The road least traveled

[Not Ordo]

Sunlight broke the clouds and hung like golden strands of spider's silk stretching for the ground below. The mottled grey quilt of clouds rolled slowly across the the azure sky. Heavier dark clouds moved like near black patches of bundled wool beneath the quilt of grey on the horizon as he stood on the rocky sea shore. The huge ocean smoothed stones of the long jetties as they stretched like a lovers fingers into the rolling blue sea as if begging each wave to break against them and make them the happiest of lands. Small white crest topped the waves in places as the undercurrent moved toward shore and cast themselves at the beach in response as if hearing the silent plea and acquiesing to join together for a moment before drifting away again.

His eyes grey as the clouded sky glistened as he watched the rolling sea embrace the rocks at his feet and then climb into the distance to meet the horizon. Sky and sea melted into a thin line as he watched it all. It was optical illusion of course, all a matter of perception but then the same could be said of many things, as perception changed so to did belief and visa versa. He cast his gaze upon the ever changing sky and knew it was time to go again. There was no mysterious sensation, no metaphysical cue that came from a romantic belief of or adherence to a religion. It was a tug, a knowledge similar to a migrant bird that simply knew it was time to make the trek to warmer climes. He looked at the sky and that deep internal portion of him that could sense the force said the time to be going had come Once again.

One last look of longing and wondering if he was the last of his kind and he turned toward the waiting transport. The pilot and crew had a full passenger cargo and Kalizka was one. The ship was an older model, a BFF-1 bulk freighter, converted to a passenger transport and like Kalizka himself, it was begining to wear its age for all to see. He was asked to do very few things but a select few that knew of him trusted his steady temper, kindness, and historical knowledge. He was going to Pydyr, not his first time but he had not been since Abeloth had been slain, an act that had occured While he helped on Ithor. A mystery called, an investigation that he may be able to help solve and to be honest, their was a young woman there he had fancied a long time ago and a visit to her tomb was passed due. It was the curse of the long lived to bury their loved ones, but that was another story...

 

[Not Ordo]

The taste of coolant and ship fuel assaulted the senses as a stiff warm breeze turned seaward. His long Veshok wood staff tapped out a rhythm as he moved to the ship. The sounds of servos as the last of the passengers equipment was loaded by the binary loadlifters. The black duracrete gave off its own scent as the ships drives heated up. The ship's captain an old Baragwin male named Ruck waved at him from the bottom of the boarding ramp. Kalizka had known his great grandparents. They had been mercenaries for the Republic back when they called it "new". They had helped save a team of young Ryn that were fleeing the Yuuzhan Vong. Kalizka had gotten angry for the first time in their presence when he had fought Yuuzhan Vong long enough for the pair to get away. The family had been kind to him since.

"Ready old timer?" Ruck said as Kalizka approached and stopped in front of the aging reptilian.

"Are any of us ever ready?" The Neti replied with a small grin.

"Sometimes we think we are don't we?" Ruck said patting Kal's shoulder and shambling beside him as the two ascended the ramp and made their way inside.

"Yes. Yes we do, but we're usually wrong." Kalizka gave a chuckle, "Thank you again for a free room, Ruck. I owe you."

"Kali, if not for you my grandparents wouldn't even have been born. 'Way I see it, a free room is yours anytime you need it."

"You're a good hearted being, Ruck. Just like your family always was. "

"Your quarters are on level two. We gave you one with a porthole."

"A porthole? You spoil me youngster."

"Anything for the Vong fighting tree."

Kal laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a bad day."

Ruck shook his head and shoulders in the equivalent of a nod and shambled away to the cockpit as Kal turned to his room.

 

[Not Ordo]

The door to the room opened with a woosh as he depressed the palm pad. He found it fascinating how a cold lifeless chunk of engineering and durasteel could be made so alive when in the hands of a being who loved it. Rook's ship was just that way. Everywhere you looked there was a touch of the family that owned it, a flare that said it was more than "just a ship". He set down his bag and staff before easing himself onto the small bed. Small ribbons like those a young human girl may wear in her hair fluttered on a vent from the air recyclers as he slowly laid back. Jedi meditation and sleep trances were all well and good but few things revived the spirit like genuine sleep and Kalizka was well passed due. He looked up at the small porthole in the bulkhead and he watched the clouds pass as the ship lifted off and headed toward the blackness of space. Though he seldom said it he much preferred a quiet life in an unmolested forest to all of this traveling but in a life as long as his he could count the times he had enjoyed an unmolested world on one hand, and that said something. Slowly he watched as the sky dimmed and gave way to the sea of stars and the wonders, and terrors, they held. He always thought that space travel was like taking a leap of faith. People simply trusted that when they entered the unknown that they would make it back. This time he felt prehaps something was different, as if this time was tied more closely to him than other trips. He pondered these and other things for a time as he slowly closed his grey eyes and fell asleep.

 

[Not Ordo]

The feeling of alarm brought him from his silent paradise of dreams and he sat up. He'd heard a scream. No, not heard, felt. A scream that echoed in the force like ripples in a pond. Someone had cried out, cried out for help but he knew not who. He stood from his bed and smoothed his robes as he walked the two steps to his bag anf slung it across his broad body. His staff was deftly taken up as he headed for the door and the cockpit some distance away. His grey eyes brimming with concern he walked. His steps clanging on the occasional loose deck plate like the climactic score of a holofilm as he neared the cockpit. There were no alarms and he could sense no danger in the immediate area but none the less, something was wrong.

He stumbled forward as the ship dropped from hyperspace. They were either early or he had slept long than he thought. He pressed the palm pad and walked into the cockpit as the door slid aside.

"Rook, is everything ok?" He asked concern lacing his voice.

"So far so good Kal." Rook replied over his shoulder as Pydyr hung in orbit just ahead, "We thought you were going to sleep straight through the trip. Wait...IS everything ok?"

"I don't think so." he said. He had known their was a crime and an investigation but something told him it was more dangerous than that. "I think we should land as quickly as we can. Someone needs help."