“The output doesn’t make sense…so I would go here…”
There was the light scratching of a pen on the wall. Her voice would echo with the hum of the engines that propelled her and her ship through hyperspace. She sat in front of her calculations and coordinates, taking the space of the main hull of her ship. She had moved her work here, her quarters back on Eriadu was no longer large enough to hold everything how she would like it. Instead, she found her ship to be more appropriate, roomier, and she could pick up where she stopped once she landed and returned to her ship.
Tiamat slowly leaned back until she laid on her backside to look at the star charts that glowed against the durasteel plates of the hull. Her thoughts slowing down as her eyes jumped from one system to the next, and returned to Dantooine and Lothal, numbers and coordinates quickly scribbled next to the systems from her readings when her and Emryc travelled together. Her mind paused as she thought about what he could have been doing currently, he was always on the Holonet, either from interviews or reviews from Holonet journalists as they tried to predict his next political move. She felt relieved and yet disappointed she could not have him come with her, but after the last time, she was leaning toward relief, as she was more nervous with how her feelings were so conflicted within his presence. She knew much of it was of course her own self-hatred that sabotaged what she really felt. A conflict of being, a war that raged inside as she worked to free herself from the weight of her past.
With a deep inhale, Tiamat slowly exhaled with her thoughts, gently grasping at the strings of their bond as master and apprentice to soothe her mind and return her thoughts to the stars overhead. Her blue eyes flickered from one end of the galaxy to the other before it settled on Vrogas Vas. There was something that connected these hypergates to the Force, creating a mechanism that turned out to be more complicated than she had predicted. Recreation was not possible…yet, so instead, she had been busy locating other gates by following similar readings she had picked up on Lothal and Dantooine. She planned to have more control over her excitement in finding the gate, she needed to study how the components worked together and if it were possible to control where she could jump…given there was another gate that can be accessed on that world. Her gaze softened in thought, ideas that came did not stay long enough for her to focus as she relaxed, and her eyes closed slowly. However, sleep was rarely gifted to the young Sith explorer as she sat up with a new idea. She wrote down the coordinates she would need to research later as she heard the navi-computer chime, alerting her of the approach to Vrogas Vas.
Tiamat stood up slowly, finding she may have been sitting too long as she felt her legs slightly wobble, but with a deep breath, she quickly stepped, bare foot back to the cockpit and sat in the pilot’s chair, silencing the alarm.
It was not an interest point for the rest of the galaxy, housed a fueling station and nothing more. It was once a temple belonging to the Jedi for several millennia before it was finally abandoned for one reason or another. However, according to her notes, there would be another hypergate to join the ones on Lothal and Dantooine. Hopefully, it will be in as good as shape as the ones she had found on those worlds and not destroyed like the one she saw on Planet Theta. Picking up her shoes from beside her seat, she slid each foot in, wrapping the straps tightly, reminding much of how she wrapped her ankles before practice or a performance. She found the technique useful especially when exploring uneven terrain and as she tied the strap, the longing to even dance again was still as strong as ever.
The chime of the navi-computer warned her of her exit as the stars settled and the brown world floated below. The young Sith took her ship closer, watching the coordinates closely as she broke through the atmosphere and directed her ship to the southern-most pole of the planet. The terrain remained rocky, large canyons that probably hosted oceans at some point during the planet’s evolution now was replaced with stone and sand. There was barely signs of life anywhere and she would also be forced to take her ship down that would a half day’s hike from the possible hypergate.
And a half-days’ hike it would be.
She tried to imagine carrying herself through a place like this just as Emryc had carried her through the hills of Lothal. Then trying to imagine herself carrying her Master at the time seemed unbearable, and it brought back childhood memories of rumors about jedi who carried their masters as part of training. She wondered how much of that was truth as she hoisted herself over several large stones that formed an endless perimeter to where she needed to go. Climbing atop of a stone, she sat quietly and checked her equipment and coordinates, ensuring she was going in the right direction and tucked them away for now. Pulling out her canteen, she took a drink of water and continued onward, now relying more on her senses to guide her to where she needed to go.
The sun was in its highest point of the sky when she reached the tentative area the gate would have to be located according to her calculations. It was difficult to find anything that would stand out unlike the Lothal gate where it was obvious in its location, here on Vragos Vas, everything looked like it could be a gate. Slowly, she turned in her step, her sensor reading the different magnetic waves that had helped her the last time until she found where the beeps grew more rapid and she followed the path of mechanical chirps.
Where it would take her looked as though a gate had possibly stood; the ground was hard and clay-like, possibly the source of a river thousands and thousands or years priors that flowed through the mouth of a cave opening. However, it was an unusual opening, the cave itself was not deep and Tiamat could walk around the stone mound to see it had a definite end. Now it would come to find the activation terminal.
This time however, she would see if it were possible to jump to a location of her choosing.
Tiamat used her senses to feel around the stone mound, finding some familiar mechanism like the other two hypergates. She recalled how Emryc found the one underneath the stone and after rolling around on the dirt for some time, she had the feeling it would not be under some rock. She eventually had to stand back and break in her search and surrender to sitting cross-legged on a flat rock in front of the opening, forcing herself to relax. It would be then she would feel her gaze down to the stone below her.
With a quick search and a pry with one of her tools, she was able to find the terminal opening and begun to work. This time of course, she took the time to sketch out the components, one by one as she carefully looked for any way to adjust how one would alter the navigation mechanisms if it where possible. However, she was still not sure what anything did for certain while she reconnected many of the components that had become detached over the centuries. Double checking her sensors, the readings were not consistent; error of course was common, but she could only have so much before it would be unwise to try anything too cavalier. Slowly she turned dials, watching what they did and how they impacted the sensors that gave some translation until her numbers were starting to look more promising. When they did, Tiamat let out a long sigh, the sun was beginning to fall and she was feeling confident enough she could activate the portal.
The sensor’s readings matched the ones she had for Dantooine and Lothal and with her prediction, this would bring her to either of those locations. A hypothesis that would need to be tested as the shimmer of blue and purple filled the mouth of the cave. Tiamat looked in awe at the phenomenon, finding it still so fascinating as she closed the terminal hatch. Quickly she packed her gear, this time a bit more nervous about walking through; she remembered the look on Emryc’s face when they jumped for the first time and a grin came to her own features as she stepped forward.
Into the mouth of the cave, Tiamat stepped confidently through the shimmer of the portal; and as she walked the light seemed to stretch for miles around herself like last time as she made her way to the other end.
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