Bury Them Deep

[Jairus Starvald]

"Stop scratching it." the chastisement didn’t have much force behind it. Cerita was far too enthralled by the readings she had received from the Alliance Research Team just a few moments ago, the extrapolations were amazing and if the assumptions were correct?

Then they had finally gotten that breakthrough they had needed so desperately.

"It… itches." Skaara replied indignantly, but relented either way. The Tuk’ata knew that it wouldn’t do much good to the scar tissue in the long run.

Cerita rolled her eyes. "You are a big boy, Skaara. It’s just a minor necrotic bite from a zombie, you will walk it off."

Clearly downplaying the bite, but that was for his own good.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The efforts she had poured into localizing and then isolating the infection had been considerable. It wouldn’t spread - so Skaara wouldn’t have to worry much about turning into a zed himself, but there could be some… involuntary muscle twitches in his left shoulder sometimes. Maybe residue from the corruption, that little portion of his muscle actually being converted into a necro zed or something entirely else.

She sadly hadn’t had the time to figure that out yet.

The Tuk’ata grunted, before walking out of the room and into the little hangar bay of their ship. The rest of his brethren were already gearing up and packing up the equipment for field-testing.

They would rendezvous with Alliance R&D near the research site and take it from there.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

They walked off the ramp and it retreated back into the framework of the ship behind them. The starport of Belsavis was a bustle of activity: Galactic Alliance personnel speaking and cooperating with OmegaPyre personnel - not a surprise there, the Omega Protectorate had controlled these parts of space for a very, very long time.

It only made sense for the Alliance to ask for Pyre aid when it came to securing the system, they knew the lay of the… land and even this starport had been established by the Protectorate back in the day.

"Lady Cerbera!" The voice knocked her out of her revery. Metallic, high-pitched with a soft whine and whir in between.

A droid then.

She looked around, until she located the source of the voice.

There.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

It was an IG-32, derivative of the ancient IG-88 assassin droid. Holowan Laboratories had been hard at work when it came to the service industries: where once the Galaxy had been positively swamped with service droids, but only a few big names were producing military products?

Well, it was different now, the economical situation of today meant that almost everyone and their mothers tried to get a piece of the military-industrial complex.

So Holowan decided to get some action from the commercial industry.

"Miss Cerbera!!" Finally the droid managed to reach them through the thick crowds of civilians and official personnel. He drew a few frowns in response, but that couldn’t be helped now.

"...yes?" The Alchemist responded calmly, while assessing the situation.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Skaara and his brothers stopped a few meters further, but didn’t approach them just yet. They were probably checking out the environment to see if nobody was… lining up shots or whatever.

"Oh, goodness gracious, I hoped I would be able to reach you here! Let me tell you, I was right anxious, I was!"

She sighed. "Eey Gee thirty-two, yes?" The droid nodded enthusiastically in response.

"Please speed this up, I have a meeting to get to."

"Oh, yes! That’s why I am here, mistress Cerbera. I have a very important message for you."

"An important message from who, Eey Gee?"

 

[Jairus Starvald]

There were a lot of important messages in the Galaxy. More specifically, there were a lot of people who considered their message important.

Perhaps it was important or perhaps this was just a meaningless distraction that would lead her spending valuable daylight digging around in the ground for nothing.

That only happens to you once, before you start becoming skeptical about any ‘tips’ people might share with you.

Or unique and rare treasure maps for that matter.

"The Alliance Reclamation Service’s finest, ma’am!" The droid straightened out even more at that last bit.

"Monsieur Pelagia himself! He’s one of the most decorated agents serving the Reclamation Service for the Galactic Alliance, and he has found- well, why don’t I just play his message for you, why don’t I!"

Cerita’s frown deepened.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Pelagia was a Tapani Noble House if she recalled correctly. What was a pampered noble boy doing in the service of the Alliance Reclamation?
Not exactly a shiny occupation by any stretch of the imagination.

"Why don’t you, yes."

The IG-model nodded once and then a recorded message started playing.

"Miss Cerbera, I am sending you this message because I am aware of your connection to the investigation labeled as: “MM-A-18”. The research so far is promising and the Alliance would never have gotten as far as it did without your input, for this I thank you.

A couple of days ago I uncovered an… I hesitate to call it an artifact, but as far as I can tell it is a holocron or perhaps a datacron.

My first instinct was to pass it off to the New Jedi Order, but my curiosity got the better of me. It took me a while and a lot of favor-pulling from fringe elements, but I managed to crack it… if only partially.

The artifact has a direct connection to MM-A-18. It might very well be the missing link we have been searching for so long.

I am sure you understand the significance of this finding, miss Cerbera. Please visit my facility in due haste, your expertise is sorely needed.”

Cerita waited to see if more would come, but it didn’t seem like it. A look was sent to IG-32 who was waiting very patiently for a reply. Another look was sent, this one to Skaara, before sighing and shaking her head.

"I suppose we cannot let Lord Pelagia wait, can we? Show the way."

Then to Skaara. "But in the meanwhile, tell your brothers to bring the equipment to the Forward Camp, no point in running around with all of it in tow."

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The trip took a while. Pelagia’s research facility was six clicks away from the Belsavis Starport and so they had to take the railway to get there.

That railway was fascinating to Cerita.

In an age of spaceflight and repulsor lifts society was depressingly lax about developing new technology to advance their lives on the ground.

Almost all the money went into creating bigger and badder ships, adding thousands of turbolasers or cramming in six planetary shields on top of it. But here was Saiba with their superloop: apparently it was a ring design that circled across the entire planet and didn’t suffer from friction at all.

“Cool.”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The droid next to her turned his head to face her. It was still somewhat unnerving to be sitting next to an assassin-droid model, even if they had turned it into a service droid.

“Ma’am?”
“Oh, nothing. Just the superloop.”
“Ahh, yes. Fascinating. Saiba’s been working on it for the better part of the year now. I think they weren’t expecting the Alliance to show up, though. But according to the news they negotiated a deal rather amicably.”

“Oh?” Cerita was surprised the protocol droid was this tuned into the news, until she remembered whose droid it was. No doubt Lord Pelagia made sure to stay on top of the latest and hottest of news.

“Oh, yes. They were quite busy researching some of the sites around Belsavis. Apparently they showed up quite soon after the Protectorate had to pull out of the world. But, yes, in return for hiring out the railway for commercial and Alliance use, they were allowed to keep studying some of those ruins.”

Sarova mused on that a little bit. She wasn’t surprised at all that Irani got himself involved here.

That man seemed to be everywhere at once.

“Thank you for the information, Eey Gee.”
“Of course, ma’am.”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The rest of the trip wasn’t all that eventful. It took them roughly forty minutes to get from the Port to one of the many stations people could use to get out of the superloop. Most of it was spent drawing up conceptualizations on how the railroad functioned specifically, because the HoloNet did not seem to have any public records of it.

Saiba protected its copyright material vigorously.

They stepped out of the train and Cerita immediately noted that there weren’t really a lot of people following her out.

A few researchers, two warrior types, construction workers, a droid here and there, followed by them.

Not surprising considering there wasn’t really anything interesting out here. The starport was too far away, there were no major settlements here and no apparent resources for the galactic corporations to extract. Just mountains as far as the eye could see.

And it was somewhere there that Lord Pelagia had set up his research facility.

Apparently he had taken notes from Valik when it came to paranoia and keeping things secluded and remote.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

“If you would follow me, miss Sarova?”

IG-32 led her through the little station.

Outside she noticed the construction workers were already piling up their equipment into the back of their airbus, the mercs were headed for the mountains… on foot? That was curious. And the researchers were already gathered together around peculiar rock formation - which also drew on Sarova’s curiosity, but sadly there was no time for play.

Not with 32 buzzing around, anyway.

“Here we are, miss!”

The droid seemed fairly proud about the vehicle next to him. It was a custom-made speeder of some kind, but Sarova’s forte had never been so much technical engineering as much as theoretical approach. But it did look fairly… cool, so there was that.

“It has only one seat.” She pointed out with a gesture.

“Oh, yes, yes. It already comes pre-programmed with the route and has autopilot functionality.”

Cerita blinked.

“You are not coming along?”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of that, but she hadn’t been expecting it either and she disliked unexpected things. Part of that paranoia Valik and Rave had imprinted into her.

Always expect the worst.

“No, ma’am! Monsieur Pelagia has tasked me with a different task, I am very sorry, of course!”

She ignored the desire to ask what exactly that other task was. It would be rude in a situation like this and the droid probably would have been told not to answer any questions like that.

“Very well then. Off you go.”
“Yes, ma’am. Good luck!”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

The protocol droid left her with the speeder, which Cerita started to observe with something of suspicion. On the surface level there did not seem to be anything wrong with the vehicle. Her hand brushed the surface and again there did not seem to be any sign of deception.

Art of the small?

Maybe for a little bit. She studied the material of the speeder further, looking into the very essence and still could not find anything.

A sigh escaped her and she shrugged. Apparently it’s all good? She brushed some of her hair away and glanced at the construction workers. One of them was looking at her with a really… weird goofy smile.

Cerita shook her head and climbed onto the speeder.

A few moments later she was literally launched into the empty space in front of her. She suppressed the urge to jerk at the steering wheel, instead letting the speeder figure it all out on its own… and it did.

After a period of calibration they were driving smoothly over the hills and towards the mountains.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Forty minutes later.

Everything hurt.

Legs. Back. Arms. Neck. Stupid Lord Pelagia and his stupid mountain-based retreat. Why did the facility need to be so far away from the sane and civilization itself? Why couldn’t he have send a shuttle to pick her up? Why wasn’t there a direct link from the superloop to this forcesaken place?

...unless this had been orchestrated on purpose.

Maybe Pelagia wanted her to be weak, annoyed and in pain. It didn’t have to be an attack on her physically, of course.

But maybe there would be some kind of negotiation at the end of this journey.

And an annoyed soul overreacted and wasn’t able to reason calmly.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

This was an issue. She barely managed to straighten out a little bit and called towards the Force. Then she focused inwards, looking at her muscles and where the exhaustion reigned supreme.

Detoxification was usually used against actual poisons, but could also be creatively used against for instance alcohol. But the lactic acid propping up in her muscles could be interpreted as a form of poison that was causing her body harm, no? Cerita breathed out and let the Force crawl through her muscle fibers, where it started to cleanse them of the acid.

Slowly and steadily the pain receded, in its stead hunger came.

Hunger, she could deal with.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Fifteen minutes later.

“Ah, madame Serova. I am happy you made it here.”
“As am I, monsieur Pelagia. A pleasure.”

I wonder how you would behave under the scrutiny of an Akure Leviathan, Lordling.

She had made it through the mountain pass and a lift had finally transported her to a little landing platform next to the actual facility. This only underlined the fact that he could have send a shuttle to her, instead of making her go through the entire ordeal with the speeder.

“Quite, quite. If you’d please follow me? I have something that you might find very interesting.”

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Pelagia led her through the outer-doors and into a wide, spacious room filled with all kinds of scientific apparati. Displays alligned the walls and some of them were hooked into strange devices, but in the middle of the room was the centerfold of Pelagia’s experiments.

A spherical device.

It floated gently on the air currents and hummed slowly as they approached.

“This is…?”
“Oh, yes.”
“May I?”
“Oh, yes.”

The giddy expression on Pelagia’s face sold the deal. This wasn’t a Lordling scheming and plotting, instead the man was clearly just like her. Obsessed with science and discovery to such a degree that all else failed to compare.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

He hadn’t even realized that a shuttle would have been the better choice.

Pelagia had probably made the speeder himself in his spare time and had been eager to test it out.

But that was something to contemplate at a later time. Instead it was time to study this magnificent piece.

“MM-A-18?”
“We think so. Obviously none of us can actually operate the holocron, but it came with a few datacrons which we have been analyzing as well. It suggests imperial origins.”

Cerita nodded and then finally stepped up to the table.

Her hand reached out, but stopped a few inches away from the holocron. Eyes closed and she focused.

Inside her mind a voice sounded.

She smiled.

This was exactly what she had been looking for all along.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log BE-XX9

Is this thing working? Test, test… okay.

This Holocron is a major find. Major find. Sith in origin, because I can smell the Darkside it radiates. But strangely enough the Gatekeeper is less forthcoming about the details than any other Sith Holocron I have studied. It isn’t trying to get me to learn dangerous secrets or rituals, in fact it’s trying very hard to obscure most of the information it holds.

Curious.

I have managed to trick him into revealing his name though.

Lord Shadowspawn.

I recall Rave talking about him at length during the skirmishes against the Rhandites planned by the Fringe. Apparently he had been a confidante of an ancient Sith Emperor, Palpatine? Yeah, that sounds about right.

I am uncertain if he’s the real Shadowspawn, though. This Gatekeeper is savvier than most and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s leading me on for some reason.

On a different note. The Forward Base has been moved, according to the details given to us by Monsieur Pelagia. I think we might have zeroed in on the specific ruins we have been looking for all along.

Hopefully they will contain something to answer some of my questions.

Who is the Mother? A person? A deity? It could be a title or a codename, it could be a metaphor.

We simply don’t have enough details yet.

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Log BE-X11

Nothing new about the Gatekeeper, I am afraid. After digging around some more I have managed to extract some information that suggests this artifact is more akin to the Telos Holocron than any regular holocrons we might know.

I am not sure how deep this rabbit hole goes, but it suggests that there are levels of knowledge and multiple Gatekeepers guarding every level.

Besides the Telos Holocron I don’t know of any other holocrons that has multiple gatekeepers. I might riffle through some of Rave’s old notes, but I doubt I will be able to find much. She was always more interested in experimenting and finding things out on her own.

That being said.

I managed to convince Pelagia to release the artifact into my custody. He wasn’t happy with it, of course, but after I fed him some information I managed to extract… well, his curiousity got the better of him.

It’s a fact that I will need to study this further on Kelsier.

Oh, hold on. I am being called back to the camp. But I have also decrypted some more of those Imperial Datacrons Pelagia found with the holocron.

There is a lot of data here, but one thing makes me interested.

Something called a Hurlothrumbic Generator. Apparently it served a similar role to the Phobis Device I have heard so much about.

With one caveat though: it didn’t use the Force to achieve its effect.

This is probably worth studying further.