Become Like Dust and Ashes (Cyrilla)

[LE-X1]

835 ABY -- Drongar
A green-hued mechanical sensor swept the swamp for signs of life. There was always life in the swamp, even on a world as deadly as Drongar. Swarming with spores, the world was singularly inhospitable to organic beings without the proper equipment. Without fail, every time they had come, they had died.

Normally, it was the electrical storms that crashed their ships. Those, or the lack of proper landing facilities. Either way, few vessels made it to the ground intact enough to depart again. That always meant that someone had to leave the ship to repair it. Without an enviro-suit, a being would be infested with spores in a matter of seconds. But the enviro-suits rarely helped; spores could cling to the plating and be carried inside the ship. And the very first thing every sentient did when returning to their ship was take off their enviro-suit.

It was, the droid noted with a hint of empathy, a fatal flaw.

In spite of the spores, there were indigenous predators on Drongar--creatures that would not hesitate to rend him limb from limb if there were any meat to be had. He had surmised that they had evolved some kind of immunity to the spores; his AA-1 VerboBrain was smart enough for that, at least. Not clever enough to formulate a cure, but clever enough to imagine one.

A twitch of movement drew his attention. Stock-still, he let his sensors follow the path through the rushes. An organic creature, twenty-one centimeters tall and fourteen across, leapt into the open.

The droid drew his blaster and took aim. The target was sixty-one meters and thirty-nine centimeters away. He fired. The SoroSuub Renegade's whine echoed across the auroral landscape. The droid immediately ducked behind the bulkhead, shielding his sensors from the inevitable explosion.

The intense particle beam struck its target, but the burst of heat ignited the vicinity, starting with the exterior bulkhead. The planet's oxygen-rich environment meant that fires often burned easier, hotter, and longer than they did on other worlds. The droid could run no empirical tests, but he suspected that the atmosphere was between 30% and 45% oxygen. It inebriated most organics, and it inflamed nearly everything else.

He had managed to protect himself so far. The rain helped. In this region of the northern hemisphere, where his home stuck out of the marsh like a great monument, towering and crumbling altogether, rains fell 93% of the time. The other 7% was spread throughout the year, and amounted to very little on any given day.

Most droids might have been frightened by that much water. But not him. Not anymore.

* * * * *

75 ABY -- In Orbit of Coruscant
"Mon Calamari."

"That's what I thought you said," the droid replied. His aging vocabulator dragged his words through a high-pitched landslide. He could have repaired it, of course, but the tinny quality to his tone was inescapable, and he thought the gravelly disruptions made him sound masculine and impulsive. Besides, it amused her, and that was all that mattered.

"Don't give me that," she shot back, "This is official business. We're to report there at once."

"Can't I just drop you off and come back?" he complained. He did not like water.

"How long are you going to let this bother you, Lexon?" she demanded hotly. "You were short-circuited by rain on Corellia once, and now you're too scared to go outside on any planet that might get a sprinkle on you."

Lexon, technically LE-X1, lifted his gray-plated head a few centimeters. "I'm not afraid," he protested, "I would simply prefer to remain on the ship."

She softened. Her brown eyes were kind, he thought--kinder than other organics'. She was powerful, and dangerous, and stoic, but kind, and noble, and respectful. He could always see it in her eyes. "How about this," she suggested, "The New Republic offered us a hefty sum to secure reliable transport to Mon Calamari by the end of the week. Now, I know that our ship with you at the helm is the most reliable transport around, and their funds will more than cover fuel and maintenance. Why don't you take the rest and upgrade your systems? Make sure electrical problems never trouble you again!"

Lexon bowed his head. "Thank you, mistress," he said. He would have smiled if he could. Without a single memory wipe on record, her kindness kept him sane.

* * * * *

835 ABY -- Drongar
A day had passed since the creature and the explosion. He had killed twenty-nine thousand, one hundred sixteen similar creatures and had witnessed two hundred eighty-four thousand and twelve explosions. Now, he had turned one hundred ninety-three degrees, forty-one minutes, two seconds from the origin. He took his six hundred seventy-third step. It was two thousandth time he had taken his six hundred seventy-third step on a heading of one hundred ninety-three degrees, forty-one minutes, two seconds. That made it special. He straightened his shoulders.

It was also the anniversary: seven hundred sixty galactic standard years to the galactic standard day of the crash. Assuming anyone still used the same galactic standards. They had once been based on Coruscant's solar cycles, but if the databanks from that cruise liner were true, then Coruscant was not the jewel it had been. He wondered if anything had changed in that regard. Was Coruscant anything at all? Did anyone even remember it now? The cruise liner had crashed three hundred fifty-four years earlier; the seven hundred eighty-nine passengers that were not killed on impact fell to the spores after only one hundred thirteen hours planetside. Perhaps things had changed since then.

"This one is for you, mistress," he said aloud, his vocabulator still high-pitched and gravelly. "I march for you."

The scream of a vessel tore overhead. Marking its direction, he dove underwater as the flaming engines sent down a burst of fire. When the inferno had faded, he rose again and set his heading toward the inevitable wreck. It would not be far, by his estimation--perhaps six hours away. If he were fortunate, he might learn something new about the galaxy; perhaps the silence of the past four centuries was coming to an end.

He pulled his brown cloak tighter around his narrow waist, and he set off into the rain to find out.

 

[LE-X1]

75 ABY -- Somewhere along the Perlemian
"All ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Lexon replied. They had stopped by the Roche asteroid belt and purchased supplies. The Verpine community had been more than happy to help a fellow wrench monkey, even an inorganic one. Lexon suspected that the Verpine, with their exoskeletons and telecommunications and clickity-clacking, felt closer to machines than to other organic species. He liked that about them.

"No chance any water can get in?" she persisted.

"No chance any water can get in," he confirmed, "No chance any fluid could get out. No chance a vacuum environment could freeze liquids or circuits. No chance of an electric short whatsoever." He examined himself, as if he were a little girl preening for her father's approval. Suddenly recalling, he added, "Oh, and restraining bolts won't work anymore, either. So remember that."

She smiled. Her thin lips curled gently upward at the edges as she fought to keep a straight face. She was a practical woman; she wore no make-up and kept her black hair pulled back tight, out of her face and out of her eyes. So her lips were a faint pink in a calm sea of pale peach. Her cheeks were not rosy, and she never pouted. But when she smiled, Lexon thought, she was the most beautiful organic mistress a droid could hope for. The Jedi were lucky to have her among their ranks.

"I suppose the real test," she quipped, "would be to fire an ion cannon at you in the middle of an ion storm on Moorja."

"How about I let you wear a suit of AV-1 armor and fire a turbolaser at you in the middle of a tornado on Dilonexa XXIII?" Lexon returned, a little bitterly.

"Point taken, Lexie," she said gently, patting him on the shoulder as she stood to depart the cockpit. He was in the pilot seat, flying toward Mon Calamari--or rather, little did he know, toward the greatest suffering he could ever experience.

* * * * *

835 ABY -- Drongar
Lexon trudged resiliently forward. There was no reason to turn back. He needed no shelter, either from the constant rain or from the darkness of night. The only reason he ever returned to his own crash site was to remember fondly what he could never forget.

The mire was up to his waist now. This was a moderately shallow region of swamp--not one of the terrestrial paths he had discovered, but not one of the muck-lakes, either. The Sea of Sponges, he recalled, was far to the north of his home. But the strange vessel had crashed where it had crashed, and he could not choose his path. He made straight for it.

He reexamined the glimpse he had taken before diving beneath the swamp. Based on its burn pattern and silhouette, he had never before encountered its type, either in his programming as a starship repair droid or in his time studying wrecked vessels all across this world.

He was almost to the strange ship. He remembered that, once, his mistress had suggested that they test his electrical upgrades by firing an ion cannon at him in the middle of an ion storm on Moorja; the last time he had visited a wreck too quickly, he had almost undergone such an analysis, when a paranoid smuggler had shot him with an ion blaster during one of Drongar's many storms. He had survived without incident (certainly better than the smuggler), but it was not an experience he wished to repeat.

Still, electrical components tended to degrade quickly in this environment. If he wanted to salvage anything, he had to act quickly.

* * * * *

75 ABY -- Above Drongar
By his calculations, if he wanted to save her, he had to act quickly. Somehow (he did not know how), his astrogation formulae had been incorrect. That had deposited them in orbit above a swampy world he did not recognize. Then they had struck an ion storm, and everything had shut down. The altimeter, just before deactivation, had read 604,158 meters. His other last-glance sensor readings gave him enough information to run the numbers, and they did not look good.

Based on their approach angle, approximately 326.1018 seconds after shutdown, they would reach a terminal velocity of 3,354.24 meters per second. 21.0122 seconds after that, they would hit the ground. He had less than six minutes to come up with a solution.

"What's going on?"

"We're off-course," he answered as he began trying to restart the engines. "We have about five and a half minutes before we plow dirt."

"Do we have any power at all?" She sat down in the co-pilot's seat, searching for something useful to do.

"Emergency power came on after that ion storm we hit turned everything off. It's covering life support and the cockpit consoles." He wanted to smash those very consoles in his frustration, but the desire was brief and fleeting. He tried restarting the engines by another tactic, with equally negative results.

"What about transferring existing power to the engines?" she asked.

He shook his head. "It would never stop our descent. There just isn't enough emergency power. Besides, that would turn off life support."

"We're crashing on a planet!" she snapped, "We don't need life support, we need to survive the landing. Would it be enough to slow us down, so we're not destroyed on impact?"

Lexon nodded slowly. "It might." He rapidly tapped controls, rerouting emergency power from everywhere to the engine and repulsorlift system. Soon, the whir of the air recyclers died and the console in front of him flickered and went dark.

It looked like nighttime on their side of the world, and only the burning compression ahead of them illuminated the cockpit.

Then Lexon felt the hum of engines coming to life, and the ship slowed. They had about three minutes left, and even the new power in the engines would not add much time to that. "Go!" he said sharply, "You must find a secure location to strap in."

"What about you?" she asked, her genuine concern pleasing him.

"This will be much more painful for you than for me," he explained, "You must be secured before we land."

She nodded, and they scrambled from the cockpit, headed into the pitch-black that pervaded the rest of the ship. Lexon found a spot in the cargo hold, a medium compartment with barely enough room for her. He pointed her to it, then ran to her bunk. Retrieving her linens, he returned to the cargo hold and stuffed them into the compartment, which she now occupied.

"Hold on," he advised her, and shut the compartment hatch.

Then it hit.

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

She awoke with a start, gasping for air and throwing up as a result. Her lungs filled with the pungent stench of smoldering plastics and roasting petrochemicals, triggering her gag reflex, and more. She lurched to her side, coughing, gagging, as her last meal forced its way out of her body. She managed to control herself after the first heave, biting back the nausea and stomach spasms. The fruity aroma of stomach acid and the burning in her throat (and eyes and lungs) made it a tough battle. Closing her eyes to steel herself, she wiped away the spittle and chyme dribbling from her chin, and sat up.

Cyrilla Ky’lik shivered as she blinked her eyes, her pupils widening to take in the diminished light of the smoke filled cabin as she looked around. Smoke. Lots of it clouded the upper bulkheads. She knew she had to get out of the cabin because where there was smoke, there was fire. Her feline senses cut through the gloom, and she spied the exit.

The Cathar unbuckled her restraining straps, but a spear of agony sliced through her spine and stopped her cold. Ice pooled in her gut as she saw the bone jabbing through her leg, its off-yellow color remarkably clean and free of blood. Entranced, she spied the fascia of the muscles and the periosteum, all intact except for the dark break near her the middle of her shin. Fascinating.

Except that it was a crippling injury and would likely kill her. From infection or blood loss, but those were not urgent. No, smoke inhalation was the primary threat, she reminded herself. ABC’s. Airway. Breathing. Circulation. She needed to breathe.

Gritting her teeth, she took a deep breath and slipped off the chair, carefully easing herself to the deck plating. Her breathing quickened as the bone jutting from her leg shifted. The Cathar paused, focused herself, driving away the panic, and found the Force, calling upon that supernatural energy to muddle the pain and panic threatening to engulf her.

She was now lying safely on the cool metal deck, the dark smoke little more than a meter above her. Warm air, warm but clean, filled her nostrils as she breathed deep, and she exhaled quickly, forcing the stench of fire and vomit and panic from her lungs. It calmed her. Slightly.

Cyrilla brought her head up and looked at her broken leg again. Compound fracture. She knew she’d have to set it, and the thought of that made her head spin. She had to set it if she was going to escape this burning room. She found a piece of shattered furniture and tore several long strips from her Jedi robes. It would be enough for a splint. She hoped it was enough.

The Cathar reached down with shaking hands to grasp her leg. She closed her eyes again, searching with the Force to guide her. She paused, hands trembling, but with a sudden surge of purpose, she pulled.

The pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Stars exploded like supernovae behind her eyes, and the breath was driven from her lungs as if she had been hammered in the belly. The suddenness of it made her want to stop, to relax her grip, to do anything but straighten her leg, but she knew that is she gave up now and curled into a ball, she’d never continue. She was half tempted to call upon the Force to dampen the pain, to silence her screaming nerve endings, but she knew she’d never be able to properly set the break. She continued on.

The scream was ripped from her clenched jaws as the jagged ends grated against each other. Cold sweat drenched her clothing, soaking through her fur, and the stench and odor made her think she might have soiled herself.

“I will not be beaten!” Cyrilla squeezed her eyes shut, as tears streamed down her cheeks as she continued to push the bones closer and closer. “I am Jedi!”

The pain coursing through her body transformed itself into anger, and anger transformed into hate. She was angry at herself for being weak, for having a shattered leg, for having made a mess of things. She hated the tears flowing from her eyes, she hated that smell of urine, she hated the vomit staining her tunic. She hated it all.

The hate drove her. It was something she latched onto, and from it, she found strength. The hate drove her arms and hands and leg. The hate forced her to continue even when she wanted to, lusted to stop. To rest. To recuperate. Her hate wouldn’t let her. She would not succumb to defeat. She would not let her weak body betray her.

Millimeter by millimeter, the two bones slid against each other, until finally they clicked into place. It was like a dam had shattered, releasing the stress and relief and agony and fear and anger all at once. It washed over her like a euphoric tide, and the Cathar slumped back against the deck, feeling the metal beneath her soaked clothing.

It took her several minutes to catch her breath, to blink away the tears, to wipe the sweat from her face. Cyrilla bound the splint to her leg, an action that took what seemed like no time at all compared to her previous ordeal. Now she could use the Force to draw away the fire searing through her wounded limb, and she used the pain shunt technique with abandon.

Minutes later, she had found her small luggage bag and the hatch out of her cabin, and she dragged herself through the portal. Here, the hallway was devoid of smoke, the smoldering fire having been confined to her cabin. But, instead, she found bodies, lots of them. The other passengers had not been as fortunate as she. Their corpses lay in tangled piles, limbs, spines, and necks broken from impact. Or heads and bodies fractured and leaking.

Her journey to the escape hatches took an eternity, but Cyrilla Ky’lik finally found herself at the airlock. Freedom was but a button away, but as she was about to slap her hand against the miraculously still functioning hatch release, she stopped. Something invisible caught her hand. Intuition perhaps.

The Cathar studied the cracked display. Atmospheric readings it said. High concentrations of oxygen. That was good. But, wait, high levels of foreign contaminants. Unidentified. Biological. Dangerous. Deadly.

Cyrilla sighed and muttered a curse. The muttering gave birth to grumbling, which led to shouting. The anger brewing in her stomach bubbled up and she roared in frustration. A bulkhead shattered as she punched it hard with a burst of Force energy.

Trapped in this dying ship. Alone. With no way out.

Why was she even here?

Stupid.

Cyrilla Ky’lik pounded a fist against the bulkhead and closed her eyes. She needed peace. She needed to think.

She needed to find a way to survive.

 

[LE-X1]

835 ABY
It was a passenger vessel, he analyzed. Probably commercial. Large enough to house a few dozen paying customers. Sleeper cabins, so long-distance - or at least, outside the sector. Perhaps they, too, had been headed for Mon Calamari. It did not look like a design the fish-folk favored, so he doubted it belonged to them. There were no smoothed edges, no liquid curves; the wreck was all angles and flat sides and sharp corners.

Unlike his own craft, which had taken a nosedive into the muck, this one had torn through the atmosphere at an angle both oblique and shallow. His external sensors detected water so hot that it had only recently ceased boiling; around him, flora smoldered and smoked under the pouring rain. This ship had left a trail of broken branches and burning leaves.

It was oriented aright, Lexon noted. At least some of the people on board should have survived - to their own detriment, of course. They had landed as close to the Nine Hells as any living being could reach, and their purgation would soon follow.

Lexon climbed up the rear plating of the hull, past the hissing engines. They seemed more or less intact. The plating itself was extremely hot, as was to be expected, but it would serve nicely to reinforce the hull of his ship. The Something. He couldn't remember that, either.

He reached the dorsal plating and stamped across it, his own feet clanking dully in the thick, humid air. The tinny pattering of rain filled his aural sensors with data.

* * * * *

75 ABY
The ship was severely damaged. The cockpit was underwater, and the canopy was cracking under the pressure. Soon, native water would flow into the cockpit, sealant or no sealant. Lexon could operate on very little from the inside of the ship, though. That was why he was encouraging her to let him out.

"I need to survey the damage," he cajoled her, "I can only do that effectively from the outside."

She was frowning. Lexon didn't know if it was from an emotional state or the intense pain she must have been experiencing from her broken leg. Under her direction, he had set it, but she was not a healer. She was not skilled at healing trances or using the Force to mend wounds. The only thing that would repair her leg on this world was time.

"It's too dangerous," she explained, shaking her head, "Power is down. We don't have any sensor readings. The atmosphere might be corrosive. You could be destroyed."

"The ship is experiencing no ill effects from the atmosphere," he reminded her, "It's a chance we must take. My error stranded us here. No one knows where to look for us. Without making repairs, we will be here for the rest of our lives. You are too important for that."

She smiled through the pain. "Don't be too hard on yourself, Lexie," she reassured him. "Whatever happened was beyond your control."

Lexon bowed, but he did not agree with her. Either way, she acquiesced, and she let him go outside. In two minutes, he was clanking across the hull, searching for clues about the crash and how to repair the ship.

While he clanked mercilessly across the durasteel, innumerable spores, each and every one of them resistant to starship disinfection procedures, rapidly adhered to his armor plating.

* * * * *

835 ABY
Crossing the dorsal hull of the passenger liner, he eventually discovered the main hatch. It had not been opened yet. Sliding his way gently down the side of the ship, he accessed the main control panel.

Locked. Evidently, the hatch panel was convinced that the ship was still in Hyperspace. The only override was from the inside, which posed a problem. How could he disconnect the engines and extract the plating around them if he could not access the ship? Still, there were more brutish means of entry; if a solution did not arise soon, he was more than willing to attempt one or more of those options.

Out of pure curiosity, in a vain attempt at humor, Lexon knocked sharply on the hatch, wondering how many of the ship's inhabitants might still be alive to hear him.

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

The sharp rap of metal on metal jolted Cyrilla awake. She had nodded off, exhaustion from her ordeal overwhelming her. The sound came again, this time harder, and echoed through the corridor. Her ears twitched, focused on the source, and she turned her head. Odd, the Cathar decided. It definitely came from the airlock. From the outside.

She reached out with the Force, probing for what might be on the other side, but curiously she found nothing living, aside from the various bugs flittering about. Very odd.

A third time the sound came. Cyrilla hesitated, unsure of what to do, but irritation started to creep into her mind. Frustrated, she pounded back at the airlock, using a fist of the Force. It sounded hard, intentional.

 

[LE-X1]

75 ABY
Lexon had surveyed most of the damage to the ship. If he had a thousand years, he might be able to fix everything that had been destroyed in the crash, but he would need copious raw materials and more time than his mistress had left, even assuming they could find nutrition and shelter for her - an assumption that seemed increasingly unlikely.

The ship had been sturdily built, so its interior frame had not crumpled in the impact, but the outer hull had been designed to do just that: in the event of a high-speed collision, especially with an immovable object like a planet, the more time the ship had for deceleration, the healthier its occupants would be. To that end, the outer hull had done its job: break down, shatter, and otherwise be crushed to slow the rate of reverse acceleration. Worse, the entire hull had been sorely affected; even sections not directly involved with the impact were splintered by micro-fractures - seemingly innocuous until you put the ship in a vacuum and the interior pressure caused it to explode.

Not to mention that the power cells, the engines, the shields, the repulsorlift system, and the life support system were effectively useless.

What had once been their ship was now little more than a roof, and a temporary one at that. They would need to find better shelter to keep his mistress alive in the long term.

Clanking across the hull, he returned to the airlock door. Tapping the controls to unseal the lock, he pulled it open and crawled back inside. The door fell shut behind him.

The sudden change in air pressure cast a wind past his armor plating, sending a thousand tiny spores into the air like a cloud of dust. It was the work of a moment for the isosporous haploid parasites to infect Lexon's mistress, and her fate was sealed.

* * * * *

835 ABY
The blast in response took Lexon by surprise. He knew that it was not the sound of a large creature, like a Savrip or Herglic crashing into the door; no, he had spent enough time with his mistress to know that it was a blast of the Force that responded to his hail. There was a survivor in that ship, and what was more, that survivor was a Jedi.

Perhaps he could finally change things. Do things differently. Stop the cycle.

He quickly accessed the control panel. Good; the ship's power supply was still functional. He activated the inter-communication system, linked to the control panel on the other side of the airlock.

"If you are a Jedi," he said into the intercom, "there is a very small chance you will be able to survive here." If the Jedi could respond, he suspected, he or she would have done so instead of pounding on the door with the Force, so the droid continued, "Based on my survey, your ship has likely not yet been infected by the spores of this world, but that will not last forever, and unless you wish to die here, you cannot stay inside forever, either.

"You have two options, Jedi. The first is to use your ship's sensor readings to develop a vaccination against the spores. This will require the injection of a certain biological component, unknown to me, which will mark your cells as inedible to the spores. Unfortunately, this requires exposure to the spores in the first place, which may take over your system if uncontrolled for too long.

"If your vessel's sensors are insufficiently accurate, or if you are incapable of synthesizing the vaccine, your only alternative is to use meditation to place yourself in a trance. I am given to understand that this is a Jedi technique, intended to slow your vital signs until they are imperceptible. That may prevent the spores from feeding on your cells before you use the Force to expel them from your system."

He paused, then added, "That is all I know of that may save your life. If you were not a Jedi, your death would be assured." He concluded, "Alternatively, we could open the door, and you may trust your strength in flesh and Force to sustain you until I am able to repair a vessel for interstellar transport. You should be forewarned, however, that this last plan did not work out well the last time I attempted to implement it."

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

The voice that responded was raspy, not exactly human or even organic. Cyrilla wasn’t sure if that was because of damage to the ship’s communications systems or if the speaker naturally sounded like that. Regardless, the news he (or she or it) brought was far from good, and in fact very bad.

Cyrilla slumped against the bulkhead. “So fething stupid,” the Cathar muttered to herself. She was going to die here, in this fething ship on this fething world infested with fething spores that would fething infest her and then fething kill her. And for what reason? Because the Jedi Council wanted to send her on some fething mission to save some fething colonists who had fething infected themselves with some fething disease and...

Anger filled her, and she felt that familiar burning build up in her belly. It surged to her limbs, and with a growl of frustration and irritation, Cathar slammed a fist against the bulkhead. That growl turned into an almost comical yelp when the durasteel plating refused to give, and an equal amount of pain shot through her arm.

Cradling her bruised hand, Cyrilla blinked back the sudden rush of tears and forced her anger away. She buried it deep within her, using techniques she had learned from her Master. But it wasn’t extinguished. It never died completely. Instead, it just smoldered, waiting again to flash into an inferno.

Her mind, now given direction, cleared quickly, and it focused on the immediate problem at hand. She was a healer, with both spiritual and practical training. I need to know the pathophysiology of the spores, she thought.

The Cathar reached with the Force to trigger the communications panel. “What,” Cyrilla began, coughing slightly to clear her parched throat, “what can you tell me about the spores? How do they infest? Their mechanism of action? Length of incubation? Tell me everything you know.”

 

[LE-X1]

75 ABY
She coughed again. Lexon's sensors, which he had modified for the purpose, picked up the puff of infectious spores blown into the air. They added to the swarm. Wherever they came from on this wretched world, there was no end to them, and there was no place safe from their reach.

"Well," she asked, "What was the incubation period again, Lexie?"

Lexon checked his memory files; from the moment he had reentered the ship to the first exhibition of symptoms had been approximately two hours, fourteen minutes, and fifty-one seconds. He reported as much to her. They had spent the ninety-four hours following that first symptom trying to figure out what was going on.

She tapped a few controls on the medical computer. Its circuits were intentionally disjointed from the rest of the ship, in case of a crash, and they found one functioning backup generator. It wouldn't last forever, but maybe it would last long enough to figure out how to save her life.

"Looks like--" she coughed again, hard. Lexon stepped closer, not knowing what to do or how he could help. She waved him off; he couldn't help, and it troubled him. "Looks like," she tried again, "it enters the body through the lungs, skin contact, ingestion... It spread the fastest when entering through the lungs, but even walking around outside would get you infected without a full enviro-suit. Plus, once rations run out, the only food to eat is out there, and it's already..."

She glanced outside. The door was open; she had explained that she was already infected, and having more spores to study meant fighting this faster. That sounded incorrect, but Lexon did not know enough to disagree. "Lexon, go get me one of those plants. And any animals you can find, too!" He turned to obey her, and she called after him, "And keep recording!"

As he went in search, she shouted more information after him. "Once they're in the body, they go after everything! It's like there are multiple types of bacteria, each with its own task. Some are working to shut down the lungs directly through excess fluid production, while others are attaching themselves to the oxygen molecules as they pass through the alveoli, preventing them from being absorbed either in the bloodstream or in the other bodily tissues... which prevents aerobic cellular respiration..."

She trailed off for a few moments as she investigated some more. Lexon had found more than enough plants, but was having difficulty coming up with a more animated organism. He was surprised by the versatility of her mind, as she grasped concepts she must have barely studied in earlier years. She was, after all, a diplomat, not a healer.

"Okay, here we go!" she continued, "It looks like the rest are engaging cell receptors throughout the body - muscles, organs, even the nervous system... It looks like they're tracking down the Fas receptors in each cell and causing apoptosis."

As he reentered the ship with his collection of plants, he objected, "In Basic, mistress, please."

She looked at him, alarm on her face. The humor was beyond her now. "This spore interacts with natural bodily processes to force cells in every tissue of the body to shut down. Without the help of the Force to combat this process, members of almost any species in the galaxy would be dead in a matter of days." She saw the plants in his hand and reached for them. "Good!" she exclaimed past another coughing fit, "We can use the computer to analyze how the native life on this world has evolved to survive the spores, and we can use that to--"

With that, the backup generator sputtered and died.

* * * * *

835 ABY
Through the intercom, Lexon reported to this new Jedi what he remembered in response to her questions. It was a pre-upgrade memory, so it had been fuzzy before, but her prompt had reminded him of the incident. Still, he was able to tell her the incubation period, the method of infection, and the mechanism of action as well as he could repeat it. He left out the personal details; she did not need to know.

"Non-Jedi last about two days, on average," he added. "Also, I have become adept at tracking local wildlife. If you would like it, I could retrieve several varieties of living organisms for you to examine. It would only take me approximately three hours."

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

Cyrilla listened intently to the droid's explanation. The pain in her leg and general exhaustion didn't help things, but she did her best to remember the details. The minute details. So many details. Leave it to a droid to repeat back verbatim everything he had recorded.

It wasn't looking good. The spores, they would kill her far too quickly. She knew that if she was a Jedi Master specializing in healing techniques, she'd be able to keep herself alive, but that took so much concentration and skill and talent, all of which she did not have. It would take purging her entire body of the dreadful poisons on a minute-basis, and it would exhaust her. It was impossible.

The Cathar sighed. Two days was all she had to live. She was going to die on this pathetic world. Alone. She was going to die alone. Despair threatened to overwhelm her. She flexed her hands, her claws.

But then the droid said something about gathering organic samples. And something clicked in her head. What had she learned, years ago in class? Immunization. Vaccination. How the body deals with infection. Antigens and antibodies. Immune response. T-cells and lymphocytes.

It was a tiny glimmer of hope, and it sparked a fire that started to burn rapidly. A fire for survival.

"Yes, gather me some animals," Cyrilla said, hope renewed, if just a little. "Kill them, see if you can cleanse the spores from them, but make sure you do not roast them. I need to examine their bodies, as intact as possible."

The droid replied at once. "Certainly." It paused. "What will you be doing?"

"I'm going to fashion an immune response," Cyrilla said, rather cryptically. And then she added, almost as an afterthought, "You never said your name. What do I call you?"

 

[LE-X1]

835 ABY
Lexon replied, "My technical designation is LE-X1, versatile repair droid, but you may call me 'Lexon.'" Without asking her name, he released the comm control and went in search of wildlife.

* * * * *

78 ABY
After the backup generator shut down, Lexon's mistress made an executive decision: She would enter a Jedi healing trance called morichro, slow her metabolism, and focus all of her energies on combating the spores. His job was to search the world on which they had crashed for anything he could find to repair their ship, or perhaps a less damaged ship they could use instead. If he were organic, he might have been daunted by the task, but he had known that even in a trance, she would die long before he would.

So he had left her there, hidden away from the critters and potential visitors, sealed up in a hidden compartment. And he had walked the world. He found many things, some more worthwhile than others, but nothing that would let them leave. Every ship he found was almost as wrecked as their own. Given enough time, he could collect parts, bulkheads, power cells, and engines, but he would need a shipyard's facilities for that kind of work. Strong he may have been, but not strong enough to carry a durasteel bulkhead with one part per trillion neutronium on a world with above-average gravity.

Instead, he took what he could carry that would be useful to them, and he returned to their ship. One of those things was a portable medical scanner with its own interior power source connected to a solar panel. As hazy as it was on Drongar--he learned the name from an active nav system on one vessel--there was enough sunlight to power a solar cell. He was also able to duplicate the technology for his own use; if he was to last very long, he would need a renewable energy cell of his own, and the solar cell was the first incarnation he developed in his tenure there.

Three years after their crash, he arrived back at the site. He extricated his mistress and activated the medical scanner. She had explained that a scanner would have difficulty detecting her life signs in the trance, that it was like suspended animation. The scanner was, however, very adept at reading tissue decomposition, and according to it, she had been dead for approximately six months.

* * * * *

835 ABY
Tracking and eliminating the creatures in this region proved less difficult than Lexon had anticipated. He returned to the new Jedi's wreck only two hours, eight minutes, and fourteen seconds after his departure, with three manually executed animals corpses. Removing the spores, however, was impossible while outside a sterile location; they clung to every surface, whether corpse or droid.

When he arrived back at the ship, he activated the intercom, hoping the new Jedi was still alive and nearby in the ship. "Mistress Jedi," he said, "I have three dead animals for you, but I cannot cleanse the corpses here. If we can utilize the airlock, it is possible that the spores can be destroyed in a vacuum. I have never tested this, but if the animals cannot be burned, then it may be your only alternative. If it does not work, you will need to wear a full enviro-suit from your first contact with the spores at all times until you have developed the counter-agent. That will make nutrient consumption difficult for your organic form, mistress."

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

She had spent the past two hours quite productively, preparing for the experiment that would hopefully save her life and get her off this Force-forsaken rock. The first order of business had been to accelerate the healing on her shattered leg, and that took more effort than she had anticipated. Over an hour spent in a Jedi healing trance had been combined with her own personal Force techniques to stimulate the mending process.

She had prodded her body to release more macrophages and leukocytes and fibroblasts and other healing factors, and osteocytes began to crowd the break at an alarming rate. Worn out, exhausted from her endeavor, the Cathar was nonetheless pleased that her leg was healing. It was a start, and it would keep secondary infection low, but the healing would still be slow. Compound fractures were nasty injuries. Cyrilla only hoped that her injury would not kill her.

After rummaging through a salvaged first aid kit and properly bandaging the wound with bacta patches and gauze, the Cathar had stumbled her way through the wrecked corridors of the ship. She managed to find the galley, which was remarkably intact, where she scrounged some rations and water. These she devoured, knowing that her body needed building blocks to fuel its rebuilding process. The Force might be able to improve recovery time, but it still couldn’t violate the laws of conservation of mass.

More importantly, she found a storage container that could be hermetically sealed. It was the key to her plan. LE-X1 or Lexon had mentioned that the alien spores stuck to just about everything, so she guessed it would be impossible for the droid to properly cleanse the animal samples. But that was okay. The container would do the trick.

She dragged the box back with her, along with some extra rations, and waited for the droid to return. It didn’t take long. The intercom buzzed to life, and Lexon reported his findings and the impossibility of cleansing the samples.

Cyrilla activated the airlock, after checking to make sure that it was sterile, and placed the container on the floor. She sealed it after returning to the ship. “Let’s try something else,” she said into the intercom. “Go ahead and place the samples into the container, and seal it. I’ll trigger the airlock and run the sterilization protocol. Hopefully that will get rid of the extra spores.”

She wasn’t entirely sure that her plan would work. The sterilization protocol used vacuum and ultraviolet light to cleanse the airlock, but she knew that spores were very hardy organic creations. They’d probably survive. But, even so, she hoped that the process might inactivate them, giving her some time to find a cure or vaccine or something.

“Only the outside of the container will be sterile,” Lexon said as he placed the animal bodies into the container. “If you open it, the spores will infest the ship.”

“I know,” Cyrilla replied. The computer screen showed that the droid had exited the airlock. She sealed the hatch behind him. “I won’t need to open the box. I just need to examine it.” She didn’t explain further as she triggered the protocol. The ship began to hum as the airlock began its work. It would take some time for the process to be complete.

And so, Cyrilla waited, going over in her mind the plan, the techniques, the biochemistry. She’d have to use the Force to find out how the animals had adapted to the spores. And then, she’d have to alter her own physiology to match those adaptions.

The Cathar wasn’t sure if she could do this. But she’d try. Or else she’d die trying.

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

@[member="LE-X1"]

”What did you do?” Cyrilla muttered as she probed the terrible gash with a finger. It was hideous, with bright red arterial blood mixing easily with the pale white of exposed fat and fascia. Her thumb and finger were pinched tightly around a pink, fleshy tube, holding it still as it pulsed gently. It was all that was keeping her sister alive.

Miri Ky’lik, eyes squeezed shut and pain written clearly over her normally stoic features, growled as she bit down on a wadded rag. She didn’t answer her sister’s inquiry, trying but failing to hide the pain that she clearly was in. Instead, she glanced away, shame at showing her weakness fighting with the agony that was searing her leg.

Cyrilla sighed, and returned her attention to the gash in her sister’s thigh. She knew what the other Cathar had done. Drunk too much and gotten into a fight at some bar, and now she was here, seeking her younger sister’s help to save her life. And just in time too. The glass bottle had nicked the femoral artery, which had finally ruptured when the elder Cathar had returned home. Blood and sprayed everywhere before Cyrilla could get that under control.

And now, she concentrated, staring intently at the little pink thing that carried the lifeblood of her sister. It was oddly intriguing, how such a miniscule and mundane-looking piece of meat could be so important. Cyrilla knew that if she simply slackened her grip, her sister would die. And it was tempting, in a way, to do so. After all, her sister was the reason why she had faced so much trouble growing up. It was Miri’s successes that Cyrilla was being measured against, and when she couldn’t match her sister’s athletic prowess, she was punished.

Just a little slip up. She could say her fingers ached. Or a spasm caused them to slacken. And then her tormentor would be gone. Forever.

But, no. Cyrilla kept her fingers clamped tightly against the artery. Tightly as she focused on that tube, trying to replicate the experiment she had conducted just the other day. She had stared at the broken stem of a flower, imagining the xylem and phloem repairing themselves. And, after a few moments, and to her gleeful surprise, the cell walls began to knit themselves back together, repairing the damage.

She didn’t know how or why that happened. It was almost scary. But it was a relief, too. It was the culmination of her own personal studies, a field where she could excel at. A field where her progress and achievements would not be measured against that of her sister. And she would no longer be punished.

The artery pulsed again. Cyrilla felt the gentle pressure as the blood built up behind her fingers. But this time, it was different. The artery flushed a deeper pink, and the tear began to turn white. It glistened. The injured tissue began to grow, sealing shut the tear. The wound mended itself, slowly, but surely. The new, white tissue began to darken as it grew stronger.

Cyrilla smiled and released her fingers. The artery surged as blood began to flow again. It worked. She had saved her sister. She had also saved herself.

***

The Cathar blinked as she stared at the metal box. The airlock had done its job, sterilizing the outside of the container. At least she hoped it did. There were still spores clinging to the outside of the container, but they were inactivated. She hoped.

Cyrilla closed her eyes again, returning her attention back to the contents of the box. She could see the little animal carcasses, their forms glowing gently under the careful watch of the Force. With practiced ease, she guided her mind through the different dermal layers, peeling back each layer of tissue to reveal the next beneath. It was not unlike dissecting a cadaver.

An involuntary grin appeared on her face. She was in her element. Unlike her peers, the Cathar had never been extraordinarily skilled in the martial arena. Sure, she could hold her own with a lightsaber, but against an opponent of any significant ability, she would be overwhelmed and defeated. It had been a point of consternation throughout her life, as her supposed friends and family constantly made her life a living hell because she couldn’t measure up physically.

But here, in the realm of the Force, she was a master. It was second nature to her to see past the physical bodies of living organisms. She could envision the anatomy and physiologies of just about any organic being, sensing how their bodies performed and functioned. Circulator systems, respiratory systems, nerve impulses. It was like reading a book, a super-easy book written for children.

However, reading a book was one thing. Writing one was another. Cyrilla could turn the pages, read the pages without conscious thought. But to rewire a living being, to change the way a body worked, for healing or for death, that took effort. Significantly more effort.

She peered at the animals’ organs, noting their arrangement and functions. She had never seen these creatures before, but it didn’t seem to matter; she knew by instinct what each group of tissues did, what their functions were and how they worked. It was unsettling, sometimes, to know these things by heart.

There, that was the liver, the organ deemed to filter toxins and chemicals from the blood. And there, the equivalent of the spleen, which was responsible for immune responses. And, of course, throughout the whole body, the lymph system.

She focused on those, slicing through each organ with her mental scalpel, guided by the Force. She found the tiny adaptions, subtle yet efficient, that allowed these creatures to survive the harsh environs. She saw the codons within the DNA, the RNA strands that coded the particular proteins needed to combat these spores.

Cyrilla saw them, read them, and understood. It was marvelously simple and elegant.

The Cathar opened her eyes. Her back ached and that gross, unwashed taste clung to her mouth. Eye crud had gathered at the corners of her eyes. She wiped a hand across her mouth. The stench of stale sweat stung her nostrils. She glanced at the communications panel and saw the time. Hours had elapsed.

Standing slowly, Cyrilla winced as her legs protested. They had fallen asleep during her meditation. She pressed the intercom button. “Lexon? Are you there? I found a way to deal with these spores. The native organisms evolved a two-pronged defense mechanism. The animals have a ton of antibodies coded to attack the spores. But, more importantly, proteins on the cell surfaces interfere with the spores’ ability to identify hosts. Those spores can’t bind with the native cells, and so they can’t replicate.”

Cyrilla sank down to sit on the metal floor. “With some time, I can probably force my body to produce those antibodies. But changing my cells, that is going to be tough. It’s going to take time. And I don’t know if it’ll work.”

She sighed, but hardened her resolve. It would work because it had to work. She refused to die on this no-name planet. “During this time I’ll be stuck in meditation. Maybe you could begin repairs on the ship, or something?”

 

[LE-X1]

835 ABY
"Of course," Lexon answered through the comm panel. He had waited patiently for her next request. Perhaps, he thought retrospectively, he should have been working on the ship, or pursuing some other issue, but to serve someone who was not on the cusp of death pleased him. "I will begin work on this vessel immediately."

He went on another walking tour of the exterior of the vessel. It was a large passenger ship, larger than his own vessel, but still capable of both atmospheric and interstellar flight - supposing, of course, that he was able to complete repairs on it in short order. He did not think it impossible; his only regret was to leave his mistress behind.

* * * * *

78 ABY
He thought it fitting that she should be buried somewhere besides the festering swamp where they had crashed. Unfortunately, he was a simple repair droid, and embalming was outside of his field of expertise. He placed her body, now rapidly decaying, freed as it had been from its sealed container, in a durasteel crate from the cargo hold, then he carried her outside.

Using his blaster and the excesses of oxygen in the air, he burned her remains as well as he could, then sealed up the crate.

Remembering his travels across the world, he carried her north for a month, without stopping. Eventually, he came to a hilly region where the swamps had not overtaken the colder temperatures. He buried her there, marking the spot with a carving in the rock above her, including her name and the fact that she had been a Jedi Knight. He suspected it would wear away in time, but for as long as it lasted, she would not be forgotten.

Then he turned away, and he returned to his ship, and he forgot.

 

[Cyrilla Ky'lik]

As it turned out, Cyrilla had some assistance with her quest. Some of the spores had survived the airlock sanitation protocols, and had reactivated upon contact with the moisture from the Cathar’s breath and body. As a result, when she began her meditation and dived into the depths of her body, she discovered that her immune system was already fighting a desperate battle against the alien invaders.

The infection came through her respiratory system first, where the spores had colonized her nostrils and throat. She immediately set about using the Force to boost her immune response, focusing the efforts of the macrophages and T-cells, and strengthening their numbers. At the same time, she moderated the inflammatory pathways, knowing that inflammation did just as much damage to her body as it did to the foreign invaders. It was a careful game of equilibrium. She had to balance the strength of her body’s response or else risk destroying the good with the bad.

On and on it went, with Cyrilla carefully monitoring what her body was doing and then boosting or reducing the various biological functions. It was draining, both physically and mentally. When she wasn’t actively searching her body for some particular protein trigger or catalyst, she was rejuvenating her cells with the Force. The concentration required was draining, stressful, and tiresome.

Hours passed, though she wasn’t sure exactly how many, before she could feel the shift in the fight. The spores were particularly lethal and virulent, and against a normal host, they would have quickly established a colony and begun reproducing rapidly. As it was, Cyrilla managed to drive the infection from her body and even strengthened her white blood cells and other immune cells.

Her victory formed the basis for the rest of her plan. She found the antibodies and antigens floating around in her lymph and blood, and forced her marrow to carefully pump out more and more of the guardian cells. It was in essence a simulation of a vaccination, with her body now naturally producing all it needed to recognize the spores as an invader and then attacking aggressively. But even so, her strengthened immune system came at cost. It would eventually destroy her in a fit of ironic autoimmune disorder. But, worse than that, it would wear her down, tiring her, and making her more susceptible to other infections. If she wasn’t careful, she’d succumb to something mundane, like whatever passed for a cold virus on this planet.

The Cathar opened her eyes and lied down on the bulkhead, letting the coolness of the metal leach through her clothing and soothe her sweat-soaked body. Her head throbbed and her nose ran. She shivered from her fever. She peeled back the wrapper of bar of chocolate ration, took a bite, and winced. Gross, she thought, but it was something.

Taking a sip of water to calm her burning throat, Cyrilla closed her eyes again and tried to will her body to rest. And hopefully to get some much-needed sleep.

 

[LE-X1]

835 ABY
The passenger vessel had a few particular needs that Lexon could not supply from his meager stockpile. The repulsorlift mechanism was missing a key component of its containment system. Without a replacement, the gravitational knots utilized in repulsor technology would either become completely inert, turning the repulsor system into a six hundred kilogram paperweight, or worse, the knots would become unstable and could destroy the ship.

He recalled a ship that he had briefly surveyed after its crash four hundred eight years earlier. It had a similar containment system on its repulsor, which made it a prime candidate for the part he needed. Better still, it was only about one hundred thirty-nine kilometers south-southeast of the passenger wreck.

Leaving the new Jedi and her ship behind, he stepped out, counting each pace as always.

* * * * *

427 ABY
Lexon watched the sun rise over the swamp. He never deactivated himself; he never saw the need. He was capable of remaining conscious at all times. The more time he spent inert, the less likely he would wake up when the time came - either because of alien intervention or circuit degradation. So he waited, awake and alert, for the sunrise every morning and the fall of darkness every night. He would take his expeditions during the day, mostly, searching for wrecks and survivors.

But after three hundred fifty-two years, he was beginning to suspect that no one would ever survive.

This morning, however, things might be different. A black, swarthy vessel tore through the atmosphere, lighting fires in the sky. It seemed to be under the control of its pilot, but the ion storms were causing havoc with its systems. It was only a matter of time before--

With a bright explosion, the vessel plummeted planetward. Lexon marked the direction: two hundred seven degrees, fifty-one minutes, three seconds. Descending from his private derelict, he set his course and marched across the world. He walked for one hundred ninety-eight kilometers, two hundred eighty-one meters, forty-eight centimeters, counting out two hundred eighty-one thousand, fifty-one strides (give or take five hundred microns).

The vessel was blacker than the night sky, but it had peculiar engravings on the side that Lexon did not recognize. It was large enough to house one pilot and possibly one passenger, but long-term living arrangements would be tight in such a circumstance. It had powerful engines and even more powerful repuslorlifts; it was clearly designed for speed and agility, both in atmospheric conditions and in vacuum. Lexon ambled around the vehicle, noting its capabilities; it might be serviceable enough, he mused, to free him from this world, given a few repairs.

After precisely twenty minutes of examining the exterior of the vehicle, Lexon decided to check its interior. If the pilot survived, of course, he would not last long; he certainly could not fit many consumables in this small vessel. Lexon went to the cockpit and unsealed it. It popped open with a hiss, then it churned as the pneumatic pumps lifted the canopy.

There was a creature in the pilot's chair, and less room inside than Lexon had anticipated; certainly no room for a passenger. The pilot was of a canid species; upon closer examination, Lexon recognized him as a Shistavanen. He was wearing black robes over his mottled brown-gray fur and appeared to be breathing.

Unfortunately.

Lexon began to examine the cockpit, trying to determine the full extent of the damage from the crash. As he jostled the pilot, the Shistavanen began to stir. Lexon stood back to give him some space; few sentients, Lexon had found, seemed to appreciate their effects being salvaged before their deaths, no matter how doomed they were.

The alien's eyes snapped open suddenly. He looked about briefly, taking in his surroundings, then his focus fell back on Lexon. "Where am I?" he asked, his voice raspy and his accent heavy with a language other than Basic.

Lexon cocked his head to one side. "My records do not include mention of this particular planet," he answered, "I hoped yours would."

"Are you mad?" the alien shot back, "If it's in the records, then someone else will try to follow me... and they'll bring the virus."

"Virus?" Lexon echoed.

The Shistavanen looked at him with a facial expression the droid could not identify. "The Gulag Virus," he replied, as if that explained everything. When Lexon shook his head without understanding, the dark-robed alien continued, "The virus that terrorist spread on Csilla two years ago. It's wiping out everything out there."

Lexon explained, "I have been trapped on this world for three hundred fifty-two standard years, plus two hundred nine local days, six hours, eighteen minutes, and twenty-seven seconds."

The Shistavanen sneered at the excess of information. "Of course," he muttered. He pulled himself up. A clinking noise attracted Lexon's attention to the Shistavanen's belt, where a two cylindrical objects swung freely. Lexon recognized them as lightsaber hilts.

"Are you a Jedi?" Lexon asked.

The alien leapt from the cockpit and grabbed Lexon by his chestplate. "I am no Jedi!" he roared in his fury, "The Jedi were in charge when that 'Zero' character released his virus! They could have stopped him, but they didn't!" He could not possibly cull any fear from Lexon, so he released the droid. "I am no Jedi," he repeated.

Ignoring the outburst, Lexon persisted, "Did you intend to come to this planet?"

Dark-Robe nodded. "It is far enough removed from society that it should be safe from the virus," he explained, "I can stay here until the virus passes, then return my cargo to the Empire. Its power will give the Empire an advantage as the galaxy rebuilds."

"You will not survive that long," Lexon said as a matter of fact.

Suddenly, a lightsaber hilt was in Dark-Robe's hand, pointed close to Lexon's chest. "Do you dare to threaten a Sith?" he shouted.

"It is not a threat," Lexon replied, "but an observation. No one survives here. There is a plague on this planet. It kills everything alien and organic."

"You lie!" the canid spat, "You want to take the power for yourself!" Before Lexon could stop him, he drew the lightsaber back for an attack and activated it.

Lexon dove for cover. The Shistavanen could not possibly escape the blast. The fire caught on his robe and his fur. Once he was able to react, he fell (more than dove) into the swamp to extinguish the flames engulfing him.

Two days later, between the plague and his wounds, the Shistavanen was dead.

Lexon waited until then to investigate the wreck further. There were no consumables to speak of; even if Dark-Robe had controlled his anger, he would have died from the plague. Without pure food and drink and clean air, the plague would inevitably infect an organic being, and Lexon knew from experience that even Jedi hibernation could not save anyone then.

In fact, the only cargo of note in the small spacecraft was a small black and red pyramid-box, ten centimeters on a side and twelve centimeters tall. A sneaking suspicion encouraged Lexon to examine the cargo by other means; one by one, he activated his various sensors. The most notable - and probably the most frightening - discovery he made was in detection of the local spores. For a space of approximately one meter around the object, there were absolutely no spores.

It was something Lexon had never witnessed, even among the naturally resistant flora and fauna on this planet. Somehow, this object was either repulsing or destroying the spores within a certain range. Lexon did not have a gut for reactions or innards to unsettle, but something about the black ship and Dark-Robe and his cargo made him uncomfortable.

He turned away, and he resolved not to return by this particular route again.

* * * * *

835 ABY
It was, however, a resolution he was forced to break. Somehow, he had always known that it would be. He had spent many years thinking on the philosophy of existence and purpose, and fate figured broadly into his conceptions. Material determinism was the only sensible method to the universe, and in a materially deterministic universe, significant things did not happen without reason to purpose. And if Lexon had ever encountered anything significant on this wretched world, it was the Sith ship and its mysterious cargo.

The Shistavanen, whom Lexon had placed back in his cockpit, was still in his seat, albeit in drier pieces than the original. Lexon worked around the bones without touching them. He extricated the repulsor containment system and prepared to depart.

Against his better judgment, he retrieved the Shistavanen's lightsabers and cargo, too, before returning north to the passenger vessel.

 

[LE-X1]

Cyrilla:

The Cathar awoke with chills. She dug the eye crud from her the corners of her eyes and sat up, groaning at the dull ache in her joints and back from her rest on the deck plating. Shivering from her fever, Cyrilla looked around, momentarily disoriented. Her stomach growled, pleading for something more filling than survival rations, and her mouth tasted foul. She took a swig of water and swished it around, hoping to clear it of the staleness.

Cyrilla took a deep breath, forcing back a wave of nausea and reached inward with the Force. Her body was still fighting off the remnants of the disease, and her immune system was still boiling forward, warding away stray microorganisms looking to opportunistically infect her body. It was a tiresome task and it explained her aching joints and elevated temperature. But it was enough to keep her safe in the isolated environment of the crashed ship, where the native spores and fauna would be kept at bay. Venturing forth into the wild, well, that was another question entirely, and she wasn’t sure if her body could withstand the stresses.

The Cathar finished the rest of the water and decided it would be best to take careful inventory of what supplies she could salvage from within the ship. The freighter had been a passenger ship, and so there would be numerous rooms she could scavenge from. With any luck, she’d be able to find food, water, and other essentials to keep her alive for enough time that repairs could be made to the ship’s engines, or maybe the hyperspace transmitter.

Proper food was the first priority. The survival rations would keep her alive, but just barely. Her injuries, especially her broken leg, required real sustenance. She also needed to keep her body well-nourished in order to allow it to continue to fight the spores and native diseases. With that in mind, Cyrilla half-crawled and half-dragged her way into an adjoining hallway, where she found a piece of loose railing that she used as a crutch for her splinted leg. That allowed her to hobble forth, and she soon found the sealed hatch to a stateroom. Her lightsaber slashed once, its golden blade easily cutting through the lock securing the door. With a quiet hiss, the hatch slid open, revealing the luxuries within.

A plush red carpet covered the entire floor of the four-meter-by-four-meter room. A fully enclosed refresher unit was installed off in one corner while a desk and entertainment system sat across the fluffy fold-down bunk. Cabinets and other storage spaces decorated with false wood paneling took up the walls.

A corpse lay in the middle of the room.

Cyrilla paused for only a moment before stepping around the dead man’s body. The man lay face up, his unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling above. He was dressed well, speaking to his social standing, but he was a larger man, also speaking to his social standing. His head was set at a very odd and uncomfortable angle, signaling the cause of death. The Cathar didn’t recognize the man, nor did she care. She was too tired and hurt to care for much of anything aside from herself.

Without hesitation, the Jedi carefully knelt and searched the man’s body. His pockets were empty except for a now-useless wallet containing credits and other things. Samir Mourasse, the man’s ID said. The name meant nothing. But, the wallet did hold a mag-key, which she assumed would give her access to the cabinets and storage areas. After a moment of experimentation, her assumption was proved correct, and Cyrilla turned her attention from the corpse to the treasure trove of a rich man’s luggage.

As it turned out, there wasn’t a whole lot that proved to be useful. The rich man travelled with many luxuries, none of which were directly related to survival, especially survival on a deserted island. Cyrilla found a whole bunch of clothes and entertainment devices, nothing that she could use. Sighing, the Cathar gathered the clothes and even the mattress, figuring that she could at least use those to fashion herself a more comfortable sleeping area by the hatch.

On her third return trip, Cyrilla unlocked one dresser located beneath the bunk. There, she had some degree of success. The rich man had a fully stocked refreshment unit, complete with alcohols and drinks and some food. None of the food was super healthy, but they would at least provide something more exciting than survival rations. Plus, the simple sugars and carbohydrates would be useful for a quick energy boost. The wines and liquors, their use was more dubious, but Cyrila gathered them anyways.

As she finished looting the first stateroom, Cyrilla turned and considered the corpse. The freighter had carried some thousand passengers. All of them were probably dead. Even if this section of the ship had been sealed off from the rest, it still meant many dead bodies that would require disposal or quarantine. Otherwise, she’d have to deal with all the headaches associated with exposed and decomposing bodies. And the smell. The smell would be terrible.

As she turned from the room, her stomach growled, and for a brief moment, something else popped into her mind. She guessed the rich man weighed some two-hundred kilos. That was a lot of meat to let go to waste. A lot. Would it be cannibalism? Technically no, since she wasn’t Human, but…

A shiver edged up Cyrilla’s spine, a shiver having nothing to do with her fever. She banished the train of thought. She’d move the body later, once she identified a good place to start a makeshift morgue.

The Cathar, wrapped in a nice, silk robe courtesy of Samir, ventured further down the freighter’s hallways, looking for more rooms to loot. She hoped Lexon was having luck with his salvage mission. She wanted off this god-forsaken planet.

* * * * *

LE-X1:

Lexon returned to the freighter with his cargo. He set the lightsabers and the pyramid on a rock near the airlock; he did not think that the local fauna would disturb the objects, given their apparent effect on the atmosphere around them. Besides, if the new Jedi resolved her health well enough to venture forth from the ship, perhaps she could find a use for them.

He took the repulsor containment module to the rear of the ship, where he was able to access the system and install the device. He could not test it, of course; to do that, the ship would need to be powered up. To power up the ship, he would need to ensure an adequate supply of fuel - not just for testing repulsorlifts, but also for blasting the engines enough to break atmosphere and leave orbit. There was also a considerable amount of structural and electrical damage to the engines themselves; they would need shoring up with whatever strong metals he could find, as well as powerful conductive wiring.

He recalled a vessel about a day's walk to the northwest. It was a large bulk freighter, and it had not crashed, but it had been left a derelict all the same. The smugglers on board had foolishly decided to employ Drongar as a cache, far as it was from the main thoroughfares of the galaxy. Unfortunately, they had not counted on the spores wiping them out and leaving their ship full of cargo pods to collect dust on an alien world. As Lexon recalled, they even had a cargo landspeeder, which would be very effective at hauling fuel and supplies. He set out to the northwest immediately.

As he passed the airlock, he paused. Glancing at the pyramid and the lightsabers, something nagged at him that it was dangerous to leave them so close to the wild, where an animal might snatch them up and run off with them. With that in mind, he moved all three objects so that they were resting comfortably against the airlock door. When he had finished, he resumed his path.

* * * * *

Cyrilla:

She had gathered a multitude of supplies from the devastated cabins. They were piled by the airlock, arranged in relatively organized groups. Luxury gowns and slinky dresses had been either shredded or bunched together to serve as bedding or bandages. Several jumpsuits and durable boots were the few items of practical use that she had kept with whatever tools she had found.

The food items were slightly better. The ship had been carrying enough meals to feed the passengers for several months. The majority of that supply had perished in the crash and the resulting power failure that destroyed the food preservation units. However, Cyrilla had managed to scrounge a decent supply of dry goods and non-perishables, as well as an adequate amount of drinking water. A prodigious amount of alcohol had survived the crash, but their practical use was questionable.

All in all, in terms of items that could significantly contribute to her survival, it was adequate, enough to last a couple of weeks, maybe more with careful rationing.

Cyrilla settled into a make-shift cushion fashioned from bedding and silky sheets, and slumped against the bulkhead. The monitor showed the Lexon had returned from his salvage trip and deposited some items near the airlock. She recognized two of them, their cylindrical shapes easily identifiable as lightsabers. The identity of the other object, a black pyramid, eluded her.

Intrigued by the presence of the lightsabers, Cyrilla reached out with the Force and pulled them into the airlock. When she did the same with the pyramid-object, she was surprised to find that the relic seemed to pulse at the presence of the Force. In fact, it felt warm to the touch, which was impossible because she wasn’t physically touching the object. What was more, when Cyrilla probed the thing with her senses, she found that it was absolutely sterile. There was no residue of the native spores.

Frowning, the Cathar triggered the airlock cycle. The display showed that it would be an hour or so before the sterilization procedures would finish. Chewing her lip in impatience, Cyrilla picked up a commlink she had scrounged from a dead passenger’s luggage and flipped through the frequencies until she found the right one.

“Lex-one, do you read me?” Static followed until a click and bloop signaled that the droid had received her transmission. “Where did those lightsabers come from? And what’s with that pyramid?” Cyrilla asked.

* * * * *

LE-X1:

Lexon had just set about recharging the smugglers' landspeeder with the derelict's engines when he received Cyrilla's communication through his built-in transponder. She was asking about the lightsabers and the pyramid, wanting to know where they had come from and what they meant.

That was a memory Lexon had not particularly wanted to relive again, but he answered her fully, if a bit more concisely than usual. Activating his transponder, he replied, "I came across those three items in the possession of a Shistavanen Sith agent who had come to this world hoping to hide the pyramid from others. He claimed that it contained a great deal of power, but my scans indicated no biological, chemical, nuclear, antimatter, electrical, or mechanical power sources. I did notice, however, that it seems to repel the local spores by some unnatural means. I thought it might be of some use to you as you research an antidote."

Knowing that the new female was a Jedi, he suspected that "research" was not her standard means of information-gathering, but it seemed the most appropriate verb at the time. Lexon wondered if she was upset with him for bringing those objects to her. After all, since she was a Jedi, she might have been displeased by the possessions of a Sith. On the other hand, his job was to fix the situation; if the pyramid helped her fix it, had he not done his job?

* * * * *

Cyrilla:

Cyrilla did not reply immediately as she shredded a dress for bandages, briefly wondering why anyone would want to wear something so gaudy. That the items Lexon found were Force in nature did not concern her. It was the Sith origins of the pyramid that did.

Her Master had always cautioned her about these mysterious Sith artifacts. While they typically carried stores of information and data, they tended to also corrupt their users. The Cathar herself had thought her Master to be a bit overcautious, but she had never encountered a Sith artifact in person.

She selected the cameras within the airlock and zoomed in on the pyramid-object. Strange glyphs were etched on its faces, and its shiny, black exterior reminded her of glass. In fact, it brought back a memory of a similar image from the Jedi Temple’s databanks, that of a holocron.

If the object was in fact a holocron, then it would be chalk full of valuable data. She had no idea why the artifact would repel the invasive spores, but the information stored within might guide her to a better solution to immunizing herself from the spores.

Her Master started to poke its way into her mind, but Cyrilla banished the Twi’lek’s voice. Yes, Master Aria had been wise, but she had never had personal experience with the Sith or their creations. What did she know about holocrons?

Anticipation began to set in, but it would still be some time before the sanitation protocols were complete. Sighing in frustration, Cyrilla poked the transmitter. “I think those items will be very useful,” she replied to the droid. “But it’s going to be a while before I can open the airlock. Do you want to tell me why you’re on this planet?”

* * * * *

The landspeeder was ready; it had required little intervention. While Lexon began to search the cargo pods for containers of starship fuel, or empty containers he could use to siphon the long-lived fuel from the freighter itself, he answered Cyrilla. "I was escorting my mistress to a diplomatic mission on Mon Calamari. I," he paused, experiencing something like anger, "made an error in my calculations. We exited Hyperspace above this world, struck an ion storm, and crashed."

He opened a cargo pod, but it was full of long-ruined food. "My mistress survived the crash, but not the spores. I buried her in the mountains, and I have been here ever since, waiting."

"Waiting for what?" Cyrilla asked.

Lexon paused his work, halfway through prying open a second container. He did not know. "I do not know," he said. What had he been waiting for? He had long told himself that he was waiting for a spaceworthy vessel, or enough raw material to repair a vessel to spaceworthiness, but he had an example of that under his very feet. The smuggling freighter, which he was searching so desperately for supplies, had not crashed, but landed, which meant that its systems were almost universally intact. Thinking back, he recalled similar vessels across the face of Drongar.

If he had been waiting to leave, he could have accomplished that centuries ago.

He finished prying open the next cargo pod. He was in luck! There were large metallic tuns there, probably full of backup fuel. He only had to load them onto the landspeeder and deposit them at the cruise liner, where the Jedi mistress was waiting for him. In the meantime, he resolved to think further on that question another day.

* * * * *

Cyrilla:

The droid’s response was a short “I don’t know.” Cyrilla waited for Lexon to further elaborate, but when it did not, she didn’t pursue the matter any further. If the droid had been an organic person, she would have guessed that it had intentionally hedged its answer in some effort to avoid a potentially difficult memory. But she was unfamiliar with the personality modules of such artificial beings and simply shrugged it off as a programming artifact. Perhaps later the droid would be more talkative.

The airlock chirped a tone, cutting off further consideration and begged for Cyrilla’s attention. With anticipation, she slapped the door release, and the hatches slid open with a hiss of equalizing atmosphere. The Cathar plucked the objects from the sanitized chamber and settled them neatly near her pile of supplies.

A cursory test of the lightsabers showed that they were still functional, their iridescent blades humming beautifully as they cast violet and red reflections off the bulkheads. As she extinguished the blades, the Cathar mused that the hues would make a perfect match to her own blade, but that thought was soon forgotten as she turned her attention to the true prize.

Cyrilla held the obsidian pyramid tenderly in her hands, as if it were some fragile ornament that might shatter at the slightest jolt. She held it closely to her eyes, peering at its sublime beauty.The integral cameras mounted in the airlock did not do the artifact justice, the low-resolution images having failed to capture the intricate details of the workmanship.

As she rotated the holocron beneath the glow of the holopanels, Cyrilla saw that the fine glyphs etched into the faces of the pyramid were echoed along the gilding that lined the edges of the artifact. Nothing marred the perfection of the Sith runes that traced their way across the smooth surfaces.

Having never handled a real holocron, it took a few minutes of turning and twisting the pyramid for Cyrilla to realize that there was no indication of any switch or button that would activate the thing. She stared dumbly at it for a few moments, trying to determine how best to turn it on, when it dawned on her. It was a device crafted using ancient techniques of the Force, so it would only make sense that the Force was needed to access its content. So, with that in mind, Cyrilla slowed her breathing, closed her eyes, and focused on the holocron.

To her disappointment, nothing happened at first. Frowning, the Cathar reached out again, pulling at the Force as if it were streamers of silk, and wrapped the holocron within the confines of that mystical energy. To her surprise, the artifact emitted an unnatural violet light from its hieroglyphs, and its faces grew to a comfortably warm temperature.

Unsure how to proceed, Cyrilla hesitated, and the glow faded and the warmth subsided. She tried again, this time imagining the inside of the artifact, seeing it as if it was an organic creature and she was peering into its body. She imagined the intricate construction of its innards, the circuitry and alchemy used to create its repository of data.

The violet glow and warmth returned as Cyrilla progressed through its internal layers, and it began to pulse steadily as she approached what she imagined was its center. The vision of a pumping heart, filled with a translucent, shimmering liquid, formed in her mind’s eye. After a moment, the heart began to rotate before it started to split along its axis. Just as it began to fall apart, the holocron flashed once, the dull glow suddenly surging to a blinding light.

Cyrilla yelped in surprise and dropped the holocron, landing on the floor with a solid clang. It didn’t bounce but simply settled onto a face, as if it were made of an impossibly dense material that was illogical given its lightness.

The Cathar shielded her eyes with a hand as she watched the holocron. The light dimmed, returning to its original state, but the air above it shimmered and wavered. It crackled slightly, reminding Cyrilla of an old holoprojector, but the light gradually coalesced into a solid image about half a meter tall. It took a moment for the image to gain resolution, but when it did, the Jedi recognized the image as that of a figure, dressed in hooded robes that hid its features. The image flickered again, and then stabilized as it sharpened itself.

Cyrilla peered curiously at the figure. Excitement grew in her heart as the figure bowed and pulled down its cowl, revealing the features of a tattooed Twi’lek. Even though there were no obvious signs of audio output on the holocron, the figure’s voice resounded clearly and without any distortion. “Who are you?” it asked.

Surprised at the silky-smoothness of the figure’s voice, the Cathar replied hesitantly. “My name is Cyrilla.”

The figure, now clearly a female Twi’lek glared at the Cathar with eyes of unnaturally high resolution. “Well, Cyrilla, what is it that you want? Why have you awakened me?”

“I, uh, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ve never used a holocron before, so I had no idea what to expect.” Cyrilla took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Who are you?” she asked after a moment.

The Twi’lek seemed to consider the question. “Istal will do for now, Cyrilla. Lady Istal. Because you have summoned me, I take it you are a Force user. A Cathar Force user at that. Quite interesting. My order does not train many Cathars.” Istal paused. “Are you Sith?”

Cyrilla considered lying but decided otherwise. What she knew about holocrons was that they were simply advanced recordings, capable of interacting with the viewer but that was all. They were inanimate, without life. There was no harm speaking honestly with a recording. “No, I am Jedi,” was her response.

The image of Lady Istal didn’t appear to be surprised. She simply took it in stride. “A Jedi Cathar activating my holocron. Insteresting indeed.” She smiled and her voice sweetened. “So tell me, master Jedi, why have you summoned a Sith Lady?”

“My ship has crash landed on this planet,” Cyrilla replied, her desire to leave the alien world fueling her words. “The planet has a native spore or microorganism that makes the environment fatal to organics. A marooned droid brought me your holocron, and I was hoping to find something within your databanks that would allow me to leave this accursed place.”

“I see.” Istal began to pace. “Perhaps you’ve come to the right place. I am a sorceress and alchemist by training. I know of certain techniques that will see to your safety.” She looked up again at the Cathar. “Yes, I can teach you my knowledge. But you must know that there is a cost for this knowledge. Are you willing to bear it?”

“There is always a cost,” Cyrilla muttered with a sigh. “What is this cost?”

“I cannot tell you.” Istal smiled sweetly. “But you will find out soon enough.” She somehow seemed to sense the Cathar’s hesitation. “I will make it worth your while,” she added with a sultry seductiveness that surprised Cyrilla.

Torn by her suspicions and her desire to leave her tropical prison, Cyrilla reluctantly accepted. She nodded slowly. “Fine.”

“Excellent,” Lady Istal rubbed her hands together with eagerness. “Tell Lexon that you are not to be bothered. Tell him to continue his repairs. This will take some time.”

As she reached for the comlink to notify Lexon of the turn of events, Cyrilla felt genuine joy at the prospect of leaving the world. The despair that she might be permanently stuck on this planet evaporated. “Lexon, this is Cyrilla,” she called into the comlink. “Continue with your repair work, but don’t disturb me. I’m going to try another technique. The artifacts you brought me have taught me something.” She didn’t wait for a reply, nor did she consider it important to inform the droid of everything.

Turning back to Lady Istal, Cyrilla nodded her readiness. Anticipation grew in her gut. “I’m ready. The sooner you teach me what you know, the sooner I can get off this rock.”

It was not only until much later that Cyrilla would reflect upon how Lady Istal knew Lexon’s name, much less of what he was doing. But by then, the question was irrelevant, and her journey was already too far along.

@[member="Cyrilla Ky'lik"]