushed away from him and trotted down the corridor between the old cells, ducking into the narrow passage they had used to enter the detention block. Rayf followed closely behind as she let her impressions of Tama's presence guide her through the narrow hall and back into the main room, the "lobby" of the Separatist outpost. She turned to one of the other doors leading out from the room, a door that was blocked by a blast door that refused to open, even when she keyed the control panel. Her hand came up and brought the Force to bear, and the blast door slid aside to admit her entrance. The presence of Tama was stronger as she proceeded through the doorway, coming into a small chamber that may have once been used for landspeeders, or even a single AAT repulsor tank. One entire wall had collapsed completely, admitting the grasping tendrils of dangling fungi and mildew oozing through the collapsed durasteel. The detritus-riddled floor had been disturbed recently and thoroughly, by both feet and something else that had swept dust, spores, and mold aside in great arcs across the fractured permacrete. The ruined wall on the far side would have been completely choked by the jungle seeping into its expanse, save for the fact that much of the fungal stalks in the middle of the cluster had been swept aside or savagely ripped asunder, as though something large and violent had moved through the morass with no intention of preserving the natural environment trying to reassert itself over the Separatist perversions. Foyi hobbled over to the ruined section of wall and peered out into the darkening jungle beyond, the lurid phosphorescence of the mushrooms and fungal stalks illuminating a path that had been carved through its mass, a path that was used often based on the state of decay and new growth struggling in its wake. A path that had been used recently. There was something far too clinical and precise about the way the path had been constructed, and Foyi assumed that it had been made by a repulsor vehicle of some kind, and not the hunting patterns of large predators.
Foyi stood in the doorway created by the collapsed wall and concentrated, reaching out further into the malaise of Dark Side energies intertwining with life forces that struggled with the metaphysical corruption seeping into their spiritual and anatomical aspects. The past presence of Tama was still strong here within the old speeder garage, but she felt a twinge of despair as she realized that her sister had been moved somewhere out into the jungle, where she could not hope to find her in the misty depths of the Dark Side, unless she was nearly standing atop her.
Foyi turned around to see Rayf picking his way across the floor, carefully studying the tracks and markings as he did so. He met her eyes as he crouched in the middle of the floor, pointing to a series of semi-circular marks that had shoved the fine dusting of spores to the far side of the room. "There was a speeder here. Maybe a repulsortruck; the marks left by its repulsors are large enough to suggest a sizable vehicle, probably so the Shepherd could haul several prisoners at once."
Foyi nodded, as though she had already surmised all this. "Tama was definitely here. She...was far away..."
"How do you mean?"
"I can feel her presence, but it's distant, and the circumstances of her stay here are difficult for me to sense. I think she was only barely conscious when she was held here, and remained so when she was taken away. I can't sense her anywhere past this collapsed wall...the Dark Side is too thick, and there are too many Force signatures out there to pick out any one person."
Rayf stood and clambered over the jagged permacrete rubble lashed together with fungal growths. He leaned out into the turgid night air, feeling the moisture-laden breeze on his face for a moment, and turned to her with a grin he did not really feel. "At least the Shepherd left us a handy trail for us to follow. Kinda gives me a bad feeling, though. The Shepherd has been careful about covering his tracks up to this point, but now that we've found the dead drop, there just happens to be a path cut straight through the thick of the jungle, apparently leading right to him."
"Perhaps the Force is with us," Foyi intoned, though she privately shared the same concerns Rayf had just voiced. "How long ago do you think it was before this was last used?"
Rayf walked out of the decaying hangar and knelt down in the mud, his fingers tracing the marks left by hovercraft and small animals that had found the artificial highway advantageous in their own treks through the jungles. "Maybe a week? More? I'm not familiar with these mushrooms, so it's difficult to determine the length of time they've been like this."
"And here I thought you were an expert on Felucia."
"Whoa! Put on your retrorockets!" Rayf replied, straightening to his full height. "Just 'cause I did a bunch of research on Felucia while you were busy lying around doesn't mean I have all the answers here, cousin. This planet is as new to me as you." He looked down the gap in the jungle created by the wide path, which curved back and forth around and above changes in the terrain, until the meandering nature of the trail obscured its farther reaches from both Rayf and Foyi's gazes. He looked back at her as he unslung the longblaster from his back, attaching a glowrod to its underside and flashing the cone of light it produced about the extremities of the path. "I would remark that walking through the jungles of an alien world in the dead of night, following the trail of a mass kidnapper and murderer to Force knows where is an extraordinarily bad idea. But..."
"Tama can't wait," Foyi supplied, gripping her discblade tighter. Coming from a species that had mostly evolved underground and in the shadowed places of the unforgiving world of Ryloth, despite having never personally been there, Foyi had little difficulty seeing in the dim light and oily shadows of the Felucian jungle. Despite this, Rayf's glowrod provided a cheerful spot of brilliance in an otherwise oppressively sickened wasteland of the Dark Side, and she was glad for the illumination it provided. She hopped over the rubble and out into the humid air, and together, the pair of them began following the trail at a brisk pace, watching their footing and the dark fungal stalks about them. They kept their senses pulled tightly to their own bodies, barely reaching out into the Force, lest the whispers of the Dark Side distract and overwhelm them. Foyi cast a glance over her shoulder, but the Separatist compound had already disappeared in the black silhouettes, only the severe rectangle of the landing platform barely visible over the incongruous skyline of foliage. She glanced above, and through wisps of clouds and a haze of rising moisture as the night inevitably cooled the Felucian surface was a dazzling starscape, great arms and clusters of lights that swept across the sky in completely unfamiliar configurations. It looked so different from the night sky on Yanibar, that Foyi found herself distracted as she attempted to identify what star systems she could, what stars and planets effused their light across time and space to create beauty on a world that had fallen so far into darkness. She wondered if Tama was looking up at the same night sky at this moment, and she found herself hoping such was the case.
The pair said little as they continued to follow the path carved by hovercraft, their senses tuned to the exterior environment with as much range as they could muster through the malaise of darkness. The calls of unseen animals and countless insects had grown more frequent as night drew its cloak over Felucia, to the point where the jungle had become nearly deafening with the cacophony of grunts, squeals, roars, and snuffling. Rayf and Foyi would stop often when some of those more resonant calls drew closer, Rayf covering the glowrod with his hand, or even dousing the light completely as they dropped into ready stances and reached out with the Force. At these moments, Foyi occasionally felt the Force signatures of large creatures, their thoughts all primal instincts, base hungers, and the needs for flesh in their teeth and blood in their throats. These signatures reminded Foyi of the voorcats she would have occasionally encountered in the wilderness of Yanibar, but these creatures were considerably larger and less likely to travel in packs. Rayf's eyes always opened wide in concern whenever they nearly ran afoul of these predators, which Foyi took as a sign to remain quiet, to reach into the Force and become as small and insignificant as she could manage. She did not fear the animals that prowled the depths of the jungles, but she did not want to fight them if it was not absolutely necessary; she had not come here to butcher the local fauna, and doing so would only cause enough noise and destruction to alert the Shepherd that they were coming.
When the predators passed, they continued moving, staying half-crouched as they scurried along the path. The trail wound about a ridge that climbed up into a series of ridges that went on for kilometers to their left, then plunged down a gentle grade of slippery mud and mold colonies that set Foyi's rugged traveling boots slipping and sliding, threatening a headlong tumble into the darkness below. Both Foyi and Rayf scuttled down the slope, making great swaths in the thick, liquid mud, freeing small rivulets of water that surrendered to gravity's inevitable pull. The glows effused by the fungi and Rayf's light revealed a flashing, reflective surface at the bottom of the slope, and only once they had drawn within meters of the strange sight did Foyi recognize it as water stirred by the moist zephyrs, the waves it created lapping at the soft shores of a sizable river. Foyi slid the last few meters to the bottom of the slope and nearly tumbled into that river, but calling upon the Force rooted her to the spot and arrested her momentum. Rayf slid to a stop beside her, his light flashing across the waters, casting strange shadows through the river's viscous liquid, the ripples languid and thick with spores. Before them stretched a river, a body of water that meandered through the jungle and out into the darkness to their right and left, its width unknown as the far shore could not be seen from their positions. The slope rose well over a dozen meters behind them, and the silhouetted jungle canopy, with intermittent phosphorescent glows of the far shore could be seen far above their heads, suggesting the river represented the bottom of a steep ravine. Foyi could see no further signs of the path beyond the waterway, which was not surprising, as any speeder able to barrel through the thick, tangled jungle would have little difficulty simply passing right over the surface of the waters.
Rayf pointed his longblaster down at the river, shining the light of his glowrod into the depths. "I can see the bottom," he remarked. "It's not that deep. Maybe half a meter."
Foyi did not particularly enjoy the idea of wading through the river before them without first knowing what was in those dark waters, be they strange chemicals or natural pathogens, or even predators simply waiting for oblivious humans and Twi'leks to try and fjord the width of the waterway. She stretched out with her feelings, sending tendrils of her own consciousness into the river below, searching for presences of more fauna that may find her feet a tasty option for its next meal. She sensed nothing initially, and opening herself to the Force only continued to invite the nearly insurmountable pull of the Dark Side to chew at her focus. She drew within herself again with a shudder, then gave Rayf a dubious look. "I hope you're not suggesting we wade through that."
Rayf gave her a pathetic look, answering in an infantile voice. "Aw, poor widdle spukamas doesn't like being wet?"
"We could just Force jump it. Or I could throw your juvenile ass across, since you seem deficient in telekinetic persuasions."
Rayf grumbled something under his breath about his difficulties in the more overt and exterior powers of the Force. He stood upright, still shining his glowrod into the limpid depths of wet darkness. "Considering I can't see what I'd be jumping across or into, I'd rather not launch myself into whatever rock-hard mushroom stalk or cliff face might be on the other side of this river. And getting tossed around by you once in this life is plenty for me. If you want to try any one of those things, be my guest, but I'm not afraid of simply walking."
"And if it gets deeper toward the middle?"
"I happen to float rather well, and I know how to swim. Do you?"
Foyi sniffed as she stashed her discblade on her back. "Of course." Without further ado, and to prove to him that she was not afraid of submerging herself in the waters before her, Foyi stepped into the river and began wading, keeping her hands at shoulder height as the waters first sloshed around her thighs, then began lapping at the equipment belt on her waist. The river was surprisingly warm, despite the advanced nature of the night, and had an oily quality to it that left a film on any exposed skin and plastered her clothes to her body like an adhesive. She walked awkwardly, her stride splayed wide as her boots found purchase in the sediment at the bottom of the river, her feet shifting awkwardly against the grimy waters that seeped into every orifice and pore of her lower body. She refused to show her discomfort on her face for no other reason than to deny Rayf the satisfaction, though the current of smug regard she felt from his direction as he followed her into the water revealed that he was not fooled by her facade. She purposefully strode forward, the water growing higher, splashing across her ribs and spraying droplets on her raised elbows, while her boots occasionally sank to the ankles in the slimy mud beneath her. Her foot turned on a stone and she nearly fell facefirst into the inky liquid, but she regained her equilibrium and kept moving. She had already walked several meters across the river, and the riverbed began to rise beneath her as the water receded centimeter by centimeter closer to her waist. Apparently, Rayf had been right; the river was not too deep, and neither was the current treacherous enough to sweep her offbalance.
She glanced over her shoulder to check on Rayf's progress, who was carefully stepping along behind her, his longblaster still in hand and held above his head. When he noticed her gaze, he gave her a grin, a flash of white teeth in the dark. "See? This isn't so bad. It's actually quite nice and warm. I'm getting tingly all over."
Foyi sighed in exasperation. "You really have to put a filter on what you choose to share with me, Rayf. I really don't need to know about your feelings, tingly or otherwise."
Rayf chortled, then opened his mouth for a response, which was interrupted by a sudden loud splash that sprayed droplets across Foyi's lekku. She whipped around to see Rayf no longer behind her, the waves lapping quietly as though nothing were amiss, like Rayf had simply disappeared from existence. She called his name, looking all around her in the darkness and in the process losing her sense of direction in relation to the shore she had vacated, as well as the still invisible shore she had yet to reach. Rayf did not answer, the only sounds those of the splashing water and the calls of creatures in the forest rising above her. Foyi's hand snaked over her shoulder, extracting the discblade from its harness in a single fluid motion and bringing it to bear. She called his name again, more desperately this time, putting the Force behind her voice so that it echoed off the walls of the ravine surrounding the river. "Rayf!"
She was about to reach out to him with her consciousness when there was another loud splash, and she caught of glimpse of the human's arm slicing through the water, flailing in struggle before it disappeared beneath the waves again. Foyi moved as quickly as she could to the spot where she had seen that arm, calling his name, though she knew not whether he could hear her. She could feel the tension in the waters around her, the struggle splashing waves against her abdomen and breasts, though she still could neither see nor feel anything definitive upon which she might act. She barely reached Rayf's last known location before the human came fully into view again, rearing out of the water with a spray of droplets, gasping and spluttering, his hands still gripped around his longblaster, which he was using as an unwieldy club against some thing that had latched onto his torso and wrapped itself partially around his left shoulder. Foyi could not make out the specific features of the creature; everything was too dark and moving too quickly. She merely saw inky, glossy skin like a cloak soaked through with water, latched and stretched across Rayf's body, a body that was wide and flat, as though it had been squeezed in a garbage masher, its oblong head displaying a gaping maw of fangs that scissored together as its flabby jaws gasped open and closed. The thing was snapping at Rayf's neck and jaw, wriggled further up the height of his body as it attempted to latch onto his throat, while he seemed to be using a combination of his weapon and the Force to discourage it from doing so. He gasped as he tripped and was pulled under the foaming waves again, Foyi screaming his name.
Rayf bobbed up again, though he was without his blaster now, still spitting and coughing water as the thing that had latched onto him had wrapped itself around his left arm. "Get it off me!" he gasped as he struck it repeatedly with the closed fist of his right hand.
Foyi wasted no time in lunging to his side, her discblade extended and used as a lethal augmentation to her own punch. There was an unearthly squeal as the weapon drew blood, and the creature's hold apparently lessened, for Rayf was able to pry it off and flung it away from him. The leathery creature was still midair when Rayf followed through with a Force shove, and it gave another shriek as it went hurling away to the opposite shore, back from whence they had come, its flattened contours spinning it over and over like Foyi's hurled discblade. Foyi reached out and steadied Rayf as he continued to flounder in the water, uncertain of his footing. As he regained his balance, Foyi became aware that not all the currents being made were from him alone, but were coming from other sources, sources that were burning lights of hunger and base passion rapidly approaching their position from various points around the river. "Rayf!" she screamed, putting the Force behind her voice, imparting to him in a flash of telepathy the danger she felt surrounding them.
"Go now!" Rayf replied at the top of his voice, and she needed no further encouragement or explanation for what he meant as they both drew on the Force in concert, instinctively reaching out to the energy field beyond them and inside each other. The water surged in a rough circle immediately surrounding them as the air warped and rippled, and suddenly both human and Twi'lek were airborne, having called upon the Force to assist them in jumps gaining unnatural heights and distance. They were propelled out of the water, and for a moment, Foyi experienced a sensation of weightlessness, true freedom of movement as she arced over the remainder of the river they had yet to cross, trusting in her instincts that she was jumping in the correct direction, that her leap was carrying her where she needed to go. So focused on the leap itself and getting away from the things in the water was she that she forgot to anticipate the landing, and so the steep, muddy embankment met her legs suddenly and without warning, the shock of the impact shuddering through her and ruining her equilibrium. It was not enough to cause any damage, but she felt the wind blown out of her lungs, and she tumbled lekku over heels down the muddy slope, until she arrested her roll with her left hand stabbing its digits into the mud and thick veins of fungus that grew there. She heard a splash nearby, and righting herself, she found the shore within a meter of where she had fallen, waves lapping and eroding at the mud near her head. She could still feel those hungry presences, lurking deeper in the river, but they refused to venture closer to shore, preferring to circle angrily in the deeper waters, unable to understand how their intended prey had so suddenly and completely vacated their last position. She reached out with both her hand and the Force, and found Rayf lying on the shore beside her, gasping and choking as he disgorged water from his lungs and stomach. Their hands met, and without a sound save for their gasps and the strangled choking vociferations emitted from Rayf's throat, they scrambled up the mud-slicked incline, using stalks of fungus and small mushrooms as handholds to aid their ascent. Only when they had reached a ledge several meters above did they stop to rest, and simply sat in the mud, regaining their breath in great gulping inhalations.
Foyi rolled over on her side, then pushed herself up into a crouch, resting her forearms on her knees and trying to center herself once again. She was quivering, a sensation she could not entirely blame on the adrenaline, exhaustion, and exposure to cool air in wet clothes. She looked to her left at Rayf, who spat the last stream of water and saliva from his mouth, then leaned back and lay flat on the ledge, running a mud-coated hand through his short, thin hair. Foyi crawled over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder; despite his heaving chest and shivering frame, she could feel that he was calm again, merely recovering from his initial surprise. She could see no lacerations or blood on his clothes, and with a gasp, she asked, "Are...are you alright?"
He tried to laugh and only managed to choke on more water in the back of his throat. "Just stellar."
"Did it bite you?"
"I...don't think so." He examined his hands, then gave himself a cursory inspection. "Looks like all my bits are intact, no chunks missing as far as I can tell." He sighed heavily. "Foyi? Next time I have the bright idea to cross a river on foot in the middle of an alien jungle, just throw my juvenile ass across the river instead, okay?"
She patted him fondly on the shoulder, then straightened to her feet, swaying woozily. "That's okay, Rayf. I wasn't planning on listening to you anyway." Rayf chuckled again, the sound devolving into strangled coughs, as Foyi resumed her trek up the slope, the mud and loose stones beneath her feet threatening to betray her footing and cause her to tumble down to the river below. After a moment, Rayf climbed after her, and with great effort, the two of them managed to crest the top of the ridge, their soaking clothes smeared with mud and spores, their limbs quivering from exertion, their foreheads beading with sweat in the oppressive humidity that continued to permeate the night air, the intermittent winds and light breeze that blew across their sides only managing to move the cloying moisture closer to them. Foyi gave a gasp and braced her palms on her knees, sucking in lungfuls of air; her limbs felt as though they were on fire, and her body remained upright through sheer force of will. Every time she took a large inhalation, she could feel the healing wounds across her ribs, the bruises that continued to linger in her limbs, neck, and cranium. There was a squelching sound as Rayf reached the ridge beside her, then she heard him give a heartfelt curse. "Sithspawn."
Foyi was about to inquire as to his issue, but she looked up and knew exactly what he was talking about. Ahead of them, as far as the eye could see in the darkness and the pallid light of the stars and jungle flora, the jungle had been swept clean by a great cataclysm, revealing a stretch of tortured, barren land dozens of square kilometers in size. It looked as though the surrounding area had been subjected to slash and burn war tactics, the evidence of heavy blaster scarring, shallow craters left by explosive ordinances, and the wreckage of starships and structures half-submerged in the mud suggesting this region had seen uncontrolled violence during the Clone Wars. The area was mostly flat, through the mud before them rose and fell in small ridges, pits, and troughs where rainwater had carved miniature rivers and wandering rivulets through the mud. There were craters made shallow by time and erosion, while small clusters of mushrooms and fungus stubbornly clung to the land in last bastions of wild growth, attempting to retaliate for the damage galactic conflict had brought to their world. The ruins of droids, vehicles, and spacecraft were merely black shapes in the night, their geometric contours in direct opposition to the amorphous slurry that was the wasteland before her.
Rayf squatted down in the mud. Subconsciously, he reached for the longblaster and glowrod affixed to it, but remembered he had dropped the weapon and tool in the river during the struggle with the creature lurking in its depths. He cursed under his breath as he searched the soggy pouches of his utility belt and the satchel hanging beside his waist, then withdrew another glowrod and flicked it on, shining it on the mud for several meters ahead of him. He began to pace a wide circle, looking for traces of the disturbance a repulsor vehicle would have created in the soft wasteland. Foyi crouched by his side, and though she had more than a small measure of experience in tracking and reading the signs left by both predators and prey, she could make no sense of the swirls of mud, water, and fungal matter that Rayf's glowrod illuminated. Apparently, Rayf was having the same difficulty, for he shook his head and gave her a plaintive glance, as if he were apologetic. "I have no idea what I'm looking at here, Foyi. If the speeder was through here recently, rain has already washed the traces away."
Foyi sighed in frustration. "Then we'll try a different approach." Foyi remained squatted beside Rayf, but she did move, did not feel the pain of maintaining such a position for so long as she submerged herself in the Force again. Rayf watched her, waiting patiently as she stretched out into the energy field of both the present and past, searching for the signature left by her sister. After a lengthy moment, Foyi gave a great gasp and fell back on her haunches, cursing under her breath. "I have a vague feeling that she was through here, but I can't divine a direction that we should follow. There're too many presences, too many memories. The Force is turbulent and confused here, even more so than what we've already found to be true on this world steeped in the Dark Side."
"Alot of people died here," Rayf surmised, reaching out to feel the emanations of the past war that permeated the wastes. The Dark Side twisted and percolated here in a more palpable manner than it did in any other place they had visited upon Felucia so far. They had stumbled upon a battlefield left by the Clone Wars, a wound upon Felucia's skin that continued to fester due to the infection of the Dark Side. He stood upright, worked the shoulder the creature had latched onto to alleviate some of the soreness he felt there, then drew the bladed head of his wan-shen in his free hand. He looked to the Twi'lek to see a dejected expression on her muddy, grimy features, and offered her a smile. "Cheer up, cousin. We just have to look for anything that doesn't belong, and we'll pick up the trail again in no time."
"'That doesn't belong'?" Foyi echoed. She spread her hands to indicate the entirety of the wastelands before them. "You mean, like this whole blasted mud field?"
"See, there's one!" he replied cheerfully. "Just point out anything else unusual, and we'll be plotting a course to your sister in no time." He began to stride across the mud, but paused and looked back at her with a serious expression. "You come across tracks of anything large and likely to eat us, don't keep it to yourself, okay?"
Foyi did not justify his words with a response, as she had little patience for his levity. He may somehow manage to keep optimistic in the face of worsening odds and so shortly after nearly being drowned or digested by the creatures in the river, but Foyi felt only the same lingering desperation and hopelessness that had been plaguing her ever since Tama's kidnapping. She was so close to Tama now, she believed she could almost taste it, but it seemed no matter how far she came, no matter how close she actually drew to the day when she would see Tama again, the more obstacles arose to stand in her way. Together, they began a sweep of the wastelands before them, Rayf using his glowrod, Foyi, her familiarity with Tama's presence. Their feet sank deeply into the mud, their boots making sucking noises as they were continually withdrawn and plunged into the soup in which they walked. They passed the remains of droids, discarded bits of armor that Foyi only vaguely recognized as that which had belonged to the clone troopers simply because its design was so similar to those used by contemporary stormtroopers. She walked forward, her consciousness extended out into the immediate external environment, letting the Force guide her movements, as though she had activated a personal radar, and whenever she drew close enough to a location where Tama had spent time or passed through, she gravitated toward it with careful, measured steps. Rayf followed her, providing light ahead of their movements, the glowrod's illumination occasionally playing across the rusted hulls of wreckage they passed, bringing the ghosts of the Clone Wars to light one final time before they continued onward.
They proceeded across the old warzone for an unknown amount of time as the night deepened and the wind began to pick up, bringing a chilly bite with its currents that caused them both to shiver in their damp garments. Foyi looked over her shoulder, back at their footprints, and saw they had been carving a trail that wandered back and forth across the mud, suggesting travelers who knew not where they were truly going, nor how to reach their desired destination. She pushed the doubt away in her thoughts and dove beneath the waters of the Force again, letting her feelings rest and calm, letting the Force provide insight and guidance as to what direction to face that would ultimately lead them to a reunion with her sister. Their trek was slow and ponderous, the mud only growing deeper and clinging more tightly to their feet and calves, the squelching noises it produced beginning to grate on Foyi's nerves the farther she walked. Fortunately, she found a strip of stony land bisecting the nearly-liquefied battlefield, and began to walk across it, the feeling that Tama had once been near hovering on the very vestiges of her consciousness. Rayf shown his glowrod ahead, the cone of light it produced stretching into the darkness and reflecting off slimy, glistening surfaces. It took Foyi's eyes a moment to adjust, but she recognized those surfaces as stalks and bodies of small species of fungi, the very outskirts of the forest reclaiming the land scarred by war. They had reached the jungle's depths again, and Foyi ran ahead until she began to walk amongst the mushrooms and stalks of bulbous fungal flora, though there was no path in sight like that which had been left by the speeder before.
Rayf shown his glowrod in an arc, but the tangle of jungle was all that greeted his light, forest that was uninterrupted in its rampant, virulent growth as far as the eye could see. "I'm beginning to think that this might be easier in the daylight."
Foyi could not argue with him; the thought of continuing their search when the had the benefit of morning's light was an appealing one. But the thought of Tama having to survive another night in this strange and alien place, to spend another night at the mercy of the Shepherd, bid her to continue moving, to close the distance that separated them.. "Come on," she growled, stalking the edge of the forest and turning to her left. "The trail's gotta be around her somewhere. I'm still getting the barest hints of Tama's presence in the immediate area. Besides, we're still on the opposite side of where we were across the ravine, yes?"
Rayf scratched his head, looking to be at a loss. "Honestly, I got a little turned around when those swimming mynock-things tried to chew my face off. I couldn't really say."
"Well, just keep looking. We'll find it, even if we have to search this entire battlefield."
Rayf gave her a determined nod and opened his mouth for a verbal agreement, but he was interrupted by the sound of something large, unwieldy, and weighty crashing through the jungle about a dozen meters ahead. Foyi stopped dead in her tracks as a cold wave of pure threat born upon an undercurrent of Dark Side intent hit her fully in her heart, and she instinctively threw herself to the ground, dropping into a ready crouch with her discblade held in front of her. Rayf squatted beside her, his glowrod flipping off and plunging the immediate area into pure darkness, while with the same flurry of motions, he began to assemble his wan-shen and held it before him, poised for a stab into whatever may emerge from the darkness beneath the forest's canopy. Without the glowrod's illumination to obscure and narrow her vision, Foyi could better see the stripes and patches of phosphorescence that shown from individual stalks of fungus within the forest's depths. She peered ahead, and sucked in a breath when she realized that some of those phosphorescent patches were moving, random striping that outlined the contours of an immensely large creature, haphazardly barreling its way through the jungle toward the pair of them, though judging by the speed with which it moved, Foyi doubted it was specifically targeting them. Rayf saw it too, and signaled that he was moving to the right and out of its way; Foyi followed closely on his heels, and they hid themselves in a snarled thicket of mushrooms and twisted, bulbous stalks. They waited, making themselves as small and close to nonexistent in the Force as they could, keeping their breathing barely audible and still.
They did not have to wait long for the creature to fully reveal itself. It stood several meters in height, but still not tall enough to rise above the the tallest of the mushrooms and fungal trees that comprised the deepest parts of the Felucian jungle. It was mostly bipedal, standing upon widely-splayed pachydermic hind legs, while its overlong forearms provided maneuverability by pressing its knuckles into the mud before it. It strode forward in a thunderous approach like an immense ape covered in hoary, wrinkled skin akin to durasteel, rather than an epidermal sheathe. Its head was one large, squashed protrusion of abhorrence, with small, beady eyes that gleamed in the dark, humongous, flared nostrils, and a maw filled with ragged, mismatched fangs. Phosphorescent stripes of paint had been lathered along its flanks and limbs, further slashes decorating the contours of its face and only serving to make it more hideous and far more terrifying. Foyi struggled to remain calm upon seeing the creature, for she was familiar with the species of vicious predators known as rancors by reputation and holograms only, and had wished to never meet one, much less be within a half dozen meters of one.
As the rancor drew closer, the stench of its musky body odor, decaying flesh, and fresh blood all assaulted her nostrils at once, and she had to make an effort not to gag. She kept her Force-enhanced senses close to her body, wary that it might sense her if she reached out or was not actively concentrating on trying to disappear into the background of the universal energy field. Even so, her empathic senses briefly touched the rancor's mind and regard, and she found a surprisingly intelligent slurry of thoughts, sensations, and feelings revolving around hunger, suspicion, and primal anger. It was profoundly disorienting, but as her consciousness brushed that of the rancor's, she became aware of another presence, denoting a far more developed and evolved consciousness, albeit one that felt even more primal and savage than the beast's, for it had been steeped in the Dark Side. Tentatively, she reached out with a single, quiet current to identify the source and location of this second mind, and found it to be moving in tandem with the rancor's, as though they were sharing the same body. She furrowed her brow in puzzlement, but then she felt Rayf's fingers brush her elbow to get her attention, and when she looked at him, he was indicating a spot just above the rancor's nearly nonexistent neck and mountainous shoulders. Foyi followed the imaginary line from his index finger, and gave a small gasp of surprise as she saw a smaller biped sitting astride the rancor's shoulders, apparently giving the beast direction and motivation through a series of clicks, grunts, and barks that sounded vaguely like articulate speech, though it was in a language she did not recognize.
Foyi leaned out of the strands of fungus just enough that she might gain a better view of the creature that so boldly used something as powerful and indomitable as a rancor for a means of traversal over the hostile landscape. The alien was vaguely humanoid, though its thick limbs were more akin to the rubbery stalks of Felucia's native flora than the hinged appendages of Rayf and herself. Its arms seemed to have another pair of smaller, vestigial limbs that branched off from their elbows, with the prominent pair ending in webbed protrusions not unlike suction cups, and the thinner, lower pair possessing a trio of digits that were obviously fingers. Its legs, which held its body fast to the rancor's hide despite the loping gait of the lumbering beast, ended in a similar quartet of webbed digits, while its thick, muscular body extended upward to a head that seemed little more than a hideous mass of tendrils drooping across and about a face that appeared to be a pair of vacuous black eyes and a gaping sphincter of a mouth not unlike that of the rancor upon which it rode. The Dark Side veritably seeped off the alien, and Foyi found herself pulling back her extrasensory regard almost immediately from the barest moment of contact she had with the creature, for she could sense the creature also searching beyond its physical senses. It was a Force-sensitive, one with little more than raw, unbridled talent, its body and mind a tangled bundle of passion, bloodlust, and dark intent she dared not attempt to fathom, lest she be drawn down into the cold depths again with it. Perhaps this was a member of the Force-sensitive natives Rayf had suggested might have been living across the surface of this world, and maybe at one time, the alien had simply lived and minded its own business as it tried to make a life for itself in the unforgiving jungles. But like the rest of this planet, the alien had reached out into the Dark Side, and received an answering touch, one that had promised great power at the cost of absolute corruption. The alien's presence was even worse than what she had had to endure in the company of the Sable Dawn assassins, making her physically ill just by the briefest of mental brushes against the creature's regard.
The alien suddenly gave a loud chuffing noise that became an eerie howl, and the rancor swung around, growling so deep in the back of its throat that Foyi could feel the vibrations in her teeth. Together, master and beast began to lumber through the jungle, crushing mushrooms and twisted sprouts of moss and mildew in its wake, its lengthy arms reaching out to push aside the tallest and thickest trunks of fungal material. Both Foyi and Rayf tensed, raising their weapons and resettling into crouches from whence they could spring if necessary, which was looking more likely with each passing moment.
For as they crouched in fear and anticipation, the rancor and the Felucian straddling it moved inexorably closer, both emitting hideous growls and suffusing the surrounding atmosphere with the miasma of the Dark Side itself.