Tromping down the gangplank of their damaged ship was like entering a new world. The undergrowth was thick, and it seemed every bush was alive with something that hummed, cackled, or screamed, though if one were beat at them with the butt of their blaster rifle, nothing would come out. Kellaro tried a few times, just to be sure.
“Better bring your slugthrowers, if you’ve got them,” said Trick. “The electromagnetic disturbance is thick here, and I don’t know if it might mess with the power switches in our blasters. It’s certainly going to mess with the radios.”
“Blasters don’t quite work like that,” said Kellaro, but he privately agreed it was a good idea. The oppressiveness felt familiar, almost like the pall that hung around dwellings of the Sith. If there actually were Sith here, or Jedi, a slugthrower would be more effective than a blaster.
“Scopes are negative,” said Trick after a moment tapping at his. “Guess we’re going in blind.”
“Hey, come take a look at this,” said one of the others.
Trick and Kellaro came up behind her, peering in the direction of her point. There was a marking etched into the side of the tree just head. “It’s in Mando’a.”
Trick looked back at Kellaro. “Clan Lok?”
“Any number of clans use that symbol,” said Kellaro, but he couldn’t deny the excited beat of blood in his throat. He had only met his mother’s clan a few times after his father had returned, seemingly from the dead, so he knew little of them.
The expedition went on in silence. More markings appeared, most of them trail signs. Some marked out spots that made for good hunting or gathering of the local vegetables, other pointed their ways to what Kellaro could only assume were the names of individuals, and finally, one simply translated into, “home”.
The feeling of oppression grew and grew as they chose this one to follow and went deeper into the jungle. The land went up and then down, as they crossed into a hilly area and then out into the floodplain of an ancient river. There was a break in the trees, and Kellaro climbed up the ridge to look first.
He spotted it.
At first the hull of the Lok ship looked like the huge curving wall of a primitive mead hall, but then he recognized the insectoid legs bent casually at the hind and fore parts. It was another Shaadlar, crashed, perhaps, like theirs had been, and it had been here quite a while, judging by the banners hung on it and the leather awnings forming market stalls and covers for a small village.
“We found them!” Kellaro shouted triumphantly.
But his comrades didn’t answer him. Instead, a cold voice he didn’t recognize said, “and what brings you to the Yaim’la of Clan Lok?” just as Kellaro felt the mouth of a blaster shoved against the back of his helmet.