In search of the next story

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel hastily removed the data pads she’d collected so far. “We could try it with these,” she said quickly, before quickly searching the remainder of the room for data pads. “I’ve not heard of those before — but it sounds like a sensible and easily hidden means of encrypting a data pad. To the naked eye just a piece of jewellery.”

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

She looked at them and gave a nod, it was a small way to make security a well if they weren't paying attention they wouldn't see it before the padawan gave it to Sorel to check the datapads and she continued to search around the room. There was a few of the things with a small nod of her head. "Exactly, maybe we'll start finding the information or make some of the moves to go forward with." She loved the ideas but was liking this more as it all came out prying a stuck locker opened to reveal for herself the nice things inside. A robe and mall holocron with a repair kit. "Might also be able to find something on this."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel checked each and every data pad they’d found so far with the ‘key’ but without success. “I suspect anything that’s worth encrypting would be near the key. At least that’s my guess.”

So she started to look for locked drawers or hiding places where a valuable data pad might be stored. As she looked, she was distracted by Orihime’s find.

“Ooh, what’s that?”

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

Orihime was looking at it and at Sorel with a nod of her head as she held the holocron offering a small look of interest. "Hmm well." She held it in her hand and brought it over near the key and it whirred. Holocrons were an amazing thing when it came downt o it and seemed to almost last forever as it opened and activated. The gatekeeper offering not much to them in terms of information but he was wearing a jedi robe as well as using his own things so there was that.... His lightsaber seemed longer like a saberstaff when he was speaking. "You are unknown to me but if you found this then likely it means that our mission has failed. This needs to get back to the jedi council." Orihime was looking at him and she spoke. "We are with the jedi, we are padawans on a mission and have discovered it." The gatkeeper seemed to think about it. "Both of you are different, one I can't read the intents of and the other if off like an echo but you both seem to have the lightside as your guide. I will tell you this as the information enclosed is of vital importance on the whereabouts of some of our sleeper ships. We found one and were able to contact them after the fall of Ossus. They had felt it across the galaxy and gave us a pathway to them as well as a font of knowledge and artifacts they had discovered of some of the ancient civilizations before the republic."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel was shocked and at the same pleased. The key opened the Holocron.

She did not recognise the gatekeeper and wondered who he was, or what weapon he carried. But as Orihime was talking to him, she listened to the exchange.

Sorel racked her brains. "This may seem an impertinent question, or even a foolish one, but in truth it is neither. Which fall of Ossus do you refer to?" Sorel was aware of a few herself.

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

There was a look on the gatekeepers face as it spoke. "There was only one fall of ossus, the world sits there now poisoned and dead to the galaxy. The great library silent and the jedi have retreated to Coruscant and Tython. To regroup before sending out the mission to find new location to settle the jedi and create centers to protect the galaxy. One of the locations we have worked to secure is far out into the outerrim nestled near the hyperspace disturbance and the jedi have settled there with sleeper ships to colonize it. Into a new great temple and library." Orihime was looking at him and listening as she thought about it and looked at Sorel. "That was... five six thousands years ago give or take right.... Oh what if they are still there or have grown or what if there are all new things we might be able to discover?"

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel nodded as Orihime said what she was thinking. Ossus had fallen at least twice since this Jedi was last appraised of current events - although she was aware of the time he spoke of. It was a significant part of history - albeit ancient history from Sorel's perspective.

But this was largely irrelevant compared to the news the gatekeeper held. If the location of the secure base in the outer rim was still a secret, then who knows what might be found there. The ships were an interesting enough find but the prospect of a temple and library? Sorel was almost salivating at the thought of all that knowledge.

"Would you share the location with us?" she asked tentatively.

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

Orihime could see Sorel who seemed excited by the idea and the padawan looked towards the gatekeeper as he was giving her a small idea with some excitement at the prospect of finding some ancient thing here or there. "Yes the location is here for the jedi." The gatkeeper brought up the map as it appeared and there were large sections of the map still empty as Orihime was looking at it and realized well how much mapping there had been done in a few several... thousand years. The route was taking them across the galaxy from Jakku but there was a lot of space in between she knew there were systems as she spoke pointing. "That area of space is the rift and closest to it. My mother used to take me there with my sisters but I don't recall seeing a system out there or that close to the rift."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel was delighted that the gatekeeper would share the information with them. Protocol might determine that they hand the information over immediately - but part of her wanted to believe they should check out the validity of the intelligence before sending a task force from the SSC off on a wild bantha chase.

And as widely travelled as she was, Sorel did not know a great deal about the area of space identified. She hoped that its remoteness meant that whatever was hidden there was still waiting to be found.

"Is there a reason we can't go there straight away?" There was hope in her voice and perhaps a little pleading too!

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

Orihime looked at Sorel and the ship. "Well we are in a half buried ship in the middle of the desert away from your ship that has a lot of refugee's in it from the slavers but no there is nothing stopping us from delivering this to one of the stations and then heading there." She offered a small smile and the a nod deactivating the holocron with a bigger thought on her mind. "Hmm though I wonder what we might find. Last time the jedi really went looking my mother and the ancient world of the celestials and managed to survive with a sample from the different pools to analyze them." She had the holocron and put it on her hip while moving over to keep looking at some of the things in the room and just came away with a lightsaber that looked ancient and simple.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel had completely forgotten where they were! They were still only beginning to search this ship. But like a kitten that was playing with a piece of string that suddenly finds a ball of colourful wool, she was entirely sidetracked.

"This ship is likely to yield more, but we could share the location for others to investigate. I say we make haste to these coordinates." Sorel knew that a few days made little difference when the place had been hidden for thousands of years, but she had a sense of urgency she couldn't shake. "Unless there's something else here you'd like to see?"

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

There was a small look on her face as she thought a bout it and this was a large ship they could continue to explore... more so if everything went well who knew what they might be able to find. "We shall look at some of the things here and then we can head out to go and search it." They had an entire ship here and who knew this holocron was old, the information was old yes but that wasn't the origin of it, there was a chance they had found the hoocron and found their way here trying to bring it back and crashed. If so there might be other things as she knew where things were in jedi history. This far out on a ship they might have been one of the teams sent to find mortis."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel nodded her accord. "That's fine by me. Just let me know where you'd most like to head next. If I had a choice, I'd like to see if they have any interesting parts that I could use on my ship. There must be a stores somewhere that we could explore. What do you think?"

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

She gave it a thought and look as the idea of getting parts for a ship well she could support thing with a few ideas but if they were this old it could be strange trying to use them unless they were cannabalizing the parts to make everything and her head was spinning while she made sure everything was secured and ready for them to go. "Alright lets go and look for some parts in the machine shop. Might find an armory or some storage places, there might even be a databank with information from the ship itself we can try and get at or order."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel's desire to look around old ships was not specifically to find parts for her ship but to satisfy her desire to learn more about technology and to steal ideas as much as physical parts.

"You'd be amazed how many things can be grafted onto a ship, or copied to improve one. Being a simple Jedi, I don't have the means to buy parts and I prefer to fly my own ship rather than use an SSC one, so I dabble with cannibalised parts. Plus some are handy to have in the hold to barter with. Better than credits on many planets."

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

She looked at her friend and gave a nod of her head to that, she knew there was always a trick a jedi needed and to work with some of the bigger things or ideas. it wasn't solely outside the realm of possibility to cannibalize and improve a ship using the old stuff while she went looking and they had more then enough time to get a reach on their own things. To go off and do the really interesting things on other worlds before returning home to the watch and the sanctum. "well then lets go and see what we might be able to find. Never know it might be an interesting thing as well." Orihime was moving with more intention now when she pushed the force senses out to feel for anything from fluctuation in electronics that something might be working to people that might somehow be around. Other might try and scavenge you never knew.

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel had lost track of the time they'd spent on the ship and also forgotten where they were. She was used to visiting places that were of historical value rather than actual value. But it hit her that others might be already descending on the ship for what they might find.

So she pushed her senses out and found something. Or rather she found something that she figured had found them. Using Force Sight she had a broad image of them. And having done her homework before she arrived, she was sure of what she could 'see'.

Gnaw-jaws were six-legged, carnivorous predators that lived on the desert planet Jakku. They tended to hunt in swarms, preying on warm-blooded creatures. And six had found their way onto the ship and were closing in on their position. She suspected Orihime would sense them too.

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

She coudl sense the creatures and stopped pausing there for a moment when they were within range as it felt strange. Slowly turning over with most of her attention when she moved to the side of the hallway. They didn't want to be out in the open and she had her saber ready in her hand for anything extending it to a normal saber legnth. The shoto style was for one handed attacks when she leaned over a little searching with the force. "There is something here, they are close." The range was good for feeling where people and creatures were when she leaned in and looked at her equipment pack. A small tangler grenade was good for stopping things in place for a time. "Non lethal just very sticky and hard to break out of."

 

[Sorel Crieff]

Sorel felt constrained by the space they were in. Her saber felt unwieldy in the circumstance and she - for the first time - wished she carried a shoto.

"I keep finding crystals," she said quietly to Orihime. "I think I'll put them to good use and craft a new saber. A shoto to be precise. I could do with something a little less awkward in tight situations."

Nevertheless, she took one of her saber hilts from her belt, but did not activate it just yet. "I'll let you take the lead. If we can disable them without killing them, I'd be happier."

[member="Orihime Ike"]

 

[Orihime Ike]

[member="Sorel Crieff"]

Looking at her and disabling without killing was ideal to her as well... Initially there was always the problem of what to do with something after you disabled it though which in some cases could mean running away but in others people liked to drag it with them and that weighed you down so it was harder to keep moving away. Killing was more practical but jedi shouldn't kill unless they have to when she moved into position prepared for anything with her saber as she spoke. "A shoto can be good but I would suggest adjustable like mine, then you can have something for any situation not just close quarters or for the offhand." She said it and her blade was heavily adaptable with a lens and power cell designed to give it superior slicing and cutting capabilities against phrik and beskar while she stood there ready to start knocking some beasties unconscious.