Efret's lips pulled, bunched, to one side of her mouth. "
Not very good, I'm afraid."
Again, as an archeologist who had rarely gone to places hostile to a Jedi—and never behind enemy lines—she hadn't had much reason to practice that particular power, so she had opted to focus on ones more practical to her specialty.
"
But perhaps walking to Shkargarh would be safer overall. " It was signed and spoken as a statement, but she didn't know for sure and so would defer to Connel's expertise when it came to stealth. Efret wasn't caught up on her status as a master at all; she knew when she was out of her element, and parts of this mission put her there. Thus, she had asked him along. "
Cloaking's a good idea, just in case we're followed. The Assemblage of Three would never reveal the location of the Hall to the Sith, regardless of any threat or torture. The Tunrothese religion is based around hunting. They have a cultural aversion to being prey. They would rather die like warriors than grovel for survival."
She smiled then. "
Good I brought a lot of rations and two tents."
Shortly after dropping out of hyperspace near Jiroch-Reslia and flying towards the multiple Imperial vessels already in orbit, a hail beeped and flashed on the console between the Jedi's seats. She flipped a switch to open the relay. As the Imperial officer on the other end of the call spoke, captions typed out onto the same screen that had been picking up on Connel's voice and generating it into text.
"
Shuttle, please transmit your transponder code to this frequency."
"
Right away, sir," Efret responded, pretending that, because of her vocoder, she was a protocol droid. She made the series of keystrokes to do what had been requested.
"
What is your business on Jiroch-Reslia?"
"
Field education for the third-year Primitive Studies course at the Sith Academy."
"
Ah, yes. Proceed."
After leaving the comm channel, Efret let out a relieved sigh. She had asked one of her team members to research a plausible excuse and then file the proper paperwork to make it believable, which she knew she had done, but just because the task was complete didn't guarantee passage to a Sith-controlled world.
The chief curator brought their shuttle safely down through the atmosphere, navigated to the forested region she had mentioned en route, and landed carefully in a large clearing. Two and a half days of hiking from there brought them around 65 kilometers into the wild. For all of that distance, there had been no sign that they were being tracked, neither by Sith nor by Tunroths.
At the end of their journey, when the trees finally thinned into another sizable clearing, this one dotted with built structures, Efret excitedly patted Connel on the arm. "
Look. We're here."
Efret took a few more steps but lingered under the canopy. Just as she closed her eyes and reached out to the Force to
sense if the any Dark siders present in the village, a string a grunts suddenly sounded. Nirrah gave a startled flap of her wings, which cause Efret to open to eyes and look for the source of whatever had disturbed her guide animal.
A towering,
orange, and hairless biped emerged from behind the nearest wooden structure. He wore a set of fur and leather armor, and carried
a bladed staff and
a recurve bow on his back. He began walking towards the Jedi.
"
Yyarokl," she signed and her unit spoke in Basic before tuning to her colleague. "
The Tunroth don't speak Basic. I can translate, unless you know Comprehend Speech." Either way, she changed the output language setting of her interpretation unit to Tunrothese, then turned back towards Yyarokl. She went to greet him, feeling that this wasn't a trap, which involved being wrapped in a bear hug and lifted off the ground.
