Failure Is Not Fatal
Jacen was still a terrible pilot. He had thought that abandoned stretch of land near the Mesharra templae on Chalacta would have left no observers of his shame. Any grace in his shuttle landing was provided only by his on-board computer. However there was already a vessel sat in the empty landscape. One that had brought
Romi Jade
here. Jacen scanned the area quickly from the shuttle. No life signs nearby. The Force provided just a faint tremor of a warning. His console reported that the engines on the other vessel were still warm. "Curious," he mused as he made his way down from the shuttle. The temple was said to be entirely of alien design. For a few moments he had started to suspect he was going to be finding the corpse of the owner of the other vessel, discovering where they had become trapped.
For the first time in years he wore a lightsaber at his belt. Not because he felt the need to defend himself or identify himself as a jedi. It was a practical matter of carrying a tool that could cut through almost any material.
The actual opening to the temple was almost entirely obscured. He wouldn't have found it if the Silver Jedi had not explored the site before. A small hatch led to a lift of some alien design. They had provided him with a rather unpleasant piece of apparatus for this journey. From a pouch in his belt he pulled a small petri dish of cloned Sharuka bio-matter. He touched the odourless green gel to what looked like a control panel and the lift started to move. He was afforded a view of the smooth shaft cut from the rock on the way down.
Eventually it came to a smooth halt and the door slid open. He found himself in a wide open chamber. Alien glyphs of a kind he had never seen covered the walls.
"Hello?" he called out. There was another here already, he could sense them.
They would not be the only ones for along. Just minutes from Chalacta a shuttle of Sharuka warriors emerged from hyperspace. They would see the trespass on their temple as a grave offence.
