They loaded their treasures into their packs. The space left by the food they had eaten left plenty of room for the holocrons and books they had chosen. "I'm not looking forward to the hike all the way back to the ship," Raezyr commented as he closed up his pack and slung it over his shoulder.
"Oh, you're not going to be making the hike."
For half a second, Raezyr thought Trychon meant that only Raezyr would not be returning to the ship, before realizing what he was really talking about.
"I plan on calling the Stalker down and landing it in the hangar. We can then take that back to the Razor," Trychon went on to explain.
"Trych, for half a second, I thought you were going to do something stupid," Raezyr chuckled.
"What do you mean?"
"Nevermind, my Sith brother," Raezyr said as he began walking to the maintenance tunnel access. Trychon just shrugged and, shouldering his pack, followed the younger man.
They walked along the tunnel, discussing what sort of powerful knowledge and Sith secrets their newly acquired treasure might hold. The prospect of communing with ancient Sith Lords and gleaning their knowledge had the two men giddy as Tatooine children on Boonta Eve.
They made the three kilometer walk to the hanger, and it was bigger than either of them expected. Way in the back, they also noticed a small six-person airspeeder of an outdated design. The three of them entered the control room and checked the controls. Everything seemed to be functioning normally, so Trychon opened the hangar doors. They slid back smoothly despite years of being closed and not used.
"Maybe we could just use that speeder to go get the Razor," Trychon proposed.
Raezyr shook his head. "We don't even know if that think will fire up, let alone be air worthy. It's so old, I don't even recognize that design. Maybe if we come back here, and I've got some time, I can see about going over it."
Trychon agreed and punched in the commands to bring the Stalker down from orbit. It would have been much easier to take a small airspeeder across the planet rather than call the large spaceship down from orbit, but Raezyr was right. It would be foolish to drive an old ship with which they were unfamiliar.
After it had landed, and they had loaded their loot on board, they unloaded one of the swoops and headed back down the tube to go see what wonders a Sith laboratory might hold in store.
When they arrived they found work benches and tables everywhere, and shelves that contained small boxes and vials of various substances. Some still held strange liquids of various colors, while others seemed to have evaporated over the years. The lab contained a series of workstations, and seemed to be a combination of the ancient Sith Library and the much newer additions such as the hangar and amenities that were located in the living areas of the small base.
There were examination tables and cabinets and on the far wall, there were holding cells, which were clearly meant to contain whatever experimental subjects the Sith had found fascinating.
There were still instruments laid out neatly on some of the worktables, although neither Trychon nor Raezyr could tell for what purpose they may have been used. They looked around for a while, opening drawers and looking at the various things around the room, when Trychon pulled out what appeared to be an old personal log book. He flipped through the pages for a bit before calling Raezyr over to take a look.
"This really explains quite a bit, really," Raezyr said after they had studied it together for a while. The notes contained explanations about the vornskrs, and also the large behemoth that had forced them into the caves. Apparantly it had been some sort of cross between a beast called a 'terentatek' and some thing called an 'orbalisk,' although neither name meant anything to them.
It also mentioned the fog, and confirmed what they had previously surmised. It was indeed a Sith creation, instituted for defense, should the Jedi ever locate them on this out of the way planet, although there were no specifics as to how it was created or exactly how it affected the Jedi.
What they found really interesting tho, was mention of a nearby human colony. The people there had been subjugated by the Sith at some point and altered somehow. It listed some technical information about what had been done, but it might have been written in ancient Sith for all the good it did them.
Trychon closed the book and stuffed it into a small pack he had brought with him from the ship. "I think we had better find out if these humans are still around, and if so, see what kind of threat they may pose to us. They may have the means to alert the Republic or the Jedi, if they haven't already."
Raezyr agreed. "Although it's strange that we didn't detect any signs civilization when we were scanning from orbit."
Despite that, his mind couldn't help but wander back to the trail they had crossed on their way to the ancient Sith base, and the scrap of cloth he had seen there.
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