You Can't Go Home Again

[Darth Callidus]

It had not occurred to Miclan Trevin to ask, in the preceding twenty-four hours, where he was going. The fact that he was going anywhere at all was enough to silence any questions he might have. In the two and a half decades since he had been born, Trevin's world view had been encircled ceaselessly by the presence of the great Walls of Iziz.

Just a day ago, had he looked out of the window of his family's modest home at the edge of the city's Merchant Quarter, the skyline would have been dominated by the presence of those towering battlements that kept the jungles of Onderon at bay. In his younger years, knelt at his bedside in the evening hours, he had squeezed his palms together and uttered silent thanks to the Walls, for keeping at bay all the shadowy, monstrous of his nightmares at bay. Yet as he had grown, he had begun to wonder whether that was all they were: nightmares, figments of fearful imagination, just as the Beast Riders had once seemed.

With a grunt of what might have been laughter, Miclan looked at the man sat across from him, on the opposite side of the shuttle. Of the sixteen of them on board, half claimed Beast Rider heritage. One - a middle-aged fellow with a cleft lip - still carried the ceremonial weapon of his tribe, a cruel looking glaive that lay at his feet, its shaft painted and woven in a design whose spidery purpose eluded Miclan Trevin.

“How long, now?”

The question startled Trevin, who had become accustomed to the silence in the shuttle. Not one of them had spoken since departing Iziz, each man wrapped up in his private thoughts and boiled leather armour.

“Can't be long,” said another, his eyes moving with a look of carelessness towards the forward view-port of the shuttle. In spite of his apparent disinterest, he looked away again sharply. The sight of hyperspace – a never-ending tunnel of undulating, hypnotic light – was something they had all encountered for the first time, today. One man had already heaved up the contents of his guts after staring at it for too long, and not one of them had failed to take note of that mistake.

“Why do you say that?”

“Cause my belly's rumbling, and his lordship didn't think to stock the ship with more food.”

There was no attempt to hide the mocking in his voice. Miclan felt the edges of his mouth twitch and tighten into something of a wince, though he had to agree with the aptly named Round Boro, even if he was a filthy hog with a habit of scratching under his groin plate.

Just as he had not questioned their destination, Miclan had not thought to run through the routine inventory checks that would have ordinarily preceded any mission. The order to mobilise had come from the highest levels of the Royal Court, after all. To assume that the Royal Guardsmen required his input in preparing the shuttle would have been grounds enough to be dismissed from the sixteen-strong crew, a replacement arriving within minutes.

More than that, however, was the fierce desire in his heart to make the Queen – and her Prime Minister – proud. He did not know how he had been chosen – how any of them had been singled out from the many guards, soldiers, footmen and mercenaries that almost almost outnumbered the ordinary citizens of Iziz. That he recognised only a handful of his travelling companions was a testament to this fact, as Miclan felt certain that Prime Minister Ave would not have dispatched a scouting party such as this without bringing together a solid bunch of men. Salem Ave might have been an alien, but he wasn't an idiot. Not like most of the bug-eyed guttersnipes they heard about from time to time, whenever news from the Core penetrated the Walls, who seemed to spend their ever-waking hour plotting downfall of Human-kind.

The pale light that had filled the shuttle suddenly dimmed and, as one, the men looked towards the forward of the shuttle. Their pilot, who had been as tight-lipped as his passengers, was no longer a stark silhouette against the glare of hyperspace. Instead, he had almost vanished, the outline of him only faintly visible from the lights of the command console and the glittering stars that now painted the midnight black beyond the narrow view-port.

Miclan's heart near enough leapt into his throat, as he realised they had – for the first time since departing the Onderon system – returned to what was called realspace. Have we arrived? he thought, but the words went unspoken in the frozen silence of the shuttle. Only the sound of their leather armour groaning and creaking with movement could be heard, as each man sat forward to get the best glimpse he could of their destination. At first there was nothing, only the diamond-studded blackness of space, but then – with a collective intake of breath – something else began to loom into view.

It was vast and dull-bronze in colour, as perfect round as the shields of the Royal Guardsmen. Yet, rather than possessing the flawless sheen of metal, its surface had the look of a murky pond about it, subtle shifts passing across its face with the rise and fall of the wind. For Miclan Trevin, it stirred memories of his childhood, of lying sprawled in coarse fields of grass and staring up into the solemn faces of the four moons of Onderon. To each face there was a name and a personality.

First Dagri, whose face was like a mirror to Prael the sun and was so called the firestar. Then, Suthre, visible only in the moments before sunrise, and Evas, only at sunset – the lovers fated never to cross paths. Last of all, there was Dxun. It was of Dxun that Miclan now thought, looking down upon Onderon with all the imperious disdain that a moon could. He did not see that arrogance mirrored in the world that loomed ever larger before them, but it stirred in him the same... uncertainty, the same feeling that this was not a place he should ever want to go.

[Darth Callidus]

They landed on an island – not that Miclan Trevin had any idea what one of those was. The shuttle's land ramp fell to the ground with a thud, hurling clods of damp earth into the air. They had not worn their helmets throughout the whole of the journey, but as one the men now began to strap face-masks across their mouth and nose. The smell of oil and wax and piss that was used to boil the leather was not pleasant, but the mixture would purify the air – so they had been told – and keep at bay the pungent smell that had already begun to ooze into the shuttle from the world outside.

As to that, Miclan could see nothing but darkness. Behind him, Round Boro gave one of his piggish snorts and shouldered him in the back as to say: come on then, you first. Miclan was one of the closest to the now open hatch, after all, but he was thunderstruck. The prospect of emerging onto a wholly new planet was undeniably frightening, and already he wanted to reach for his sword.

“You should get out now,” said a voice behind them all. It was the pilot, who himself had made no sign of movement. The rest of them looked at one-another furtively, waiting to see who would be the first to move. In the end, it was one of the Beast Riders, who lead the way with the point of his glaive. The shaft of the spear stretched out into the darkness, a good three foot ahead of its owner who sniffed at the air and then angled his weapon downwards. Miclan and the others watched in silence as the Beast Rider jabbed the glaive at the ground, and twisted the length of it back and forth.

“Well?” called Boro, as one by one the men began to move forward, each of them taking to hand their own weapons. Most carried swords on their belts, some even had a bow slung across their body, but it was by and large their blasters they gripped. Energy weapons were not the traditional armament of the Onderonian people, but when faced with the unknown it seemed wise to be prepared for any possibilities...

The Beast Rider pulled the spear free of the earth it had become embedded in. “Dirt,” he replied. “Seems solid enough to walk on,” he went on, then adding in a gruff mutter: “Though where to is anyone's guess.”

His casual dismissal of the unspoken uncertainty they all felt seemed to give the men some confidence, and they – with Miclan Trevin near the front of the column – were soon taking their first steps onto alien soil. To Miclan, he felt immediately the unsettling absence of something that he could not put a name too. Turning slowly in the darkness, he looked beyond the rest of the men to see the land itself – but there was nothing to be seen. The night was unconditional and absolute in its darkness, like nothing Miclan had ever experienced before. It made him feel as if his eyes had been screwed shut and now, no matter how hard he might try, he could not open them.

“Where in Nadd's name are we?”

“Bugger if I know. Doesn't look like we were expected, though.”

“Don't be stupid.. they wouldn't send us lot to meet someone. Not unless it was someone they didn't like.”

There was a round of dry, self-depreciating laughter. Even Miclan smiled a little, though the look faded as a thought struck him.

“Our equipment.. shouldn't we unload it?”

They had been given three cargo crates, which were not to be unpacked until the journey was completed. Miclan had silently speculated on what might be in each of the boxes, though couldn't help but think that his hope for a crate full of steaks and strings of sausage would not soon be rewarded.

“This'll be our sensor equipment,” one man ventured, as he levered the first of the crates open with the point of his sword – but as the lid fell away, a frown deepened his brow. Miclan crossed the distance between them and peered down into the crate. The man who'd opened it reached the full length of his arm down into the box.

“There's nothing in it!”

“Same here!” called another, as all three crates were pried open to reveal nothing but three by three feet of empty space. Miclan looked between the others, as if he expected one of them to have an answer or explanation for why they had been sent half way across the galaxy with no supplies, no equipment and no clue of where they were.

“They've only put the wrong bloody crates on board! Typical. This'll be thanks to them riders they have working the 'port.”

The Beast Riders amongst the group were immediately visible then, even those without their ceremonial weapons or garb, as they turned on Round Boro as one. “You hold your tongue or I'll spit you like the pig you are,” spat one of them.

Boro snorted in reply. “Try it, dirt-eater. You're outnumbered.”

“Don't think the rest of us have any fondness for you, Boro,” said an Iziz native, glancing back over his shoulder at the brewing argument. Evidently, he did not number himself amongst those who the fat-man could count on in a fight. “We'd be cutting you down to rashers already, if we didn't think you'd taste so foul.”

The banter went on a while longer, filling the fearful silence that would settle on them otherwise. In the end, it was Miclan himself who was suddenly struck with the answer.

“Perhaps they're supposed to be this way,” he ventured, his own belief in his words growing even as they tumbled from his lips. “Perhaps we're supposed to fill them with something.”

“With what? Dirt?!”

“Of course not.” Miclan felt his confidence waver but when he looked to some of the others he saw that they were watching him, listening. “I don't know what, but if all the Prime Minister had wanted was dirt, he'd not need go any farther than the Walls. There must be something on this planet that we're supposed to bring back.”

“And how do you work that one out, eh? You'd think Ave would tell us if he had some purpose for all this.”

Exasperation rose in the voices of one of the men. “What point would there be in sending us all the way out here, if there was no purpose to it?”

“Perhaps he just wanted rid of us,” offered one of the Beast Riders, his eyes then shifting to the rest of a group with a new found curiosity. What was it that each of them had in common? Not one of them seemed to harbour any treasonous intent. Were they criminals, perhaps? If that were so, why allow them to carry weapons and wear armour? Why even send them away at all? No, that could not be it. The voice of reason cut through the bickering, as the Rider who carried the glaive spoke up.

“Whatever we're here for, it obviously isn't to spend the night fighting in the mud,” he said, rising from the ground where he had been crouched, rubbing a clump of earth between his thumb and forefinger before sniffing at it.

“What do you suggest then, dirt-eater?”

“Scout parties,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to think of. “We divide into four groups of four. Twelve of us go out at a time, whilst the other four remain behind to guard the shuttle. We walk for no more than an hour before turning back.”

“Turning back toward what? Have you seen where we are? I can barely see me own bleedin' hand in front of me face!”

The old Rider had straightened to his full height once again, and was brushing away dirt from the tip of his spear. “One of us will travel with each group,” he began, inclining a faint nod to each of his kin. There were not drawn from the same tribes, but he recognised them nonetheless. Whilst in the wilds of Onderon they would have perhaps been enemies, here they were unified by default. “We can track the slopes and scents of the land, make sure we can find our way back here.”

For a long while, no one said anything. It was widely known that the Beast Riders were hunters, trained from childhood to be skilled pathfinders – yet for those men who had been boys of Iziz more than Onderon as a whole, they were not a people to be trusted. For all they were allowed into the City, they were still outsiders.

“So that's it then,” said one eventually. “Our survival depends on your snotty noses.”

“If you have a better idea,” the old Rider said, looking up at them all with his eyes of steel. “I'd like to hear it.”