Objective: Rescue the Chalcedon colony
Tags:
Taozi Fuyuan
Taozi Fuyuan
,
Sterling Kinslayer
Sterling Kinslayer
,
Adelle Bastiel
Adelle Bastiel
,
LE-03 (Leigh)
,
Kalic Daws
Equipment : One(1) shoto lightsaber, One(1) standard E-11D blaster carbine, One(1) industrial-strength syntherope (50m),
Libeta (under eyepatch), One(1) encrypted comlink transmitter
There was a puddle in front of the cantina door.
Na'an found herself standing at the lip of the puddle, staring into it and gnawing at her bottom lip, feeling uncertain. The uncertainty was not new; she'd felt it from the minute Leigh had suggested this little diversion on their way to the meeting of Eclipse leaders a few systems away. The droid had described the situation--a colony disappearing off the map, no comms, no signs of attack--and that was when it had started. The uncertainty, like teetering on the edge of a cliff looking down, was weirdly familiar, so she'd agreed. Let Leigh draw here here, like gravity.
About an hour ago, Leigh had sequestered herself in the comms building, not even bothering to tell her that others would be on their way to help their investigation. Na'an had been left to her own devices, so she'd decided to clear the local residences, make
absolutely sure there had been nobody left behind in the new ghost town. She had wandered, a little chill going down her spine at every half-eaten meal, every active holoreceiver, every little accident caused by something important going suddenly unattended. The uncertainty only grew at each sight, until the point where she passed an abandoned doll lying in the street and decided to
kark it all. The cantina would be empty. Nobody in this colony would miss a nip of
tihaar.
But there was a puddle in front of the cantina door.
Na'an bounced on the balls of her feet, inexplicably nervous and careful to not let her toes touch the water. She couldn't place what it was about the puddle that made her like this. It was, by all intents and purposes, just a puddle. A broad, shallow pooling of cloudy water, the kind seen on any curbside after a heavy rain. If Na'an stepped into it, the muddy liquid wouldn't even splash up to the tops of her feet. She could jump over it onto the cantina doorstep without even trying. It wasn't even an obstacle. Just a puddle.
Totally normal.
Except...Chalcedon's skies were clear today. She'd seen that much on their approach to the planet, hadn't she? Not a single cloud in the sky, let alone the kind needed to make puddles worth of rain, and every other street in the colony was dry as a bone. And this was, by Na'an's own confirmation, an empty town. There was nobody around for miles that could have stirred up the water enough to cloud it.
And yet. There was a puddle in front of the cantina door. A puddle made opaque by swirling eddies of whitish dust, like the inside of a pearl lamp. Eddies that were, despite the surface of the water being mirror-calm, still moving.
As if they were being kicked up by something deep underneath.
Na'an hovered at the puddle's edge, her uncovered eye locked on the moving- but not-moving water, unaware that she was gnawing even harder on her lip. She hummed through her teeth, hands flexing at her sides, wishing suddenly that she and Leigh had not come here alone. If they'd only thought to meet up with Adelle Bastiel first, like they'd planned...
Vidalu Na'an
