Star Wars: Lost Souls

by BAPostma

Zeison Sha Warrior Foyi Imbuma has spent the majority of her life hiding her Force abilities on Yanibar, while training her sister, Tama, in secret. But when Tama is kidnapped by a sadistic serial killer, Foyi must venture across the galaxy, from the Smugglers' Moon to shadowy Point Nadir to the hostile jungles of Felucia, to rescue her sister. Cover Image courtesy of Wookieepedia.

31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

The descent from the precipice's heights was slow and arduous. Vaevi refused to be carried or supported for long as they proceeded downward, but her obstinate insistence upon climbing by herself had to surrender to the nature of her injuries at multiple points. Both Foyi and Rayf did their best to assist her in the endeavor downward, with Foyi even calling upon her telekinetic skills to seize hold of the Iktotchi and lower her the rest of the way to the ground. Her own exhaustion and pain made it difficult for her to concentrate, and so Vaevi's midair descent was not as smooth as she intended. The Iktotchi uttered several vile curses, both verbally and telepathically, as her dangling feet struck the edge of one of the large mushrooms, followed by a cry as those feet finally met the ground and refused to support her initially. Both Foyi and Rayf scrambled the rest of the way down the treacherous slope as quickly as they were able, to find the bounty hunter picking herself up from where she had sprawled across a mound of mold, mud, and shards of rock, the last vestiges of a landslide fallen from the upper reaches of the precipice they had just left. Foyi rushed to her side and helped her to her feet, the Iktotchi swaying and continuing to curse liberally and colorfully. "Sorry," Foyi interjected sheepishly. "I tried to set you down...gentler than that."

Vaevi grunted and inhaled hesitantly, setting the foot attached to her wounded thigh gingerly upon the ground. She tested it a couple times, hissing in pain as she did, then pulled away from Foyi's support. She hobbled forward a few steps, testing her weight and her leg, and maintaining an upright position. "It's karking fine," she grumbled. "Hutt-sucking, stoopa, pieceaslag, nerfherdin' Imperial womp rats..."

Rayf walked past the two women, his eyes scanning the darkness in search of threats. "I can't say I'm overly fond of the Imps myself, Vaevi, but if you insist on carrying on like that, we're going to alert every Imperial womp rat for ten klicks."

"Why don't I shoot you in your shoulder and leg and see how well you handle it?"

Foyi peered at the bacta patches over her wounds, though she could see no indication that the injuries were faring any worse than they had moments before. "Is the bacta not working?"

"Of course it's working!" Vaevi snapped. "But it still hurts like a fever wasp sting..."

"At least you can still walk," Rayf supplied positively. "And talk well enough to curse and threaten; you'll be fine."

"Don't patronize me, Corellian," Vaevi responded acidly as she hobbled past him. She had gone a few meters deeper into the jungle before she looked back over her shoulder, her expression, barely perceptible in the darkness and continuing rain, etched in genuine surprise. "What are you two standing around for? We've got places to be, serial killers to vape. Let's move!"

Foyi gave her human companion a wry smile. "Where is she actually going?"

Rayf shrugged. "That's what I'm trying to figure out. Did she hit her head when you dropped her?"

Apparently, Vaevi's hearing was exceptional, for she whirled around as quickly as her wounded form and hobbled gait would allow. "I'm heading back toward the speeder trail we were following earlier. The two of you can keep doubting my mental capacity, or you can come along and find out if it does actually lead to Arc—the Shepherd."

Foyi's lekku twitched as exhilaration rose from the fathoms of her being and sent every nerve within her buzzing. She raced across the uneven ground and thick slurry of mud, no longer noticing the pain from multiple injuries, new and old, arching through her body or the rain falling upon her skin, her sodden clothes clinging to her frame and making almost every movement uncomfortable. She slid beside the bounty hunter and excitedly gripped her shoulders, eliciting a gasp of pain from the Iktotchi. "The trail?! Where?"

Vaevi pried the Twi'lek's hands off her shoulders with a huff, rubbing the patched wound upon her injured appendage. "If my sense of direction hasn't been completely fouled by this murglin' rain and that climb down the cliff, it should be a couple klicks this direction I was trying to walk toward. North, I think." She checked the chronometer on her wrist, then nodded. "Yeah. North of here, about two or three klicks."

Rayf also joined the two women, his countenance bemused. "Your visions have become incredibly specific."

"Visions have nothing to do with it. When the two of you were conducting your séance or whatever it is you were doing, I was keeping watch and scouting from the top of the cliff. Through the scope of my rifle, I was able to spot a break in the forests' canopy, a line of mud and stone that was relatively straight and too consistent in its contours to be a river. I'm certain it's the trail we were following; we haven't strayed too far from the valley with that ridiculous sarlacc." She gritted her teeth and shifted her weight wholly upon her uninjured leg. "I could be wrong, but I say it's worth checking out."

Rayf nodded his assent. "We've nothing else to go on."

"Let's go," Foyi replied enthusiastically.

The three of them proceeded between the encroaching moss, fronds of mildew, and towering mushrooms, walking through a morass of darkness, rain, mud, and differing patches of phosphorescence competing for greater luminosity. Vaevi's steps grew more certain as she walked, the bacta in the patches and ampule she had injected working their magic on her injured and weary flesh, her determination and desire for answers, for vengeance, providing all the motivation she needed to continue striding forward. Foyi and Rayf followed her as she led the way to where she believed the Shepherd's trail continued its way through Felucia's jungles, keeping close beside her in case she would stumble or her determination failed to keep her upright. Foyi did little more than follow; her mind was too active, too convoluted with a hopelessly tangled snarl of thoughts and emotions. She found comfort in the fact that Tama was somewhere on this world, that they had made contact with each other, however brief. And yet she could not deny the continued pounding of her heart, her physiological and emotional response to the fierce battle they had just fought atop the cliff. The realization that she had almost died more times than she could count in mere moments had given her a sense of urgency, a revelation in how fragile she truly was, even with the power of the Force within reach. She had faced death multiple times within such a short period of time, but the cessation of her own existence no longer scared her. She looked down at her cut, bruised, and grimy hands, and found they were still quivering with exertion, with all the adrenaline that had fueled her frame during the pitched battle. With lingering fear. Fear born of the distinct possibility that she might still fail, in spite of all the adversity she had already overcome. She might fall in battle or arrive too late, and Tama may forever be left to the cruelty of this planet and the monsters that walked its surface. She might finally succumb to the Dark Side, which had already so stained her soul, and constantly nagged her every moment she walked in the metaphysically polluted jungles surrounding her.

Her hand reached absentmindedly for the holster on her back, and only belatedly she remembered the weapon of the Zeison Sha, the symbol and companion of one trained in the arts of the ancient Force tradition, had been destroyed. The discblade she had crafted herself through both trial and error and the whispered wisdom of the other Warriors of Yanibar, related to her in hushed tones within cantinas and hidden alleys. Though her entire identity did not rely upon that training or the weapon she had carried and used almost exclusively for so long, she could not deny the pit in her very essence that the loss of the discblade had left in her. Her mind struggled to move past these gloomy thoughts. Adhering to the Zeison Sha tenets had never been about wearing specialized armor or throwing a hoop of sharp blades she had created for herself. She, and the Zeison Sha, would be nothing without the connection to the Great Mystery, the power granted them by the Force. The Force had not forsaken her, and so she remained whole, no matter how she felt regarding the loss of such an integral part of her arsenal.

And then Foyi's thoughts turned to the frightening visage of the Inquisitor, the Devaronian woman Rayf had referred to as Vinaq. The woman he had recognized and known from a previous life; a previous life that had a different name from the one he used. Not for the first times, doubts grew heavy upon her consciousness when she considered the human man walking beside her, doubts regarding his identity, rather than his convictions, his determination to see her reunited with Tama, to see the abused and victimized children at the mercy of the Shepherd returned to their homes. But the conversation he had carried on with the Imperial Inquisitor had raised more questions regarding this person who called himself Rayf Moors, who fought like a Matukai and yet wore Vinaq's lightsaber on his belt. Who was he really? Foyi turned her eyes forward from the sidelong glance she was favoring Rayf with, concentrating on the jungle and the Iktotchi woman before her. Did it really matter? His past was his own; she had been a part of his life for little more than a few days, even if it felt far longer than that. She had no right to interrogate him so.

Foyi felt Rayf's presence expanding, his consciousness tentatively reaching out toward her own. She glanced at him, to find him staring directly at her, no longer focusing upon where he placed his feet on the treacherous ground. A rakish smirk creased his lips, and his brow rose. Foyi furrowed her own. "What are you smirking at?"

"What are you looking at?" he countered. Before she could deny anything, he held up a forestalling finger. "You were looking at me; perhaps my overwhelming charms have finally melted that ice planet exterior of yours."

Foyi snorted rudely. "Hardly, flyboy." She continued walking in silence, meaning for that comment to end their potential conversation, but she could feel Rayf's continuing regard. She could almost sense the smirk he kept plastered to his face as a physical object in the Force, which inevitably drug her gaze back to his stare. His regard had not shifted from her at all. Even so, he maintained his balance and unerringly placed his feet so that he would not trip or catch them upon mold or in deep depressions of mud.

Foyi sighed in defeat and looked forward again. "I've just got...alot on my mind. It was pretty tense back there for awhile, and I don't think I'm...fully functional yet. Or rather, my mind isn't."

Rayf nodded sagely, finally facing the direction in which they walked, his smirk giving way to an expression that was more troubled. "I think I know what you mean. Our previous encounter was...unexpected. Unsettling." He turned to her again, worry etched in his face. "I never asked you if you're okay. I mean, you're still walking, so physically you're fine, but...well, Vin—that Inquisitor almost killed you. That's not something you walk away from feeling stellar about."

Foyi's lekku unconsciously wrapped protectively about her throat, as if trying to defend her from the memory of the lightsaber's heat hovering before her larynx. Before her face. She suppressed a shudder. "Well, someone trying to decapitate me with a lightsaber is a first. It'll take me awhile to finish processing that," she replied flippantly.

Rayf subconsciously glanced at the aforementioned lightsaber dangling from his belt. "Hopefully you won't have to try and process it again. You don't see a lot of these things in the galaxy anymore, thanks to Palpatine."

Foyi's regard was drawn to the weapon. "Is that why you took it? It reminds you of the Jedi?"

Rayf pointedly did not meet her eyes. "In some ways, I suppose you could say that. It reminds me of a time that felt...simpler. Structured. When I knew my place in the galaxy, and the galaxy seemed smaller and safer. I was going to be a Jedi Knight, a defender of peace and justice in the galaxy, an agent of the Republic's continuing mission of unity and tranquility." He favored her with a self-deprecatory smile. "I was more naïve. More idealistic. Less ravishingly handsome." He laughed when she rolled her eyes and continued. "Besides, it could be a handy tool and weapon. It seemed a shame to leave it behind. Maybe, outside of the hands of an Imperial Inquisitor, it can be used for some good."

Foyi bit her lip and looked away in contemplation. "You always speak so highly of the Jedi. And yet, isn't what that Inquisitor said is true? Didn't the Jedi throw you out of the Order because you didn't meet their standards?"

Rayf grunted at the choice of her words, and she could feel the irritation exuding in minor eddies from his presence, though whether he was annoyed at her words, the Jedi who had refused him training, or his own perceived failures could not be determined. "Ever since I was first made aware of my connection to the Force, all I wanted to be was a Jedi Knight. I trained long and hard, harder than some, and I knew practically everything a Jedi Initiate could know regarding the Order and the Force, committed to memory. But I had a weak and inconsistent connection; the Force was with me, but it wasn't strong, and calling upon it didn't come easily. That was the reason I failed the Initiate Trials. As for the reason I left...it was more complicated. I wasn't thrown out of the Jedi Order, but the Council refused to continue training me to become a Jedi Knight. They offered to make use of my meager abilities and my conviction to serve what good there is in the galaxy and the Light Side of the Force in the Jedi Service Corps. But I felt that all my hopes and dreams, all my hard work, had been for nothing, and so I took the offer as an insult, a poor alternative offered me only out of pity for my unique and unfortunate situation. I left because I felt cheated and angry."

"Makes sense to me," Foyi responded. "I would've probably felt the same way."

Rayf sighed. "I'm not going to try and claim that how the Masters handled...unique cases such as mine was the right thing to do, and I'm not saying they weren't stuck in their ways, or thought their insights into the Force were more valid than those with less training and experience. In my opinion, they should have been willing to tailor the training regimens to each Jedi potential, to study and discover each student's different connection to and means by which they used the Force, and not try to make everyone fit into a specific viewpoint. But the Service Corps was an honorable organization, and they helped foster peace and tranquility in the galaxy in ways more subtle, but often more effective, than even the flashy lightsaber-wielding Knights. I could have done much of what my sad, idealistic young mind wanted to accomplish in the Service Corps had I the foresight to consider the options offered me and not let my pride close that course off to me. Granted, had it not been for my anger and disappointment, I probably would not have expanded my Force potential with Matukai training." He turned to face her again, his voice soft. "And I probably would have died in the Purge; as a Matukai, I barely escaped it anyway. I might not have been here...with you. To help you, your sister, and all the others who've suffered at the hands of this sithspawn."

Foyi laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. "And if I haven't expressed my appreciation for your help before, I will now. You have no direct connection to anyone involved in all this or anything that happens here, but you continue to give of yourself without expectation of return or reward. There would have been many times already that I would have failed...or died, but you've stuck by my side this entire journey, and kept me alive, kept me together. Even though I realize I'm not the easiest person to get along with."

Rayf shrugged her hand from his shoulder, but as her hand fell, he caught it in his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You're alright, Foyim'buma."

Foyi chose not to remove her hand from his immediately, even though both their palms were slick with sweat, mud, blood, and other unidentifiable substances. She took strength from that contact, and a part of her did not want to be the first to let go, even though she forced herself to after a lengthy moment. When she finally did, she dropped her hand, but did not pull it back to herself at first, instead gesturing with it toward his utility belt. "Can I see that?"

Rayf did not need to ask for clarification; he unhooked the lightsaber from his belt and passed it hilt-first to her. Foyi took the weapon gingerly, letting her fingers feel the silvery and white contours of the ribbed handle, the concentric circles of metallic and exotic materials feeling smooth and deceptively light in her hands. The weapon showed a fine attention to design and detail, as though whoever had made it had done so with painstaking care and over a great period of time. Having such a tangible connection to the weapon, she could feel its unique signature in the Force, the way it exuded its own energy, almost as though the device had been bound and imbued with the Force during its construction. In this way, it was like the discblade she had lost. Likely, the Inquisitor had created it as her own personal weapon to be an extension of herself and her unique abilities, both physically and in the Force. She had a sudden urge to activate it, to see how it felt in her own hands, how it coincided with her own command of the Force. But Foyi thought better of it, and passed the weapon back to Rayf, who simply clipped it to his belt once more. "That Jedi-hunter," Foyi began carefully. "You called her Vinaq...and she called you Thame. You knew each other...from before all this? Before...'the Purge'?"

Rayf would not meet her eyes, his gaze locked upon memories of a past that seemed lightyears away from his present. "We were Jedi Initiates at the same time, put through most of the same training and meditative regimens. We were actually in the same...I guess 'class' is the right word. Katarn Clan. About twenty students, all selected and grouped into the clan best known for those who draw upon the Force for stealth, subterfuge, and camouflage." He gave her a sidelong, evaluative glance. "Had you been brought into the Jedi Order when you were young, you probably would've been sorted into the Katarn Clan. I've noticed you tend to move quickly and quietly almost everywhere you go, keeping your emotions guarded, your words carefully selected. You and Vinaq probably would have been the best of friends."

Foyi raised her brow as she glared at him. "Unlikely. It seems you fit in well with this...'Katarn Clan' too, considering you rarely answer a question without first trying to redirect it to another subject, or avoid the answer entirely."

Rayf chuckled lightly. "You've caught me, cousin. My proclivity for being obtuse and mysterious has served me well over these years in staying ahead of the Empire and its Inquisitors. It also helps keep women interested."

Foyi did not justify that last statement with a response, instead trying a different tactic of inquiry. "Is that why...Vinaq was part of the Katarn Clan? Does she have some ability to completely hide herself from the Force? I've never felt such a...void centered around a person before. It felt...wrong somehow, like she shouldn't be able to exist without the Force like that. Whenever I reached out to her to try and feel her, to sense her presence, I felt like I was trying to grab hold of a slimy granite slug that kept slipping out of my grasp."

Rayf shook his head. "You have to remember I haven't actually known Vinaq since we were children. She displayed prowess with stealth and dueling, certainly, but most of the power and capabilities she displayed in our battle today were ways of using the Force I've never seen before. But the way she could so completely disappear from the Force isn't one of her powers. Maybe you noticed the strange scale she wore around her neck? That's a skin nodule from a Taozin, a big slug from Va'art that had the ability to appear invisible in the Force; there were records of them in the Jedi Archives I saw when I was younger, but they were supposed to be extinct. I'd heard rumors that Imperial Inquisitors had methods of hiding themselves completely from the Force, which is why so many Force-sensitives have fallen to their blades."

Foyi shuddered at the thought of creatures that could naturally disappear from the Force. She relied as heavily on the Force as she did her sight, especially in combat, and she found herself less than eager to meet opponents with such abilities again. Though the concept of being able to completely block outside influences through the Force, to become effectively invisible, was an intriguing one. Perhaps she could learn such power, though she doubted she could ask a Taozin or an Inquisitor for tutelage on the technique. She turned to Rayf again. "And she called you Thame..."

"Is that a question?"

"Is Thame...Mirac your real name?" Foyi shot back.

"Is Foyim'buma yours?"

"Yes," she replied cantankerously.

Rayf met her eyes, then sighed heavily. "Does it really matter? 'Thame Mirac' is the name I was given at birth, but I haven't gone by it since I left the Jedi. I'm a different person from the kid who failed the Initiate Trials and set out to find my place in the galaxy. I've adopted many names and aliases over the years, but I'm Rayf Moors now. Maybe I'll be someone else years down the road, but I hope you can understand my hesitation with using a given name that was recorded in the Jedi Archives...the data that has undoubtedly been in the Empire's possession for all these years." He continued to hold her gaze, and Foyi felt a ripple of hesitation in his presence. "I hope that doesn't change anything between us. I didn't think the names I used to use was important now."

Foyi's lekku curled away from her throat and draped themselves back over her shoulders in a subconscious gesture of placation. "It doesn't. When she called you by a name I wasn't familiar with, I only realized I don't seem to know all that much about you. About where you come from, where you've been. Naturally, I was curious."

He smirked. "Knowing you, you were more suspicious than curious."

Foyi turned away with a shrug. "I won't argue with that. Knowing an Imperial Inquisitor by name tends to rouse some suspicions."

Rayf conceded the point with another chuckle. "Yeah, I can see how that might look bad. In my defense, that was the first time I've seen Vinaq since we were younglings. I didn't know she had survived the Purge, much less swore allegiance to the Emperor."

"So why do you think she was here? She hasn't been hunting you all this time, has she?"

Rayf shook his head. "I'll admit, it's a barvey coincidence, but I think it's only that. She seemed genuinely surprised to see me here; more likely, her and that scary bunch of stormtroopers, or whatever they were, were probably looking for potential recruits amongst the Force-sensitive natives. The Imps and Felucians didn't seem too fond of each other back at that sarlacc pit. That's what the Inquisitors do, if you didn't already know. They hunt down people who are sensitive to the Force, whether they have learned to use it or not, and then they evaluate the threats they pose to the Empire, or if they can be turned into tools of Palpatine's will. Into weapons and pawns of the Dark Side."

"That's why she gave you her...offer."

Rayf shrugged. "She's not the first Inquisitor to give me a similar offer. Though I haven't run across one in years, and it wasn't long enough, believe me."

Foyi gave him another bemused stare. "Everything you know about Inquisitors, and you still tried to get her to help us."

"We could use all the help we can get, Foyi," Rayf explained nonchalantly. "I swear, everything on this planet is trying to kill us specifically, not to mention how every living thing here seems to be steeped in the Dark Side. It's probably only by the Force's providence alone that we've made it this far, and I had hoped to appeal to Vinaq's sense of justice to try and gain her aid, even if we could never trust her. And by helping the kids trapped somewhere in this hellhole, maybe she could've reconnected with some part of her she's lost since becoming a servant of evil. Everyone deserves a second chance, Foyi, and in these dark times, it's up to us to at least offer it to those willing to listen, to learn, and to contemplate changing their ways."

Foyi mulled over his words as they continued to walk. For the first time in many moments, she returned her attention to the stubborn bounty hunter hobbling before them, either concentrating on picking a path through the jungle that would not require much effort to bypass, or even lost in her own thoughts. Foyi tentatively exuded tendrils of consciousness toward the Iktotchi to get a sense of her mood, and felt ripples of decreasing pain accompanied by waves of growing weariness surrounding an interior current of distraught memories all splashing against a pit of anger without depth. Undoubtedly, the woman was thinking about the quarry they sought, the creature she was convinced had once been her husband and the father of her lost children. She craved confirmation of her suspicions, the contingency upon which the thoughts of vengeance she cradled like an infant relied upon. She wanted her suspicions to be true while simultaneously wished they were false. Vaevi held no more love for the man she had once been married to, but some small part of her still did not want all the heinous acts and rumors regarding the Shepherd's activities to be the responsibility of Arctan. That tiny, irrationally hopeful part of her still pined for a life she had not lived in decades, for a family she had cherished. Foyi could not help but feel sympathy for the woman, and considered what she might say in an attempt to alleviate the deep emotional scars that Vaevi had carried with her for so long. But she could sense they were buried too deep for Foyi's words to make any real impact.

Vaevi stopped suddenly before a thick wall of fungal stalks and fronds, a portion of the jungle that had become so twisted and grown together, they could not possibly slip through what few spaces were presented them. Rain ran freely down the slimy contours of the foliage, making the barricade appear to be a multicolored waterfall in the middle of the jungle. Foyi and Rayf joined her in standing before it, looking back and forth to see that it continued onward as far as they could see. Vaevi uttered a breathless curse, then turned to the Twi'lek and human. "Sithspit. Rayf, you still got that Pulse Rifle of yours? Maybe we can cut our way through the weakened sections here...or maybe your quaint spear could do some work on it."

Rayf did not answer her; he reached for his belt and came away with the stolen lightsaber in hand. He flipped the hilt around so that the emitter rose above his close fist. "Let's try this instead. And hope I remember how to use it." He gave both women a sardonic grin. "You might wanna stand back."

Vaevi slowly backed away, but Foyi resolutely remained where she was. If Rayf could display such skill with a weapon as exotic and unwieldy as a wan-shen, she had confidence in his abilities with a meter-long blade, even if it was made of pure energy. Rayf's grin widened at her impatient stance, then flipped the activation stud. The scarlet beam sprang to life with a snap-hiss, and Foyi jumped a little as the sight of the weapon triggered memories of her recent brush with death at the end of that blade. Rayf whirled the lighsaber around him to get a feel for it again, his grin going practically manic with exhilaration, the blade moaning eerily through the humid air, drops of rain sparking as they impacted its sanguine length. Rayf began to carve into the barrier of fungi with wide, sweeping arcs, cutting away multiple plants with an ease that spoke of the power of the blade. The foliage offered no resistance as the lightsaber slashed through trunks almost half a meter thick, fungi falling around them, severed from their foundations, sending vibrations through the ground as they impacted and echoing noise through the depths of the jungle around them. Within seconds, a hole in the natural barrier had been opened, the cauterized stumps of fungi glowing slightly with rapidly-cooling heat. Rayf flipped the lightsaber around his wrist once more in sheer thrill, then deactivated and replaced it on his belt in a single fluid motion. He gave Foyi a surprisingly boyish grin. "Yep. Still got it."

"Yeah yeah, you're impressive," Vaevi grumbled as Foyi allowed herself a light chortle. She stumbled forward, then carefully stepped high over ragged stumps and to the other side of the barrier. "Now, if you two are done with all the bumblefluff, we have people to save."

The Iktotchi's admonishment put a somber damper on the companions' mood, and the trio said little as they continued pressing through the jungle. They met other similar obstacles on a few more occasions, and Rayf was only too happy to use the lightsaber again to clear their way. At one point, both Foyi and Rayf had to help Vaevi over the sliced stumps of a tangle of mushrooms, for though the bacta had already done wonders on her wounds, the strain of constantly moving in her injured state was slowing her down. She assured them when asked that the road she had seen from the cliff face could not be far, and if that was the case, Foyi suggested they should probably rest once they found it, if only for a few minutes. Vaevi looked like she wanted to argue, though she knew she would not be of much use to them, herself, or the people they wished to rescue if she did not allow her body some measure of time to recover.

They found the Shepherd's path not long after that, when the storm's fury was finally beginning to abate, though it still cast angry sheets of rain infrequently across the surface of Felucia, accompanied by skittering flashes of lightning and an incessant grumbling of thunder. Foyi found it difficult to breathe as she looked upon the stretch of mud and mold colonies bisecting the jungle, as though it were a physical tether binding herself to the presence of Tama on this world. She looked to the left, and saw the road trudging onward, disappearing as it ascended the undulating slopes and crags of high country leading to dark hills she could only just perceive through the haze of misting rain. To the right, the speeder tracks descended into a trail of mud and growing puddles, before weaving away into a curve that disappeared beyond more foliage. Vaevi let herself fall to her posterior and gasped heavily in a noisy sequence of inhalations and exhalations. "I told you," she uttered obstinately, though her voice betrayed the excitement rippling outward from her presence.

Rayf patted her on the shoulder, to which she responded with a slap to his wrist. "So which way do we go? Right or left? Down or up?"

Foyi stepped onto the path, ignoring the mud attempting to suction her feet into the morass. "If I have my bearings right again, I believe we came from those hills to the left. Those are probably some of the same cliffs that ringed that valley with the sarlacc." She turned to the bounty hunter. "Right?"

Vaevi shrugged. "I think so. I don't know for sure, but that's what my sense of direction's telling me too."

"Which means," Foyi continued after a nod, turning to the right and looking down the road's length, "we were following that way. Whatever that leads to over there, we haven't seen yet. Hopefully, the prison or fortress 'the Shepherd' keeps all the kids he kidnaps."

"We could try meditating again," Rayf suggested. "Maybe we can contact Tama...we barely reached her last time, but I could feel she recognized you."

Foyi shook her head. "It's enough that the both of us know the other is alive. If it comes to that, then we can try that again, but I'd rather not risk giving away our position to any nearby Felucians, or an Inquisitor none of us can sense coming."

Rayf scratched his goatee. "Good point. Then we'll let our other senses and this road lead the way. And pray your sister's on the other end."

"When I found her, her presence seemed to be coming from somewhere in that direction. She gave me images of a ledge, a cliff, and a campfire to go on, so if we see any rock formations like that, don't anyone keep it to yourselves."

Rayf's insufferable grin displayed itself upon his face once more. "You know me. I can't keep anything to myself."

"Except being friends with an Inquisitor," Vaevi quipped.

"Well, if we were friends before, I doubt we are anymore. I took her lightsaber, after all. And let Foyi throw her off a cliff."

"We should've killed her," Vaevi lamented sourly.

"What can she do? She's alone and wounded in the jungle, without her weapon and the support of her troops."

The Iktotchi bounty hunter gestured sharply at her right horn. "She can vape things with her mind."

Rayf seemed to consider that for a moment. "Yeah, that does give me alotta bad feelings. Let's keep an eye out for her, just in case."

Vaevi grumbled something unintelligible. A sudden burst of rain fell upon them, making pattering noises as the drops splashed across their skin and increased the volumes of the fetid, murky pools slowly growing within depressions in the muddy pathway. The bounty hunter exhaled loudly as she levered herself back to her feet. Foyi reached to support her, but Vaevi merely slapped her hand away and stood on her own, absentmindedly rubbing her wounded leg, careful not to dislodge the bacta patch. Rayf gave her a grimace, followed by a query. "Are you certain you should be moving yet? We can wait here a little longer, let yo—let us all gather our strength."

"The more time we waste, the more lives we could be wasting as well," Vaevi replied sharply. Rayf seemed taken aback, and she grimaced and continued in a softer tone. "I'm tired of waiting and searching. I'm this close to answers I've been looking for for almost as many years as you've been alive. And I'll be damned if I let a couple blaster burns slow me down now. I don't need rest; I need to keep moving." She turned to Foyi then with a fierce gaze. "And your sister needs you to keep moving."

Foyi nodded. "You're right. If you think you can keep up, we'll keep moving."

Vaevi scoffed. "Keep up, girl? I'll be leaving you behind."

Foyi smirked mischievously. "We'll see about that, old woman."

The trio set off from where they had paused on the side of the road, proceeding down the sloping portion of the road as it descended into darker, more tangled areas of the jungles ahead, the mushrooms and foliage growing so closely together that they would have had to constantly hack through the trunks and bulbous fronds with blades and lightsaber in order to make any progress. But with the road available to them, they found their trek faster and less difficult than ever before. Though the majority of the tracks left by repulsors had devolved into a trail of mud interspersed with dark, rippling puddles of rainwater and fungal ichor, they watched where they placed their feet, and moved swiftly so as not to be slowed by the cloying mud.

The road continued to descend, until it leveled out and curved to their right. This curve had previously presented a blind corner for them due to the thicket of jungle around which it wound. From here, the road stretched ahead of them, reaching to the hazy horizon, continuing to descend slightly with the gentle slopes of the ground before them. The puddles in the middle of the tracks had succumbed to Felucia's gravitational pull, elongating into a delta of rivers in microcosm, the minute rapids the rushing water described eroding more of the mud and carrying pebbles and bits of fungal matter with them. Barely seen through the haze before them, the sloping path meandered back and forth slightly to negotiate sudden ridges and changes in altitude of the terrain, before disappearing once more around another bend to the right again, and judging by the canopies of the jungle below them, dropped down an incline steeper than the one they now tread. They paused at the top of that slope, looking down on the empty road before them; Vaevi retrieved her E-11s Sniper Rifle and brought the targeting scope to her eye, peering down the the slopes and into the jungle beyond. She adjusted the scope's rangefinder, then lowered the weapon and handed it to Rayf, who similarly peered through the scope, then passed it to the Twi'lek with a grim expression. Foyi accepted the weapon without a word and peered through the scope, the rangefinder piercing both distance and mist to bring the jungles beyond her reach into focus. She carefully panned the scope about, shifting her aim, sweeping her enhanced gaze upward, until she saw structures rising from the discombobulating sea of alien fungi, towers and skyscrapers, domed edifices and buildings with impressive numbers of floors. What had once been a small but modern city appeared to be no more, judging by the number of ragged edges and holes in the edifices Foyi could barely make out. Whatever former glory or purpose the city may have once boasted of, it could no longer do so now. It lay in dark ruins, in shadows beneath the dim, overcast atmosphere, lit only by distant, phosphorescent glows, marred by the remnants of war as evidenced by the carbon scoring and blasted skeletons of durasteel that were visible at even this range.

"About seven klicks out," Vaevi was saying. "Looks like one of the old Gossam cities that were here before the Clone Wars. Maybe a Sep stronghold."

"Think the younglings are being held there?" Rayf asked no one in particular, peering toward the region he knew the settlement to be, though he could not see it without the aid of macrobinoculars or the rifle's scope.

"Seems a likely place," Vaevi surmised. "Lots of hiding places, and easy to fortify. Large enough it won't be easy to find...him, or wherever he's keeping the kids. If this creep is actually Arctan, I can assure you he has plenty of contingencies for anyone trying to get too close to him, so we can expect traps or ambushes if we go in there."

"We don't even know yet if this road even goes there," Rayf retorted.

"It does," Foyi interjected assuredly. "Those ruins are where we need to go. I've got a bad feeling about that place."

Rayf gave her a bewildered look. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you feel that when you looked at the ruins?" Foyi responded, shouldering the rifle once more and wincing slightly as the stock contacted her injured shoulder. "That place...it feels like despair. Hopelessness. Pain. Death."

"This whole planet feels like that," Rayf replied. "But if you've got a feeling about that place, good or bad, then I'm game for checking it out."

Foyi passed the sniper rifle back to its owner and drew her own A295, the eerie and grotesque sensations she had experienced upon looking at the ruins making her nervous, the weapon in her hands providing a minor sense of security, even if it was ultimately false. She began to pick her way down the incline, her feet slipping along the treacherous stretches of mud and the rivulets of running water. Vaevi followed close behind, with Rayf bringing up the rear. The Iktotchi continued to caution her pair of companions as they walked, though she kept her eyes on the slippery mud beneath her feet. "When we reach the city, we can't just charge in like a herd of banthas. We need to scout the perimeters, gather as much information about the place that we can before we actually approach, see if we can determine exactly where he's holed up, where the younglings are. Then we make our move." She interrupted herself with a curse as her foot slid through a thick swath of particularly liquid mud. "Whatever Force the two of you wield, we can't just dive headlong and expect to keep-" Vaevi stumbled again, but it was not due to a loss of equilibrium on the treacherous terrain, for there was a shocked expression on her features, her face contorted as though she had been shot again. Both Rayf and Foyi stopped abruptly and grabbed one of her arms to keep her steady as she swayed, her eyes focusing and refocusing on something only she could see, before she finally shook herself free of whatever reverie had seized her.

"What just happened?" Rayf asked as Vaevi's arm quivered in his grasp.

"She's had another vision," Foyi surmised, staring into Vaevi's flickering eyes.

Vaevi put a hand to her head as though it pained her, then shook herself free of her companions' support. "We need to get off this road. Get to cover..."

"Why?" Rayf demanded. "What did you see?"

His answer came in the form of a noise, a new sequence of thunder too rhythmic to be natural. None of the trio had any problem identifying the noise as the vociferations of repulsors and speedercraft, and so they hastened to the side of the road, where they plunged in amongst a thick tangle of fungi flanking the road, fully immersed in the shadows cast by the mushrooms overhead. They had barely hidden themselves before a ST-101 Repulsortruck began to trundle up the slippery slope, its sputtering repulsors throwing splashes of dirt as it hovered low over the path. It was weighted down by multiple scarred, rusted, and beaten battle droids, a collection of B1 and B2 models, armed with a menagerie of weapons dating from before, during, and well after the Clone Wars. The tinny voices and strange babble of the droids could only barely be heard over the whine of the engines as the speeder truck passed by, slinging mud across the strands of fungi behind which they hid, followed by a wash of heated air and smoke. The speeder passed within seconds and continued up the slope, following the path carved through the jungle, and rounding the curve above them, disappearing from sight. Rayf began to stand once more, but Foyi grabbed a handful of his jacket and yanked him back down to a crouching position, for her keen ears and Force-attuned senses had detected the cacophony of machinery from further down the slope. Confirming her senses, a pair of repulsortrucks followed several meters behind, their engines clanging loudly, denoting the state of disrepair in which they were operating. These were laden with even more droids than the first repulsorcraft had been, heavily armed and obviously looking for something, based on the way their bodies and heads continued to swivel as they passed, their scanners undoubtedly sweeping the edges of the road. Foyi, Vaevi, and Rayf stayed low, crouching or lying in the mud and colonies of mold. As the pair of speeders continued past their hidden position, they remained stationary, waiting as the sounds of their vehicles fade, only to be replaced by yet another rumble of an approaching vessel. This revealed itself to be an A-A5 Heavy Speeder Truck, its exterior plating heavily pockmarked by dents and the faded dings of blasterfire or other projectiles that had failed to pierce the vehicles armor. Due to the enclosed nature of the vessel, the companions could not see what this vehicle transported, but likely it was more droids, or something even worse. The heavy speeder followed the previous three up the sloping path, and with the groaning of faulty engines, the vessel turned the curve and left their sight, the only evidence of its continuing existence the grinding sounds that echoed through the jungle and across the road to their ears.

Vaevi strained to hear the vessels as distance degenerated the sounds their poorly-maintained engines created, then turned to Rayf with a wry look on her countenance. "That's what I saw."

"Good thing you did," Foyi interjected. "Normally, my sense of approaching danger through the Force would have given me some warning of those speeders and the droids they carried, but it's been so unreliable on this world."

"The Dark Side clouds everything," Rayf added, to which Foyi gave a confirming nod.

Vaevi stood on shaking legs, peering between the stalks of fungi at the road and the new swirls left in the mud and rivulets of liquid scum the vehicles had disturbed in their passing. "What do you suppose that was? Are there still Separatist holdouts on this planet?"

"Had I not seen a caravan of clankers roll past, I would have rejected that idea out of hand," Rayf replied, running a hand through his hair, then flinging droplets of rain from his palm in disgust. "It doesn't seem likely, considering the Empire has had a steady presence on this planet since the end of the Clone Wars, and before the Empire, the Republic decimated most of the Separatist infrastructure on Felucia."

"Then what did we just see?" Vaevi asked again.

Rayf shrugged. "Malfunctioning droids looking to settle the frontier? A droid revolution?"

"A personal army of reprogrammed battle droids?" Foyi suggested darkly. Her companions' gaze fell on her, and her lekku twitched involuntarily with mild agitation. "What if that was some sort of security force for the bandits and colonists scattered somewhere on this planet? What if it was a private army for them? Or for one person alone?"

"Like the Shepherd," Rayf finished the thought breathlessly.

Foyi nodded. "We saw the tracks left by droids back at that old Separatist base where Tama and other children were dropped off and kept in cells. It seems that bastard has been using droids as his minions, and probably guards to keep those he kidnaps under his thumb. Those were probably his droids who almost ran us down."

"They weren't just traveling," Vaevi murmured, emerging from the cover provided by the shadows beneath the mushrooms and kneeling beside the road. "They were patrolling. Searching. Looking for something."

"Or someone," Rayf remarked as he cautiously stepped onto the road again, his hands waiting by his sides to snatch one of the weapons kept there. "Probably us," he added flippantly. "Despite all our efforts, we haven't exactly been inconspicuous about our presence here. Considering all the fights we've been in since landing, we might as well have spent a few hours firing blasters wildly in the air until everyone and everything that wants to kill us found us."

"If those droids are looking for something, it does seem rather convenient that they would barely miss us," Foyi agreed. "They're probably after us."

"Let's hope they are," Vaevi replied sourly. When she received incredulous expressions from both the human and Twi'lek, she elaborated with a gesture down the sloping section of road they had intended to traverse. "If they're out here looking for us, it'll be easier to sneak into those ruins and find the Shepherd and the younglings. Assuming that's where they are, and assuming those droids came from there."

"One way to find out," Rayf replied nonchalantly as he turned to resume his trek along the perimeter of the mud-soaked thoroughfare. "I'm tired of all this sneaking around anyway."

The three companions continued moving down the gentle incline, walking along the edges of the muddy track so that they might be able to dive back under cover of the jungle if any other convoys of potential enemies were to appear. They moved more quickly than they had before, keeping low and staying beneath the shadows across the road cast by the mushrooms rising above them. Foyi kept a tight grip on the blaster rifle in her hands, keeping her head on a swivel to take in as much of her surroundings as possible as she ran forward and down, while she continually sent ripples of thought and emotion into her external and metaphysical environments. The Dark Side continued to churn within her feelings, twisting them to dark thoughts of fear for her sister, of the incessant apprehension that pervaded every waking thought. The jungle seemed full of glaring eyes belonging to terrors existing merely to snuff out her own existence. She had to constantly remind herself to remain focused on the present, to keep her feelings in check and her senses close to her own body and mind, lest the illness under which Felucia suffered infect her as well.

Foyi, Rayf, and Vaevi reached the bottom of the slope, sliding through the mud the last few meters and splashing in a depression filled with standing water, deep enough to encompass their ankles in entirety. They extricated themselves from the slurry of mud at the bottom of the pool, Vaevi having the most difficulty due to her injured thigh, though she refused any further help from the Twi'lek or human. Upon reaching this more level area of the path, they turned to peer around the corner created by a curve about the jungle's perimeters, to see the road stretching almost directly before them, bisecting the jungle in as straight and narrow a path as they had seen yet on this world, with the silhouettes of the ruins they had spotted rising in the distance. If the road continued immediately forward as it seemed to, it inevitably intersected the outer limits of the ruins they could barely glimpse through the mist and dying storm. Rayf looked back at his companions over his shoulder. "Looks to be all downhill from here. Maybe we can just sit down and let gravity and the mud take us the rest of the way down."

"Would sure beat all this vapin' walking," Vaevi grumbled, rubbing her thigh again.

"Well I for one don't want to spend the next week scrubbing mud and stones out of my shorts," Foyi replied acidly. She gave the Iktotchi a deprecatory glance. "If you're tired of walking, I'm sure Rayf would be happy to carry you."

Rayf gave Vaevi an appraising glance before the bounty hunter could retort. "I wouldn't mind carrying around such a fine woman, though she looks kinda heavy, and I'm still a little warp-lagged."

"You'll be dead if you try anything, sleemo," Vaevi growled in response.

Rayf took a step back, mock horror on his countenance. His regard flicked to the Zeison Sha in a silent plea. "Foyi...you're the one who's so stellar at telekinesis...maybe you would carry her?"

"I don't need to be carried by either one of you nerfherders!" came Vaevi's heated response over Foyi's chuckle.

Foyi opened her mouth to continue the lighthearted discourse even as she took the next few steps across the road, only for her words to be disrupted by a cacophony of energy discharges, the sounds of blasterfire screaming back and forth in a heated firefight occurring at some great distance farther up the road, back from whence they had come. The three companions whipped around to look up the slope shrouded in mist and splatters of rain, but their sight revealed nothing out of the ordinary. They listened as they heard the staccato explosions of energy weapons being used in autofire mode, then a lengthy pause, followed by a truly spectacular discord of energy bolts scything through air and unknown materials...or creatures.

"Sounds like those droids found something to shoot at," Vaevi remarked without concern. "At least it isn't us. I'm not keen on being target practice again anytime soon."

Foyi barely registered that the bounty hunter had spoken, for she was concentrating instead on the sudden influx of feelings and sensations the Force was granting her, almost before she had sent searching ripples of her subconscious back up the slope. She felt a sudden spike of fear from multiple sources, from multitudinous presences that could barely be felt at such a distance and through the churning, frothing waves of the Dark Side. But these presences were not native to Felucia, for they were marred only by fear, anxiety, and pain, not the corruption of the darker aspect of the Force. All this she realized in moments, only to recognize one of those presences, exuding a subconscious plea for aid, a desperate cry for someone or something to save them from the unfeeling droids and their lethal hyphens of energy. A presence she knew as well as her own.

Foyi reacted without thinking, immediately spinning about and racing as fast as her slogging feet could carry her back up the slope they had traversed only moments before. Rayf and Vaevi both called after her, throwing caution to the wind as they tried to keep up to her desperate scramble. Vaevi stumbled and dropped to a single knee, but Rayf's long stride and ceaselessly energetic limbs caught up to her, and he seized one of the Twi'lek's arms, arresting her flight. Foyi whirled on him angrily, attempting to extricate her arm from his grasp, but she saw only bewilderment and worry on his countenance. "Foyi! Put on the retros a sec! What's wrong?!"

Foyi finally pulled her arm free and hugged her rifle tight, so distraught she could barely draw breath to answer him. "It's Tama. I can sense her up there, where the blasterfire is coming from! We have to help her!"

Neither Rayf nor Vaevi needed any further encouragement, joining her in her desperate sprint back up the slope, their feet kicking up mud and splashing their clothes with water and fungal ichor. They crested the top of the slope within minutes and immediately vectored toward the side of the road as they rounded the corner described by encroaching jungle, dropping into fast, scuttling crouches, their weapons forward. They pushed past the reaching tendrils and fronds of Felucian foliage until the road came into full view, the mud now marred by the smoldering wreckage of one of the ST-101 Repulsortrucks they had narrowly avoided previously. The ground was cratered with dark scars and newly-formed puddles from misfired blasters, while lashes of rain pinged with an eerie echo in the dark atmosphere on the metallic corpses of battle droids. Most were stitched with blaster wounds and carbon scoring, exuding sparks into the glistening puddles, while a few displayed plating that was burned nearly black. Smoke rose from the hungry flames that nibbled and flickered upon the ruined engines, while steam curled upward from rain striking rapidly cooling metal plating. Amongst the bodies of the automata lay a smaller, organic corpse devoid of a head, clothed in filthy, ragged garments that may have once been a simple tunic and travelers' trousers. Foyi's blood ran cold upon seeing the body, her fears twisting the decapitated features into those of her sister's; but closer inspection revealed the body belonging to a humanoid species unlike Twi'leks. She had no clue what the child's face must have looked like, but his body was covered in tiny scales of a dark brown and ocher in coloration, his hands ending in a trio of dexterous digits with frills of sharper scales. Foyi took a step back, feeling bile rising in her throat at the sight of a splash of gore and blood in the puddle forming from the ragged stump of his neck. She felt a moment of guilt as a sense of relief flooded her upon realizing the body did not belong to her sister.

Vaevi dropped to her haunches beside the body, muttering something unintelligible. She peered closely at the corpse, her face set in a snarl hovering on the verge of uncontrollable rage. "A youngling," she explained in a hoarse tone. "A Gormak boy, I believe. Not many of them out in the galaxy...they tend to stick pretty close to Voss. Those droids butchered him..."

Rayf occupied himself with inspecting the droids lying in pieces across the mud, or dangling over the smoldering sides of the open cockpit of the speeder truck. "And someone vaped these droids. Looks like multiple someones, judging by the amount of blast points on their armor and the repulsortruck." He gazed the opposite direction of the road, where it meandered up into the jagged cliffs and undulating ridges rising to the shadowy high country beyond. "So where are they? And where are the other droids?"

Foyi stood, letting her eyes fall closed and forcing her breathing to slow, letting her fear and desperation leak from her consciousness until she could think clearly once more. She let her mind bleed outward from her physical form, her perceptions fluctuate like waves lapping against her external environment. Part of her mind willed her to search, to consciously reach beyond until she found the presence she so longed to feel again, but she ignored its insistence and instead let the Force guide her to what she sought. And within moments, she caught an echo of Tama's presence, the ripples and minor currents she had left in her wake niggling her consciousness and provide her direction. Her eyes snapped open, muttering, "She was here...only recently. We are but minutes behind them, maybe more."

As if to confirm what she already felt within her soul, blasterfire rang out over the din of the intermittent rain. The trio's attention was drawn to the noise of violence, which echoed through the hazy air above them, meandering from the hills into which the road climbed and redirecting off the jungle's tangled morass. Rayf dropped into the mud from his perch upon the repulsortruck's wreckage at the same time Vaevi stood once more. "We need to get moving," Foyi managed in as calm of a voice as she could muster, and together, the three companions continued their sprint, clutching weapons to their chests as they stepped high and quickly across the mud. Running for the sounds of violence, of shots of energy traded between combatants. Foyi expanded her consciousness again, calling recklessly through the Force with her entire being, hoping that Tama still lived, that she would understand that her sister was coming for her. Foyi just hoped they would be in time to make a difference.