Chapter 4: Interruptions

Failure.

Viren held the gemstone, yes, but the key to its secrets was now out of reach, in the hands of the insolent girl.

To pursue her or no?

He did not wish to blindly run into a battle, yet if he lost that box and whatever was contained within it would be a bitter loss.

Even as he had decided, another factor revealed itself to Viren.

A presence.

While not as great as the masked Sith would have thought, it was enough to alarm him.

It was one of the Five.

Weighing in that new factor, Viren chose flight over fight...for now.

But he would not be waiting long.

o0o

Hazel awoke to a familiar, though not so welcome face.

It took but a moment for Hazel to connect the beady eyes and protruding beak to their owner and then to realize where that meant she was.

"Oh fosh, what am I doing in here?" she grumbled.

Aelynn glared at Hazel for a moment, undoubtedly a response to the insult to her species. "Why else but that you got yourself injured again!" snapped the Fosh as she continued to hover over Hazel.

"Well, I know that," said Hazel, trying to see what wounds were on her. She remembered the scuffle with the agents and then a brief lightsaber battle of sorts with Uncle Jacien, but she couldn't remember how it had ended.

"Then why did you ask the question in the first place? Humans make less and less sense with each passing generation..."

"How bad is it?" asked Hazel, resigning herself, for the moment, to the Fosh's less than pleasant nature.

"Nothing worse than you've already survived through. You'll be ready to go by morning, though I doubt you'll like where you're going any more than you care for this place."

"What do you mean? Where do they think they're taking me?"

"Why should I kriffing know?" screeched the Fosh. "All I've been told is that I am not, under any circumstance, allowed to leave you leave here until someone comes to fetch you. And judging by the way Jacien was acting, I would say this is worse than any of the other ridiculous things you've done."

"Looks like someone needs to retire," muttered Hazel as Aelynn moved to check on another patient. "At this rate the mad bird will start killing everyone instead of healing them."

"I heard that!" squawked Aelynn from the next room. "And don't think that just because I'm not with you that I ain't watching you."

"What's got in her feathers?" said Hazel under her breath as she began to think. Now that the obnoxious medic was out of the way, Hazel could start working out what she was going to do next.

And see what's inside this box.

That proved to be more difficult than Hazel had thought. Namely because it wasn't actually on her. As she had ran from Viren to face Jacien's crew, Hazel had stuffed the box inside her shirt for safe keeping. But, as to be expected, a trip to the infirmary meant that Hazel was no longer in her travelling clothes and the box could be anywhere. If Jacien had gotten his hands on it...

Hazel just had to hope Aelynn had it on her and no one else had noticed it. If Uncle Jacien did have it...well then things had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. A quick scour of the table beside Hazel yielded no results, though it didn't surprise her. Grouchy as the Fosh was, Aelynn was far from stupid and even without the Force she was sure to have recognized the box as something of significance.

Then she spotted it. As the aged medic passed by Hazel, she saw, or, rather, felt, the box nestled in one of the many pockets of Aelynn's work coat. It wouldn't be hard to retrieve...except that Hazel had to do it without alerting the Fosh.

Well, here it goes, she thought as she reached out and guided her telekinetic tendril to wrap around the box, before slowly sliding it out from its place of storage. It was almost out when Aelynn reached for the row of back pockets and Hazel cursed silently, fearing the Fosh had felt the box being removed. Instead, Aelynn just pulled a datapad out of another pouch and resumed her work, allowing Hazel to float the box to her.

She held the relic in her hands and examined it, something she hadn't had the chance to do yet. As she had noticed before, the surface was scuffed and damaged beyond any recognition of what it could possibly have looked like before. Yet the keyhole was fully intact. But Hazel didn't have a key, nor could she pry or force it open.

"How stupid is this?" she muttered. "I can't even get the foshing thing open."

Then the entire atmosphere of the medbay changed. The curtains around Hazel slammed together and a cloud began to form in front of her. There was also an...essence, but it wasn't solid. It was as if some malevolent force had seeped into her room but was unable to take physical form. Hazel had never felt anything like it before. It continued to grow in size and strength as the curtains and the sheets billowed towards her and the particles all around seemed to gravitate to her. All except the box which tugged at her grasp, as if trying to escape. The darkness was all around and Hazel's grip had almost broken when a chasm split the cot that she still laid on and Hazel fell into empty darkness.