Sithbane
Hyperspace travel left blue and white swirls flashing in Siv's eyes. He blinked them away, lettting his breathing settle, let his vision reset as he slowly grasped the controls of the Kyr'yc Saca. Only when he saw the familiar white orb of Kestri in the loom out of the darkness did he finally allow himself to breathe for the first time in two years. He'd been gone for long , long enough to almost forget how small Kestri looked from orbit. As his grip tightened on the controls, gently shifting power from hyperspace reactor to thrusters, beginning a familiar downwards approach towards the world, muscle memory took over. It was as if he had never been gone. He didn't pause to think how strange how that was. He was only focused on the next thing. Home. Ship repairs. A drink or several.
Seeing his family.
If he allowed himself to think beyond his mental list of tasks, maybe he'd unpack all that'd happened over the last two years. The Reef. The hyperspace disaster. What lingered only in his nightmares. But now that was gone, in the past. He was surrounded all by familiarity, by calm. All of the stars in their ancient order as they'd ever been. The speed of light hadn't caught up to the change of the galaxy yet. Here, it felt calm. He told himself that it felt calm.
The only noise that accompanied him was the hymn of engines and reactor core as he piloted the ship down.
As he began to draw closer to the planet, an uneasy feeling arose in his gut. He'd gotten used to the chaos of the galaxy of the last two years that familiarity felt unfamiliar. There were still the same clouds, same patterns, even the orbital entry calculations that his nav computer was spinning him were al the same as he'd done hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Kestri appeared unchanged. Yet his grip on the controls tightened as he dipped into the swirling clouds of a Kestrian snowstorm.
The winds outside were fierce. The Enclave hadn't chosen Kestri because it was a kind world; it wasn't. It was harsh, cold, and one had to be just as strong as the bitterest gale to thrive on Kestri. Winds buffeted against the starship's hull, but Siv didn't flinch, only slightly moved the stick to compensante, locking in stablizers and adding power to the thrusters. The Kyr'yc Saca protested, but only such, yielding to Siv's control. The storm completely clouded his visuals. He switched to instruments, scanning for the Tor Valum holobeacon. It was a constant in weather like this, a lifeline that was always there. It was broadcasted just for storms like this, and once he locked onto it it'd be almost all autopilot from there. He couldn't find the frequency, but any second it'd come on the radar. . .
Any second. . .
Proximity alerts from below and in front. Siv cursed, pulling hard up, and his ship soared upwards unsteadily. The sudden movement destabilized the ship and Siv fought hard to keep it steady as the winds pounded against it unpredictably. He'd gotten too low to the mountains; Tor Valum was in the middle of an extensive mountain chain, but in a storm the beacon would keep him on a safe course. But without the beacon?
Without the beacon, something was wrong.
He ran diagnostics and sensor scans. He was high enough now that he shouldn't have to worry about a mountain impact as long as he maintained his altitude. He afforded a second to turn his eyes back to the sensor board. Static. He drummed his fingers, waiting, waiting, but nothing came. He sighed. His uneasy feeling rose, but he pushed it down and began to plug in numbers, old flight data. Malfunctions existed, even with Mandalorian tech. He'd just have to make a manual approach.
Suddenly the Kyr'yc Saca broke through the storm, clouds rolled from the viewport, and the massive city of Tor Valum loomed directly into view. The ancient city was carved directly into the mountain, most of it underground, insulated from the cold. Siv slammed thrusters to brake sharply then switched over to secondary propulsion to deaccelerate his speed; he was coming in far too fast. His breath caught, then slowed as he forced himself to exhale. The fact that no one had hailed him over comms didn't even cross his mind—his ship was well known to starport traffic control.
Only the city and the ship mattered now. One step at a time. His eyes locked on the nearest hangar bay. Its cavernous entrance yawned like a maw in the mountainside, rimmed with faded markings and a thin sheen of frost. One step at a time, he told himself. He didn't even notice the growths over the side of the hangar as he flew past them inside. Everything appeared in order, even if it was. . . empty.
Siv swore under his breath again. Something was wrong.
