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Star Wars - A New Power Ch. 24 - Departure
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<blockquote data-quote="Angcuru" data-source="post: 2173259" data-attributes="member: 10948"><p><strong>4 - Repairs, Repairs, and...More Repairs</strong></p><p></p><p>"It was just me, but I landed near a settlement," Jorran replies. "One of the locals says that those creatures are called 'Masliths'...you should move the corpses as far from your ship as possible."</p><p></p><p>Adrial notices that Miera is standing close to the pod. So she walks over next to her mentor and waits for a good time to ask a question. Once she sees an opportunity, she clears her throat. "Master Pannar! Will we need to lift this metal thing out of the ground?" If she answers in the affirmative, Adrial will continue. "You have taught me that size is not a problem as long as you use the force. May I try to lift the object when the time comes to move it?" Sheer excitement is all over her face.</p><p></p><p></p><p>"So there are settlements here? Good, maybe we can get the ship repaired. Look, I don't know about moving the bodies around, right now we have our ship sealed up so nothing can get in, we shouldn't be in danger from anything. At the moment the only fully working access should be the topside hatch, so unless those things can climb a starship, we won’t have issues. Well, unless the reason you want them moved is so you can get here easier. We've only killed a couple, maybe 4 or 5, just lowered the landing ramp a bit, but not enough for them to get in."</p><p></p><p>"Actually I think the things are more brown then red, if that matters to you. Look, I'll get the things a bit further away from the ship, if you'll use it to get closer. I'll even use my commlink to stay in-contact to you, just use the comm-gear to locate where this signal is coming from and get here." Kia says, frowning, not really wanting to go outside.</p><p></p><p>"Aasan, Lets get out there, I don't want to have to spend anymore time outside then necessary, and I want cover while I do it. Grab your Carbine, and I'll start moving them, cover me in case more come while I'm at it." she tells him, setting her commlink to on, and heading to the ramp.</p><p></p><p>Aasan follows Kia out, keeping his eyes open and his blaster ready, "Ask them how far we'll need to move them. I can help you and keep a look out at the same time if we need to get these moved a long way."</p><p></p><p></p><p>"Commlink? Oh, just a moment." Miera fished around in a pouch at her belt for a moment before pulling out a small cylinder with mesh covering one end. She looks over Jorran's shoulder at the comm station, and sets the commlink to the comm channel she sees displayed. I hope this thing still works. "Hello? Hello, can you hear me?"</p><p></p><p>"I don't see why not, Adrial. But not yet though." Miera says while waiting for a response.</p><p></p><p></p><p>"This'll teach me not to make blind hyperspace jumps trusting in the force," Kia mutters. "Yea, I read you; I take it your one of the locals? Exactly how far away do we have to move these bodies? Some of them don't have much left because they ate each other; then again, the last few do since I killed them to chase he others off." </p><p></p><p></p><p>"Just make sure that they are nowhere near your ship. Masliths never leave a corpse alone for long, for any reason. The planet is crawling with those things. They're smart enough to leave you alone if you pose a danger, but if you get between them and anything even remotely resembling meat, they'll attack you regardless." Miera pauses and thinks for a moment. "Once you have that taken care of, try and locate the escape pod on your sensors."</p><p></p><p></p><p>"Understood, <em>Dawnsprinter</em> out," Kia replied to the commlink, before getting down to the task. She drags the first of the corpses down stream using the buoyancy of water to make it lighter, as well as the smoothed stream bottom. Once Kia had gone a hundred yards down stream, she splashed her way over to the bank, and dumped the Maslith's body in a hole on the sand streamside. Then she headed back upstream to the Ship.</p><p></p><p>Kia repeated the process, dragging each of the brown corpses down through the water to the pit that had been made by a tree falling and having its roots ripped free of the soft sandy soil. Once all of the bodies were there, she draws her blaster and drops the power level, and increases the duration so that it would catch the bodies on fire. Resetting the blaster to kill, she holsters it again and heads on back to the ship.</p><p></p><p>"Aasan, they want us to get to the pod and their settlement, but we need the sensors back online for that. I'm going to go up the access Hatch and clear the vegetation away, you work with the computer to see if you can't pin down the Transponder for the escape pod." she tells him.</p><p></p><p>Aasan nods and quietly moves to the main computer, waiting for the sensors to come online and then doing his best to sweep the area and see if he can find the transponder signal for the escape pod.</p><p></p><p>Kia goes back in through the <em>Dawnsprinter</em> heading to her quarters. The jungle world was a bit hotter and more humid then space, so she decided to change into more suitable attire. Closing the door behind her, she changed into a pair of khaki shorts, and a black mid-drift that left her stomach bare. She slipped her blaster belt and lightsaber on again, tying the bottom to her right thigh.</p><p></p><p>Once she was fully changed, she climbed up the ladder and out through the irising top hatch, getting her first look at the top of the ship. She then starts to clear away all the debris from the sensors array. </p><p></p><p>Aasan's probing of the area with the ship's sensors yields nothing for over an hour. As Aasan leaned back in the pilot seat waiting for something to happen, he sees a quick blip on the screen which fades into static just as quickly as it appears. A few seconds later, it blips again for all of two seconds, and then fades again.</p><p></p><p>On top of the ship, Kia's work on unclogging the sensors has been simply clearing off muck and grime that must have been kicked up when they crash landed. She has gotten most of the heavy mass off, but a thick layer of caked algae clings stubbornly to the main dish.</p><p></p><p>Aasan sees the sensor blip becoming more and more frequent on the screen. It looks like it is off to the southeast, though he cannot approximate distance just yet. A few minutes later, the flickering screen stabilizes, and the Kel Dor sees the sensor readout screen clearly indicating that the escape pod is to the southeast of the ship and....moving? Apparently Kia had finished clearing away whatever was clogging the sensor, but something had to be wrong with it still. How would an escape pod be moving after it had landed?</p><p></p><p>Aasan searches around for a loose data pad or anything that he can download the sensor information onto. If they were going to go after it, especially if it was moving, they'd need to be able to see where it was going. Curious as to why it’s moving, Aasan determines to see if there's any way to get an exact reference on the distance of the signal.</p><p></p><p>Aasan cannot find a loose data pad in the cockpit, but he surmises that Kia would likely have one in her quarters. Of course, it would be prudent to ask Kia before he went rooting through her possessions, seeing as humans tend to become emotional over such things. </p><p></p><p>After recalibrating the sensors on a hunch that the crash might have knocked something important out of alignment, Aasan finally sees a grid fade in to the screen. Automatically following up on the Kel Dor's enquiries, the grid expands, shifts, and contracts until it displays the <em>Dawnsprinter</em> and the pod transponder. A faded dotted line continuously shifts to maintain a line-of-sight connection between the two, with a numerical readout placed at the center of the line. </p><p></p><p>If the computer is correct, then the transponder, and by logic, the pod is approximately 97 kilometers to the southeast, and steadily moving farther away.</p><p></p><p>On top of the ship, Kia's work on unclogging the sensors has been simply clearing off muck and grime that must have been kicked up when they crash landed. She has gotten most of the heavy mass off, but a thick layer of caked algae clings stubbornly to the main dish. </p><p></p><p>After she had finished scrubbing away at the Sensor/Communication dish, Kia climbs back down into the ship, making sure to close the hatch behind her to prevent any alien beasties from getting in. The girl proceeded to the cockpit to get the word from Aasan about what was up, and to see if she couldn't figure out where the Pod was in relation to the ship. She was instantly confronted by the motion of the signal, and that didn't make sense, not unless the pod was in motion, and that wasn't likely since a landed pod was pretty much permanently stuck, or if the transponder itself was being moved, and that was much more likely.</p><p></p><p>"This is the <em>Dawnsprinter</em>, we have a read on your transponder, but it seems to be in motion, what’s going on? Do you still want us to head in your direction?" she asks through the commlink.</p><p></p><p>"I hear you Kia. Do what repairs you can, and we'll send someone to help you if possible. Just don't work outside of the ship after dark. There are creatures on this planet far worse than masliths."</p><p></p><p>"Worse then masliths...wonderful... Understood... We'll start work on the repairs, I don't expect us to have to leave the ship, there is more then enough stuff to do inside until the morning, for many mornings to come." Kia says.</p><p></p><p>"If you've got a data card and a data pad I can get these readings onto it would really help," Aasan comments before even looking at Kia. He then glances over his shoulder to her and nods quickly, "It is moving quickly, and the sooner we can get after it the less likely we are to lose it."</p><p></p><p>"No need Aasan, there is no way I'm hiking across a 100 kilometers when we would need another 100 kilometers back, carrying whatever supplies we could get. Our Sub-light drives are functional, and I'll see if I can't recharge the ships power. More important though is just getting the Repulsor lifts up and running. If we get them going, we can coast our way to wherever we need to get to." Kia explains.</p><p></p><p>"The repulsor lifts seem to be bad off, but between us we can probably get them going, and I think at this point, they are our number one priority. So grab your tool belt, and lets get working, otherwise we'll be stuck here for quite awhile." Kia says to him, heading back out of the cockpit, and down to the service tubes that ran beneath the cargo bay to get to the lifts. Once she is down there, she'll get to work on repairing the systems that would let the <em>Dawnsprinter</em> float above the canopy of tree tops, and coast towards the Pod and the settlers.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Miera turns to Jorran. "It could be some time before they can locate your pod. You should return to our settlement with us." Miera turns to head back towards the village, when she is struck by a sudden idea. "Hold a moment. I don't know how much technology has changed over the years, but I remember that all escape pod-type vehicles used to have emergency transponders. If we can find that and remove it, we could take it back to the settlement with us."</p><p></p><p>Jorran nodded and grabbed the transponder Miera.</p><p></p><p>"So, just how big is this settlement of yours?"</p><p></p><p>"Well, it's essentially a high wall surrounding about three and one half square kilometers of space. It's not very large, but then again, there aren't many of us. Considering that most of us spend our entire lives inside those walls when not tending our small crops, it's not large at all." Miera said.</p><p></p><p>She turned to Adrial for a moment. "You go ahead and try to lift that if you want, Adrial. You haven't had much of an opportunity to test yourself against something that large. But be quick about it, we should get back home as soon as we can."</p><p></p><p>Adrial nods, the excitement apparent in her face. But then she closes her eyes, relaxes her thoughts and then reaches out with the force to the pod. She wraps her mind around the pod, trying to control its mass. Then she starts to lift it from the ground.</p><p></p><p>Adrial's attempt to move the escape pod causes it to shake slightly, freeing itself from the ground to a degree, but it remains immobile. </p><p></p><p>"Not bad, Adrial. You're improving. Now let’s get going before any masliths take interest in us."</p><p></p><p>Adrial nods at Miera’s complement and smiles. While she was not able to remove the pod from the ground, she was able to free it somewhat. Miera has always taught that you should focus on the positive from any situation. That helps with the confidence. Then later you reflect on the negative in order to improve your abilities. But for now she focuses on her achievement. </p><p></p><p>"Thank you Master Pannar. I appreciate your continued patience with me."</p><p></p><p>Adrial thought back to her first lessons. She always wanted to focus her attention on the negative of everything. It took many months of training and meditation for her to see the error in her ways. Although it was still natural for her to focus on the positive, she learned each time that she used the force how well this idea worked.</p><p></p><p>Adrial walked over to the others and walked with then toward the settlement. She began to think about the idea of leaving her home. She had never really given it much thought. She admitted to herself that the very idea was very foreign. Her thoughts drifted to what was out there among the stars.</p><p></p><p>"You're lucky you crashed when you did. The masliths are few in this area at this time of the year because they're up north for mating season." Miera said to Jorran.</p><p></p><p>"Well, you could say that. I'm also lucky that I made it into the pod at all. Which reminds me...how long ago did your ship crash, anyway?" Jorran said.</p><p></p><p>Adrial's attempt to move the escape pod causes it to shake slightly, freeing itself from the ground to a degree, but it remains immobile. </p><p></p><p>"Not bad, Adrial. You're improving. Now let’s get going before any masliths take interest in us."</p><p></p><p>As they walk back to the settlement, Miera regards Jorran. "I cannot be exactly sure, since for a long time we focused on survival, and keeping track of time was unnecessary. I would guess that we have been here for almost thirty years. But what of yourself? What was your purpose in coming here? Our ship found its way here only through an astrogation error on the part of the pilot, or the hyperdrive, there's no use trying to lay blame."</p><p></p><p>"Thirty years?" Jorran asked, amazed. "I guess you may not have heard about what's happened in the last ten years, then. Palpatine's empire was overthrown by an alliance of rebels, and a new republic is said to be rising. But that doesn't answer your question, does it?"</p><p></p><p>Jorran continued. "My...order...was destroyed with the rise of the empire, but I and a few comrades managed to stay hidden on the outer rim for almost thirty years. When I found out that the empire had fallen, I decided to search for other survivors from my order. I followed my instincts to this planet, had a bit of a collision with that other ship, and ended up down here."</p><p></p><p>At the mention of Palpatine, empire, rebels, and new republic Adrial gets a far off distant look. She seems to remember her parents speaking of a republic. But the others seem foreign to her. She merely listens to the conversation with Jorran and Miera, not wishing to interrupt. She turns toward Miera to see what she would say to Jorran's comments.</p><p></p><p>So Arias was right," Miera sighs. "The Republic became an Empire and the Jedi were destroyed just as he knew they would be; the two of us were right to leave the order when we did. You must have been just a young Padawan when it all happened, by the look of you. It's a wonder that you survived at all." She rubbed her temples for a moment. "Don't give me the details just yet. It's better that we both hear of this at the same time."</p><p></p><p>"Fair enough, Jorran says, following Miera.</p><p></p><p>The commlink buzzed. "This is the <em>Dawnsprinter</em>, we have a read on your transponder, but it seems to be in motion, what’s going on? Do you still want us to head in your direction?"</p><p></p><p>"This is Miera Pannar, I read you. We've removed the transponder from the escape pod so you can track us as we head back to our settlement. Can your sensors detect how far you are away from us?" Miera says into the comm.</p><p></p><p>"Miera, this is Kia Obscura, you’re about 97 kilometers out from our current position, and moving further. Aasan and I are going to try and repair the Repulsor lifts, if we can get them running it shouldn't be more then an hour to your position, even coasting with minimal sub-light power."</p><p></p><p>While he walked with the two refugees, Jorran turned to Miera.</p><p></p><p>"I was distracted before I could ask you earlier," he began, "but I sensed you were very strong in the force. You're stronger than most of the Knights and Masters I knew before the wars. I've met a few people in my travels afterward that were strong--some stronger than myself--who were born that way, but only a Jedi could be as strong as you are. So, were you a member of the Order before you crashed on this planet?"</p><p></p><p>When the word <em>jedi</em> is mentioned, Adrial turns to Miera to see what her reaction will be.</p><p></p><p>At Jorran's questioning, Miera halts and faces the man. "You are clearly not fully trained, so I would not expect you to have proper insight into such matters. However, I would have expected that your master had taught you in your youth not to confuse power with morality." She resumed walking. "We will speak of this further once we are safe within our home, not before."</p><p></p><p></p><p>Kia gets down to work, leaving the comm-link clipped to the top of her shorts. The girl keeps working until her stomach tells her its time for a break, and even then, she only pauses in her repulsor lift repairs long enough to return to the lifts with a pair of pre-packaged meals, with one for her and Aasan. Pressing the center button on them, causes them to open up, and the noodles in a naranja sauce with chunks or roast gorrnt to heat up. She indicates the one closest to Aasan for him to eat, if he is hungry, though she wasn't sure about how he would eat through a mask, or even worse, get enough gas to breathe, he might be on a pretty tight time limit. "Or you going to have enough gas or filters, or whatever to get this thing repaired and back to somewhere you can make more?" she asks after getting back to work.</p><p></p><p>"If you can seal a room completely in the ship, I should be fine," Aasan says with a nod, and though Kia can't see his eyes or mouth, he's obviously distracted, "I need nothing to eat now...I do...I..."</p><p></p><p>He trailed off a moment, thinking on that name 'Miera'. Sitting down, he takes a few minutes to think on it and then sighs outwardly, which comes through as a scratchy noise through the breath mask, "I'm too old for this...I've heard that name before. Years ago...many, many years ago...probably before you were born. I just can't place it." sighing again, Aasan rubbed his cream colored forehead before looking to Kia, "Lets just get this thing moving again and then we'll worry about things like breathing, eating, and old names."</p><p></p><p>Kia just nods when Aasan says he doesn't need to eat, its fine with her, she jus slides his pre-prepared meal next to hers and kept working, eating his portion as well, it wasn't like she would get fat, the extra food would go towards the energy she had been burning since the crash, repairing the ship and fighting the masliths. The thought of something more dangerous then the masliths was frightening, but they were safe in the ship, and shouldn't need to go outside regardless. "Feel free to seal off the crew quarters for yourself, or the escape pod, your pick, though if we get to the settlement, we might have people wanting to come aboard. Whichever works for you, but the Escape pod has a double seal between it and the rest of the ship so it should suit being filled with gas much better."</p><p></p><p>"I'll be fine for now, thank you..." he trailed off a moment, idly watching Kia, finding himself more curious than anything. There was much he wanted to know, but just couldn't bring himself to pry when they had a ship to fix, "Guess we should get this thing up and running again, hmm?"</p><p></p><p>Underneath his breath mask, Aasan grins and then moves to start making the necessary repairs to get at least the repulsorlifts online and operating.</p><p></p><p>"Getting the ship running is the plan, though I think it'll take awhile, I wish my music files hadn't all been purged, give us something to listen to, not that you'd like them, Gand music is an acquired taste, same with Twi’lek and Sullustun," the girl offers naming species with sensory abilities beyond that of humans.</p><p></p><p>"You've been out wandering the space ways for a long time I guess, since you were talking about before I was born, just exactly how long have you been out here, and how do you know about the Jedi, I mean, in my house, Jedi were always a taboo subject. I kind of figured that I'm related to one, a little distantly, but it’s not the kind of thing you can ask with the Empire's hunters all around." Kia said, working a bolt with a hydro-spanner.</p><p></p><p>After Aasan and Kia pull up the floor panels to inspect the damage first hand, it becomes apparent that the diagnostic computer was not exaggerating. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Wires that used to be contained in neat, orderly bundles were now all about the compartment. At least two large cracks were seen in braces holding something that looked important, and it looked like a lot of the control circuitry was fried. </p><p></p><p>The damage was repairable, but Aasan estimates that with Kia's help, he could have the repulsorlifts running within eight or ten hours, with another hour or so for the main computer to recalibrate the system and perform an additional diagnostic to be sure. Just as well, because from the look of the light outside, it would be night soon.</p><p></p><p>The Kel Dor suddenly began to feel how tired he really was. He hadn't had any sleep in at least twenty hours, not counting the time he was knocked out. Because really, being unconscious isn't very restful. Although the human girl didn't admit it, she looked like she could use a rest, too.</p><p></p><p></p><p>After an hour so of walking in silence, Jorran, Adrial, and Miera see the forested wilderness give way to a small stretch of plain, before plowed fields with small plants aligned in neat rows. A short distance from the fields, Jorran sees a high wall of lumber the likes of which he had only seen before in historical Holos telling tales of ancient and primitive civilizations. It apparently surrounds the settlement, as through a small gate at the northwest corner of the rectangular wall, Jorran can make out a series of huts, with a few people walking about their daily business.</p><p></p><p>Adrial runs up to the gate and through it. She makes a bee line toward the gathering hut looking for Arias. She yells out as she gets closer to the large hut. "Master Falm! Come look. Someone has crash landed. Off-worlders are here. There is a pod and a ship. The one from the pod is with Master Pannar." She stops as she gets into the hut, trying to catch her breath.</p><p></p><p>A blue Twi’lek woman whom Adrial recognizes as Ajoola is inside of the Sethi hut sweeping the floor. She looks up from her sweeping at Adrial, who stands in the doorway, winded. Well, maybe not up, but she does acknowledge the learner's presence.</p><p></p><p>"Calm down, Adrial! Master Falm isn't here. He's been out in the woods training Kal for the past few days. Now what's all this nonsense about ships and off-worlders? Did you eat some bad berries or something?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Angcuru, post: 2173259, member: 10948"] [b]4 - Repairs, Repairs, and...More Repairs[/b] "It was just me, but I landed near a settlement," Jorran replies. "One of the locals says that those creatures are called 'Masliths'...you should move the corpses as far from your ship as possible." Adrial notices that Miera is standing close to the pod. So she walks over next to her mentor and waits for a good time to ask a question. Once she sees an opportunity, she clears her throat. "Master Pannar! Will we need to lift this metal thing out of the ground?" If she answers in the affirmative, Adrial will continue. "You have taught me that size is not a problem as long as you use the force. May I try to lift the object when the time comes to move it?" Sheer excitement is all over her face. "So there are settlements here? Good, maybe we can get the ship repaired. Look, I don't know about moving the bodies around, right now we have our ship sealed up so nothing can get in, we shouldn't be in danger from anything. At the moment the only fully working access should be the topside hatch, so unless those things can climb a starship, we won’t have issues. Well, unless the reason you want them moved is so you can get here easier. We've only killed a couple, maybe 4 or 5, just lowered the landing ramp a bit, but not enough for them to get in." "Actually I think the things are more brown then red, if that matters to you. Look, I'll get the things a bit further away from the ship, if you'll use it to get closer. I'll even use my commlink to stay in-contact to you, just use the comm-gear to locate where this signal is coming from and get here." Kia says, frowning, not really wanting to go outside. "Aasan, Lets get out there, I don't want to have to spend anymore time outside then necessary, and I want cover while I do it. Grab your Carbine, and I'll start moving them, cover me in case more come while I'm at it." she tells him, setting her commlink to on, and heading to the ramp. Aasan follows Kia out, keeping his eyes open and his blaster ready, "Ask them how far we'll need to move them. I can help you and keep a look out at the same time if we need to get these moved a long way." "Commlink? Oh, just a moment." Miera fished around in a pouch at her belt for a moment before pulling out a small cylinder with mesh covering one end. She looks over Jorran's shoulder at the comm station, and sets the commlink to the comm channel she sees displayed. I hope this thing still works. "Hello? Hello, can you hear me?" "I don't see why not, Adrial. But not yet though." Miera says while waiting for a response. "This'll teach me not to make blind hyperspace jumps trusting in the force," Kia mutters. "Yea, I read you; I take it your one of the locals? Exactly how far away do we have to move these bodies? Some of them don't have much left because they ate each other; then again, the last few do since I killed them to chase he others off." "Just make sure that they are nowhere near your ship. Masliths never leave a corpse alone for long, for any reason. The planet is crawling with those things. They're smart enough to leave you alone if you pose a danger, but if you get between them and anything even remotely resembling meat, they'll attack you regardless." Miera pauses and thinks for a moment. "Once you have that taken care of, try and locate the escape pod on your sensors." "Understood, [i]Dawnsprinter[/i] out," Kia replied to the commlink, before getting down to the task. She drags the first of the corpses down stream using the buoyancy of water to make it lighter, as well as the smoothed stream bottom. Once Kia had gone a hundred yards down stream, she splashed her way over to the bank, and dumped the Maslith's body in a hole on the sand streamside. Then she headed back upstream to the Ship. Kia repeated the process, dragging each of the brown corpses down through the water to the pit that had been made by a tree falling and having its roots ripped free of the soft sandy soil. Once all of the bodies were there, she draws her blaster and drops the power level, and increases the duration so that it would catch the bodies on fire. Resetting the blaster to kill, she holsters it again and heads on back to the ship. "Aasan, they want us to get to the pod and their settlement, but we need the sensors back online for that. I'm going to go up the access Hatch and clear the vegetation away, you work with the computer to see if you can't pin down the Transponder for the escape pod." she tells him. Aasan nods and quietly moves to the main computer, waiting for the sensors to come online and then doing his best to sweep the area and see if he can find the transponder signal for the escape pod. Kia goes back in through the [i]Dawnsprinter[/i] heading to her quarters. The jungle world was a bit hotter and more humid then space, so she decided to change into more suitable attire. Closing the door behind her, she changed into a pair of khaki shorts, and a black mid-drift that left her stomach bare. She slipped her blaster belt and lightsaber on again, tying the bottom to her right thigh. Once she was fully changed, she climbed up the ladder and out through the irising top hatch, getting her first look at the top of the ship. She then starts to clear away all the debris from the sensors array. Aasan's probing of the area with the ship's sensors yields nothing for over an hour. As Aasan leaned back in the pilot seat waiting for something to happen, he sees a quick blip on the screen which fades into static just as quickly as it appears. A few seconds later, it blips again for all of two seconds, and then fades again. On top of the ship, Kia's work on unclogging the sensors has been simply clearing off muck and grime that must have been kicked up when they crash landed. She has gotten most of the heavy mass off, but a thick layer of caked algae clings stubbornly to the main dish. Aasan sees the sensor blip becoming more and more frequent on the screen. It looks like it is off to the southeast, though he cannot approximate distance just yet. A few minutes later, the flickering screen stabilizes, and the Kel Dor sees the sensor readout screen clearly indicating that the escape pod is to the southeast of the ship and....moving? Apparently Kia had finished clearing away whatever was clogging the sensor, but something had to be wrong with it still. How would an escape pod be moving after it had landed? Aasan searches around for a loose data pad or anything that he can download the sensor information onto. If they were going to go after it, especially if it was moving, they'd need to be able to see where it was going. Curious as to why it’s moving, Aasan determines to see if there's any way to get an exact reference on the distance of the signal. Aasan cannot find a loose data pad in the cockpit, but he surmises that Kia would likely have one in her quarters. Of course, it would be prudent to ask Kia before he went rooting through her possessions, seeing as humans tend to become emotional over such things. After recalibrating the sensors on a hunch that the crash might have knocked something important out of alignment, Aasan finally sees a grid fade in to the screen. Automatically following up on the Kel Dor's enquiries, the grid expands, shifts, and contracts until it displays the [i]Dawnsprinter[/i] and the pod transponder. A faded dotted line continuously shifts to maintain a line-of-sight connection between the two, with a numerical readout placed at the center of the line. If the computer is correct, then the transponder, and by logic, the pod is approximately 97 kilometers to the southeast, and steadily moving farther away. On top of the ship, Kia's work on unclogging the sensors has been simply clearing off muck and grime that must have been kicked up when they crash landed. She has gotten most of the heavy mass off, but a thick layer of caked algae clings stubbornly to the main dish. After she had finished scrubbing away at the Sensor/Communication dish, Kia climbs back down into the ship, making sure to close the hatch behind her to prevent any alien beasties from getting in. The girl proceeded to the cockpit to get the word from Aasan about what was up, and to see if she couldn't figure out where the Pod was in relation to the ship. She was instantly confronted by the motion of the signal, and that didn't make sense, not unless the pod was in motion, and that wasn't likely since a landed pod was pretty much permanently stuck, or if the transponder itself was being moved, and that was much more likely. "This is the [i]Dawnsprinter[/i], we have a read on your transponder, but it seems to be in motion, what’s going on? Do you still want us to head in your direction?" she asks through the commlink. "I hear you Kia. Do what repairs you can, and we'll send someone to help you if possible. Just don't work outside of the ship after dark. There are creatures on this planet far worse than masliths." "Worse then masliths...wonderful... Understood... We'll start work on the repairs, I don't expect us to have to leave the ship, there is more then enough stuff to do inside until the morning, for many mornings to come." Kia says. "If you've got a data card and a data pad I can get these readings onto it would really help," Aasan comments before even looking at Kia. He then glances over his shoulder to her and nods quickly, "It is moving quickly, and the sooner we can get after it the less likely we are to lose it." "No need Aasan, there is no way I'm hiking across a 100 kilometers when we would need another 100 kilometers back, carrying whatever supplies we could get. Our Sub-light drives are functional, and I'll see if I can't recharge the ships power. More important though is just getting the Repulsor lifts up and running. If we get them going, we can coast our way to wherever we need to get to." Kia explains. "The repulsor lifts seem to be bad off, but between us we can probably get them going, and I think at this point, they are our number one priority. So grab your tool belt, and lets get working, otherwise we'll be stuck here for quite awhile." Kia says to him, heading back out of the cockpit, and down to the service tubes that ran beneath the cargo bay to get to the lifts. Once she is down there, she'll get to work on repairing the systems that would let the [i]Dawnsprinter[/i] float above the canopy of tree tops, and coast towards the Pod and the settlers. Miera turns to Jorran. "It could be some time before they can locate your pod. You should return to our settlement with us." Miera turns to head back towards the village, when she is struck by a sudden idea. "Hold a moment. I don't know how much technology has changed over the years, but I remember that all escape pod-type vehicles used to have emergency transponders. If we can find that and remove it, we could take it back to the settlement with us." Jorran nodded and grabbed the transponder Miera. "So, just how big is this settlement of yours?" "Well, it's essentially a high wall surrounding about three and one half square kilometers of space. It's not very large, but then again, there aren't many of us. Considering that most of us spend our entire lives inside those walls when not tending our small crops, it's not large at all." Miera said. She turned to Adrial for a moment. "You go ahead and try to lift that if you want, Adrial. You haven't had much of an opportunity to test yourself against something that large. But be quick about it, we should get back home as soon as we can." Adrial nods, the excitement apparent in her face. But then she closes her eyes, relaxes her thoughts and then reaches out with the force to the pod. She wraps her mind around the pod, trying to control its mass. Then she starts to lift it from the ground. Adrial's attempt to move the escape pod causes it to shake slightly, freeing itself from the ground to a degree, but it remains immobile. "Not bad, Adrial. You're improving. Now let’s get going before any masliths take interest in us." Adrial nods at Miera’s complement and smiles. While she was not able to remove the pod from the ground, she was able to free it somewhat. Miera has always taught that you should focus on the positive from any situation. That helps with the confidence. Then later you reflect on the negative in order to improve your abilities. But for now she focuses on her achievement. "Thank you Master Pannar. I appreciate your continued patience with me." Adrial thought back to her first lessons. She always wanted to focus her attention on the negative of everything. It took many months of training and meditation for her to see the error in her ways. Although it was still natural for her to focus on the positive, she learned each time that she used the force how well this idea worked. Adrial walked over to the others and walked with then toward the settlement. She began to think about the idea of leaving her home. She had never really given it much thought. She admitted to herself that the very idea was very foreign. Her thoughts drifted to what was out there among the stars. "You're lucky you crashed when you did. The masliths are few in this area at this time of the year because they're up north for mating season." Miera said to Jorran. "Well, you could say that. I'm also lucky that I made it into the pod at all. Which reminds me...how long ago did your ship crash, anyway?" Jorran said. Adrial's attempt to move the escape pod causes it to shake slightly, freeing itself from the ground to a degree, but it remains immobile. "Not bad, Adrial. You're improving. Now let’s get going before any masliths take interest in us." As they walk back to the settlement, Miera regards Jorran. "I cannot be exactly sure, since for a long time we focused on survival, and keeping track of time was unnecessary. I would guess that we have been here for almost thirty years. But what of yourself? What was your purpose in coming here? Our ship found its way here only through an astrogation error on the part of the pilot, or the hyperdrive, there's no use trying to lay blame." "Thirty years?" Jorran asked, amazed. "I guess you may not have heard about what's happened in the last ten years, then. Palpatine's empire was overthrown by an alliance of rebels, and a new republic is said to be rising. But that doesn't answer your question, does it?" Jorran continued. "My...order...was destroyed with the rise of the empire, but I and a few comrades managed to stay hidden on the outer rim for almost thirty years. When I found out that the empire had fallen, I decided to search for other survivors from my order. I followed my instincts to this planet, had a bit of a collision with that other ship, and ended up down here." At the mention of Palpatine, empire, rebels, and new republic Adrial gets a far off distant look. She seems to remember her parents speaking of a republic. But the others seem foreign to her. She merely listens to the conversation with Jorran and Miera, not wishing to interrupt. She turns toward Miera to see what she would say to Jorran's comments. So Arias was right," Miera sighs. "The Republic became an Empire and the Jedi were destroyed just as he knew they would be; the two of us were right to leave the order when we did. You must have been just a young Padawan when it all happened, by the look of you. It's a wonder that you survived at all." She rubbed her temples for a moment. "Don't give me the details just yet. It's better that we both hear of this at the same time." "Fair enough, Jorran says, following Miera. The commlink buzzed. "This is the [i]Dawnsprinter[/i], we have a read on your transponder, but it seems to be in motion, what’s going on? Do you still want us to head in your direction?" "This is Miera Pannar, I read you. We've removed the transponder from the escape pod so you can track us as we head back to our settlement. Can your sensors detect how far you are away from us?" Miera says into the comm. "Miera, this is Kia Obscura, you’re about 97 kilometers out from our current position, and moving further. Aasan and I are going to try and repair the Repulsor lifts, if we can get them running it shouldn't be more then an hour to your position, even coasting with minimal sub-light power." While he walked with the two refugees, Jorran turned to Miera. "I was distracted before I could ask you earlier," he began, "but I sensed you were very strong in the force. You're stronger than most of the Knights and Masters I knew before the wars. I've met a few people in my travels afterward that were strong--some stronger than myself--who were born that way, but only a Jedi could be as strong as you are. So, were you a member of the Order before you crashed on this planet?" When the word [i]jedi[/i] is mentioned, Adrial turns to Miera to see what her reaction will be. At Jorran's questioning, Miera halts and faces the man. "You are clearly not fully trained, so I would not expect you to have proper insight into such matters. However, I would have expected that your master had taught you in your youth not to confuse power with morality." She resumed walking. "We will speak of this further once we are safe within our home, not before." Kia gets down to work, leaving the comm-link clipped to the top of her shorts. The girl keeps working until her stomach tells her its time for a break, and even then, she only pauses in her repulsor lift repairs long enough to return to the lifts with a pair of pre-packaged meals, with one for her and Aasan. Pressing the center button on them, causes them to open up, and the noodles in a naranja sauce with chunks or roast gorrnt to heat up. She indicates the one closest to Aasan for him to eat, if he is hungry, though she wasn't sure about how he would eat through a mask, or even worse, get enough gas to breathe, he might be on a pretty tight time limit. "Or you going to have enough gas or filters, or whatever to get this thing repaired and back to somewhere you can make more?" she asks after getting back to work. "If you can seal a room completely in the ship, I should be fine," Aasan says with a nod, and though Kia can't see his eyes or mouth, he's obviously distracted, "I need nothing to eat now...I do...I..." He trailed off a moment, thinking on that name 'Miera'. Sitting down, he takes a few minutes to think on it and then sighs outwardly, which comes through as a scratchy noise through the breath mask, "I'm too old for this...I've heard that name before. Years ago...many, many years ago...probably before you were born. I just can't place it." sighing again, Aasan rubbed his cream colored forehead before looking to Kia, "Lets just get this thing moving again and then we'll worry about things like breathing, eating, and old names." Kia just nods when Aasan says he doesn't need to eat, its fine with her, she jus slides his pre-prepared meal next to hers and kept working, eating his portion as well, it wasn't like she would get fat, the extra food would go towards the energy she had been burning since the crash, repairing the ship and fighting the masliths. The thought of something more dangerous then the masliths was frightening, but they were safe in the ship, and shouldn't need to go outside regardless. "Feel free to seal off the crew quarters for yourself, or the escape pod, your pick, though if we get to the settlement, we might have people wanting to come aboard. Whichever works for you, but the Escape pod has a double seal between it and the rest of the ship so it should suit being filled with gas much better." "I'll be fine for now, thank you..." he trailed off a moment, idly watching Kia, finding himself more curious than anything. There was much he wanted to know, but just couldn't bring himself to pry when they had a ship to fix, "Guess we should get this thing up and running again, hmm?" Underneath his breath mask, Aasan grins and then moves to start making the necessary repairs to get at least the repulsorlifts online and operating. "Getting the ship running is the plan, though I think it'll take awhile, I wish my music files hadn't all been purged, give us something to listen to, not that you'd like them, Gand music is an acquired taste, same with Twi’lek and Sullustun," the girl offers naming species with sensory abilities beyond that of humans. "You've been out wandering the space ways for a long time I guess, since you were talking about before I was born, just exactly how long have you been out here, and how do you know about the Jedi, I mean, in my house, Jedi were always a taboo subject. I kind of figured that I'm related to one, a little distantly, but it’s not the kind of thing you can ask with the Empire's hunters all around." Kia said, working a bolt with a hydro-spanner. After Aasan and Kia pull up the floor panels to inspect the damage first hand, it becomes apparent that the diagnostic computer was not exaggerating. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Wires that used to be contained in neat, orderly bundles were now all about the compartment. At least two large cracks were seen in braces holding something that looked important, and it looked like a lot of the control circuitry was fried. The damage was repairable, but Aasan estimates that with Kia's help, he could have the repulsorlifts running within eight or ten hours, with another hour or so for the main computer to recalibrate the system and perform an additional diagnostic to be sure. Just as well, because from the look of the light outside, it would be night soon. The Kel Dor suddenly began to feel how tired he really was. He hadn't had any sleep in at least twenty hours, not counting the time he was knocked out. Because really, being unconscious isn't very restful. Although the human girl didn't admit it, she looked like she could use a rest, too. After an hour so of walking in silence, Jorran, Adrial, and Miera see the forested wilderness give way to a small stretch of plain, before plowed fields with small plants aligned in neat rows. A short distance from the fields, Jorran sees a high wall of lumber the likes of which he had only seen before in historical Holos telling tales of ancient and primitive civilizations. It apparently surrounds the settlement, as through a small gate at the northwest corner of the rectangular wall, Jorran can make out a series of huts, with a few people walking about their daily business. Adrial runs up to the gate and through it. She makes a bee line toward the gathering hut looking for Arias. She yells out as she gets closer to the large hut. "Master Falm! Come look. Someone has crash landed. Off-worlders are here. There is a pod and a ship. The one from the pod is with Master Pannar." She stops as she gets into the hut, trying to catch her breath. A blue Twi’lek woman whom Adrial recognizes as Ajoola is inside of the Sethi hut sweeping the floor. She looks up from her sweeping at Adrial, who stands in the doorway, winded. Well, maybe not up, but she does acknowledge the learner's presence. "Calm down, Adrial! Master Falm isn't here. He's been out in the woods training Kal for the past few days. Now what's all this nonsense about ships and off-worlders? Did you eat some bad berries or something?" [/QUOTE]
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