Each rise, check coordinates, frequencies, hone the body as much as time would allow, before taking a simple meal and looking out somewhere different once again. Some routines were best kept after being established, and while not all might be diligent there was something grounding about the balance of physique to form a foundation for sanity while the mind dove deeper and further into the concepts of situation and circumstance. Always looking for that next alert to bring her back to life, yet the voices afar were silent as ever. Eyes closing with a pinch of bitterness in waiting, her break for festivities had been taken, surely there was more she could do as she was in Fate’s stasis.
With a low grumble and a thirst few drinks could quench, she found herself at another distant world, long neglected and forgotten by the Republic in the midst of the various crushing wars. Inhabited yet disconnected, this alpine world held little in the way of any strategic value, and had been left on its own to heal after some of the prior conflicts. A native population traumatized by the Mandalorians along with the other travelers and wanderers who’d come to find this spot ‘home’ for however long. With the dilapidated state of things, it would take countless supply runs to restore the amenities for a decent starship port to be maintained. Mercifully she was hardly stranded, just making her way with a few extra layers around her face and shoulders to protect her from a bit of brisk winds in the highlands.
Shuffling into the cantina that still was scored with structural damage it seemed to be a popular enough huddle for how sparse the population was. Taking up a booth she’d ask for whatever was on tap, throwing in an extra tip to the tender for the local news and rumors. The distilled sap of the local flora was apparently all they could regularly keep in supply, sticky, but satisfying. Apart from misery and hopelessness, grumbling about the senseless destruction on the part of the prior Neo-crusaders there wasn’t much that stuck out. Listening loosely to the chatter around her she would recline back in that moment, savoring that tingle of connection. The way that sentients communicated, collaborated on everything as mundane as the end of the day meal to business. The thrum was a soft white noise that only she could really take in, without any sharpness of hostility she found herself lulled into an ease as the drink settled in to calm her core.
Then again having a blaster pistol and her sabers at her side once again allowed her a sense of readiness. Just in case.
The Force had its way of nudging her, as in a short time there was a somber thread making the rounds. Tugging on the arms of other patrons, pleading in what seemed to be a continued annoyance to the rest, a woman with a cybernetic leg and hand calling attention to herself. Under her shawl her eyes parted as the uneven steps approached. These cybernetics were unfamiliar to the one using them, this damage must’ve been within the last year from her estimate.
With unkempt hair and skin pox marked, her approach was anything but subtle. Having already pleaded with the rest of the patrons, inevitably Kathea’s turn had come.
"Please…" Her words strained from emotional exhaustion, "I know it’s a long shot, but… Have you seen my son?"
Gazes now met, there was that tug in her chest, a call to first inquire but not yet act, not yet promise something. "I only just arrived. What’s happened to your son?"
But even this small degree of empathy was enough to make the distraught woman burst with explanation, Kathea could feel it clawing away at this fraught mother’s core as if her heart was outside of her body. Raw emotions she had forced into submission of her own will, but the taste of the feeling was still familiar, agonizing. Such fear, such worry. Empathy, connection, her focus fell on the story told.
The son it seemed had journeyed further into the exclusion zone, rendered such from the extreme damage to structures, known also for downed starships in the area as well. Various risks of collapse and potential chemical exposures within the zone were commonplace, but there was still valuable resources and technology to be collected from those spaces. Even though he’d been a scavenger since the fighting headed to other fronts he’d not returned from his usual collection patrols.
Settling back, she knew she’d been the last to even be asked this. Perhaps uncomfortable but having little choice but to reach out to even a stranger from the stars. "I don’t have much, but I will pay if you… find anything." She’d shake her head to the mother.
"That won’t be necessary. I will at least look, that’s all I can promise. But if I may know your name…"
And yet the dam breaking of sheer relief and the scoffs from nearby eavesdroppers couldn’t be entirely overlooked. Mutterings of a death wish slipped from inebriated lips. "Hellena…! Hellena Brunswick. And- and his name is Connor!" A nod to follow, a small piece to help identify him if she found him. "There shouldn’t be anyone else out there, perhaps a few droids, but the area is fairly… adverse to life." The suggestion of hazardous material gear was offered, but Kathea had her own back on the ship. It wouldn’t take all that long to prepare.
Heading along the mapped out route there were scenes frozen in the alpine climate, passing everything from burned out vehicles, damaged terrain, and every so often a set of armor too damaged to be scavenged. The old crusader armor was largely durasteel anyway. Outer clothing catching the wind as it whipped the trek was not all that pleasant, but at least for a time she was off ship and stretching her legs.
In a sudden turn around the mountain as the path continued to descend the scene broke from the occasional sighting to a whole injection of unnatural color and damage. A boxed in valley might not seem like the place to host a battle squad but with her experience in the war thus far she could see that the highlands were not suitable for landing as a combined unit, and the pathways up were as much funneling defenders as well as the aggressors. Burnt out ships, bunkers dotted the space ahead, they’d all landed hard and fast, and by now most of the largest salvage that was untainted by engine runoff and other exposure had been picked off of the carcasses of what was left behind.
Seems though there were no bodies, the dead had been taken care of as the salvagers went. Cracked helmets embedded in the ground or other personal belongings above raised beds of earth. She was starting to piece together what these scavenging patrols might entail. Though she’d pause at times to ever scan for radiation and other toxins to try and avoid such, pulling a mask into a tight fit over her eyes and breath. Seems the whole lowland was holding the toxins in a minor concentration where the land was lowest, which was this area. But all in all it was quiet, it was dead here.
In theory it should be easy to find the lone scavenger, this missing son. The horrors of the war and what the Mandalorians did before was not lost on her even as she went, but she carried no contempt about it. From their perspective it was their duty to serve, engage in the war they excelled in, rapidly recruited or willing or otherwise. She knew why the Jedi and others despised them, but knew also where such feelings led to, what a poison such could be. And yet, she couldn’t focus on what was with so much going on in the moment as it came more naturally now.
Passing the creaking hulls and stripped bones of various craft, it didn’t seem this offensive had any Basilisks in it, they might’ve already been salvaged or were never deployed, but there was none even so. The wild wind here wasn’t enough to drive off the spilled fuel and accelerants, the land tainted for a considerable time to come without outside assistance. With her senses extended there were little songs of tension, of rising danger, but nothing of life stirring among the ruin.
A steeper breath passed the filtration system as she lifted her chin and closed her eyes to concentrate further. A tender curiosity of a fresh presence lingered, a trail going beyond the miasma into a glade just beyond, unharmed by the conflict at all. Her own feet found the trail as she departed the dead zone and into this pocket of alien wilderness.
The presence of an alpine forest seemed so odd so close to the destruction and she could sympathize with the curiosity struck. A closed area on all other sides with mountains too steep to traverse on foot. Pristine as it was there was an unease in the Force, the answer was silent and simple. This place was protected, but how could that be.
And yet just as she considered there was a jingling in her peripheral of not one but two life forms. Suppressing her presence she tracked that sensation down until she was able to determine the source of it. A smaller personal craft, a modified shuttle had landed among the brush and was easily hidden by the thick foliage. But the two individuals caught her off guard.
One man, that was largely expected, in his salvage gear, but along with him was a darkly clad female as well. The man was baring down on a knee before her as she observed the transaction. Seems this Sith was displeased with what had been recovered, the man pleading and saying that there was nothing left to be found of that nature, he’d tried, he’d checked. The earnest nature of his words betrayed his own fear, similar to his mother’s and yet that fear was much more palpable, survival was on the line. Perhaps for others as well.
A hand raised the shock that ravaged the man’s body sent horrible screams into the air that echoed off of the trees and rock faces, no doubt carrying into the valley of death. He might be working for this Sith in secret, but their mistreatment was expected and all consuming. As the threads connected, this woman would not stop, her displeasure seems to have reached its zenith.
With a grit of her jaw she emerged suddenly as the piercing yellow eyes lifted up in sudden surprise, breaking her focus on the torment she was delivering. An emerald saber coming to life as it demanded the Sith’s full attention now. "What!? Impossible!" The energy redirected at Kathea’s form, seeping into the copious wounds under her armor much to the delight of the irritated being.
As she struck the ground awkwardly from the sudden assault there was a feral growl that emerged, her ankle twisted already, a hinderance to her momentum as the Sith ignited her own saber and held it with that certainty and sinister pleasure of a bored nexu finding more than gizka to toy with. Now she had real prey. "Oh my, what have I been delivered. Some poor Jedi come to save this lost soul?" Flexing her hand as it rolled dismissively, approaching to keep the angles tight with her opponent as Kathea found her feet. "This one’s already mine, but killing you will be more than duty. It’ll be a pleasure." Licking her lips under her cowl.
Even with experience and the moment of surprise on her side the battle was far from easy. Lunging with the Force, accelerating their bodies, clashing with the sabers there was a din that filled the forest air as insects started to rise and illuminate the area in the sudden clash and energy. Kathea felt her suit rip and tear as the toxins that contaminated the attire seeped into fresh wounds, her head starting to pound with pressure as her body fought inside and out.
The Sith was in her prime, the fighting fresh she had plenty of vitriol to spill out onto her foe. "Another little hero come to die. Come here to save an unworthy life, look at you, shaking. What pathetic final moments you’ll have dear." When you’ve spent so many years in conflict for so long, losing more than you win, you know when the tide is going against you as she knew.
In her isolation she’d started to form a concept of the mirror, of retaliation. Taking in that seething point of destruction and finding the very point of the spear tip within the energy of her opponent. It was time to give it a test, she might not get more chances. Instead of turning her weapon to assault she focused on the next charge to deflect. It would have to expel the harm and open up the weakness hidden behind it.
The Sith’s howling laughter was twisted and wild. Footsteps slipping with an almost ethereal grace as the claws and teeth reached for the kill, as they reached for Kathea.
"Who else knows about this… deal, Connor?" Panting, managing to find her feet once more, though there was certainly a strain to it. Something pressing on her form and slowing her movements more than she’d realized even with her foe defeated.
"N-no one." Few words, but the shame dripped from his posture and tone. Hands shaking, he knew the reckoning would be upon him. That panic, that self loathing rising like an unforgiving tide, until her hand found his shoulder with a tender firmness. Grounding him to the moment, drawing him in to look to her.
"Then no one needs to know what transpired here today." Her words came evenly, resolute. A forgiving command to pierce the terror and allow him space to stand and breathe once more.
His expression would shatter as he grasped onto her side in a sudden hug that even took her aback. "I don’t- how- thank you. Thank you." He’d inadvertently press on a wound she’d sustained but she’d bear such for the moment as an arm fell about him to soothe him back down to sanity. Now they had a ship to take back, but she didn’t need another and would help him scrub the electronics and databases of their prior owner’s presence. It meant losing whatever information was on it, but she didn’t go chasing down every lead that existed. She didn’t have anywhere near the resources to.
It was only as they departed with Kathea heading to the pilot’s chair that Connor would turn and notice the reason for the area’s preservation. But too shocked to speak some things would remain secrets, just as his would be kept. Perhaps one day he’d tell his mother but as he was clasped in the embrace once more, that day need not be today, or so Kathea had said to him.
Thanks to the local cluster disruptions she’d occasionally get her comms connected the relays, but it helped to further distort her position. It was a small ease in her chest to know she could stay a bit longer and help to repair and stabilize at least some minor things on this forgotten world. A toxin concentrator would help with the eventual cleanup of the exclusion zone and served as a good small project for this week.
A former thread managed to reach her, a prior ally of hers, but there was a painful choice in its recognition. To reach back could endanger them or trap herself, but it was a vicious cycle. To be so alone, yearning so deeply to let them know she was alive, she was well in spite of everything. But too exhausted to decide for now, she’d sleep on it, as was her tendency. Avoid rushing any decisions since that only ever seemed to ever end in disaster. More fraught sleep to come.
The hesitation was correct, another hunter. Another who lies through his teeth speaking of frienship when all he wanted was to destroy her. The lights in the galaxy grew dimmer and dimmer…
But with her presence the faint rumor of a lone Jedi might spread, though before any could ever confront her about it, she would have already moved on. This was all she could do anymore to not stop and feel what was happening around her, the betrayals were a steady plunge into madness. Replaying the shot that struck Revan’s flagship over and over.
Each rise, check coordinates, frequencies, hone the body as much as time would allow, before taking a simple meal and looking out somewhere different once again.
