Rassi could hear the faintest murmurs of history in the silent city she and Solna walked through.

The tradeport and the home Rassi had known were light years behind them. From the empty remains of the Enclave they’d taken what few items they could that still resonated with connection and meaning.  All together, the tiny statues and rings and old faded paintings had held just enough memories of the the Silent Enclave’s history to lead Goldie’s crew to the refuge the Enclave had sheltered in a century before they moved to Rassi’s former home.

“What do you think happened here?” Solna asked, gazing as the empty buildings which were weathered and overgrown by the jungle which had spent the century reclaiming the broad streets and open plazas of the fallen city.

“I don’t know,” Rassi said, listening to the Force as closely as she could. “I don’t think it was the Death Shadows though.”

“I think you’re right.” Solna was concentrating as much as Rassi was. “I can hear cries lingering but they it doesn’t feel like the people we victims of a threat like the shadow.”

“I’ve tapped into the planetary holonet,” Goldie said over the comm box Rassi was carrying.. “According to local history, this whole area was lost during their last civil war. One side was using Surroxon gas and they managed to seed a lethal number of dispersal tablets into the everything on this continent. No one’s moved back because they’d need to remediate the soil to be able to do any farming or mining here and their population hasn’t bounced back enough yet to need the room.”

“That must be why the chose to settle next to a tradeport for our home,” Solna said. “It  obviously let them evacuate as fast as possible.

“That and they were able to get in good with the Port Administrator. I bet they never wanted to be caught in the middle of a war like that again,” Rassi said, the memories the land held rising to reflect her words.

The Encampment had been bigger then. It had been a prosperous time with the existing members flourishing and new ones being allowed to join after they’d passed the trials and bound themselves to someone in the Enclave. 

In the empty streets, Rassi and Solna walked with the colorful shadows of their ancestors. People who was lost to history, but who were achingly familiar, not at all different from the Enclave members Rassi had known.

“Are you finding anything there?” Goldie asked.

“Yes,” Rassi said, keeping her focus on the drifting and dreamy after images of souls who had long since rejoined the Xah, who’d become one with the Force.

“And no,” Solna said. “This was an Enclave base, but it’s not one which can tell us where the Shadows came from.”

“How about where the Enclave was before this place?” Goldie asked, sounding far more concerned than a droid should have been. 

Of course it took around ten seconds in her company to notice that Goldie was something quite different than a droid. Calling her a ‘machine intelligence’ didn’t seem a large enough term to cover it either, so Rassi simply thought of her as a person.

A person who was worried she was never going to see her mothers again.

Rassi felt an echoing pit of dread in sympathy at that notion.

“I think the Enclave was here for a long time,” Rassi said. “Have the others found anything yet?”

“Not yet. They’re still spreading around the city. Kelda says its going to take a while with all the ground you have to cover. Only Bopo seems to be having much luck.”

“Bopo found something?” Rassi asked.

“She’s been on the holonet with me,” Goldie said. “She was able to dig up some old land ownership records. She hasn’t found any land ownership records in the city for the Enclave but she thinks they did acquire a small mining concern just south of the polar ice caps.”

Rassi felt a gentle tug towards the north when she heard that.

“Could you get us there?” she asked.

“If it’ll help you find Nix and Ayli, I’ll hyperjump you there,” Goldie said, fire filling her artificial voice.

“I don’t think we need that,” Solna said. “Rassi’s right that something might be there, but if it it, it’s been there for a long time now. Also, we probably don’t want to attract too much attention. A lot of people trampling all over the place would just make everything harder to sense there.”

“Come on back to the ship then,” Goldie said. “I’ll have a runabout prepped and waiting for you.”

—-

Rassi had never flown a runabout, which turned out to be a compact little four seat shuttle which was cleverly camouflaged as part of Goldie’s exterior paneling. 

Solna had offered to try flying it, but Goldie had assured them that wasn’t necessary.

“I can pilot it for you,” she said. “It’s meant for exploring planetary systems, just sending you to another spot on this planet is like swatting a bug with a thermal detonator.”

“Should we look for something else there?” Rassi asked.

“What? Oh, no – not at all. In this case a thermal detonator is more than called for.”

The thermal detonator in question seemed to be lodged in the runabouts engine since Goldie blasted them off at something which felt like it had at least a passing resemblance to light speed. In terms of not attracting attention, Rassi wasn’t sure how successful they were, but in terms of getting them to the mining station quickly, the trip was a resounding success.

From the moment Rassi’s feet touched down on a long abandoned ground, she was sure it was a success of another sort as well.

A success she had been dreading they would find.

“There was an attack here,” Solna said. “I can hear the screams.”

“Do I need to get you out there?” Goldie asked, flaring the runabout’s engines to life.

“No. This happened a long time ago,” Rassi said.

“But it was bad. I think…” Solna began to say but couldn’t finish her sentence.

“That someone was Expunged here,” Rassi said.

“More than someone,” Solna said. “There are a lot of screams from in there.”

“Should we call for the others?” Rassi asked.

“You don’t need to call, we are always here for you,” Ravas said.

“Not that we’re always listening, it’s your feelings which call to us,” Kelda said.

“So long as we’re not covered by an Enclave hunting song, right?” Solna asked.

Rassi had been raised to be proud of the techniques the Silent Enclave had developed and to believe in their supreme efficacy. While the Enclave had spent most of her life proving that most of its claims were either outright lies or gross distortions of the truth, they seemed to be annoyingly accurate about just how good they were at hiding. Kelda and Solna could feel that Nix and Ayli were still alive, as well as their general emotional state, but despite the two women being the primary anchors to the living world, locating either or both was beyond the two ghosts.

“It’s terrifying to think what I could have done with that sort of technique while I was alive,” Ravas said. “Though I suspect it is one which someone as lost to the Dark Side as I was would not have been able to replicate.”

“Even at the height of my strength, I’m certain I couldn’t either,” Kelda said. “Unless I miss my guess, the silence they can evoke is derived from a lifetime of suppressing their interactions with the Force. I think for any Jedi or Sith to replicate that would require abandoning all of the other powers we developed and living without them for a very long time.”

Ravas narrowed her eyes.

“Why did I never appreciate what a scholar you were?” she asked.

“What do you mean? You cheated off me on tests all the time?”

“Yes, but that was only because I wanted to be in the same section as you.”

“The lesson to take from this girls is that five minutes of honesty can save you several hundred years of headaches,” Kelda said.

“Though the question of lessons is an interesting one, isn’t it?” Ravas said, the slightly smitten expression she often wore around Kelda fading to curious calculation as she regarded Rassi and Solna.

“That occurred to me as well,” Kelda said. “And I believe Nix may have observed that before either of us.”

“Observed what?” Solna asked.

“The abilities you possess now would likely fade if we began to train you in the Jedi arts,” Kelda said. “You would be opening yourself to the Force and communing with it, which would mean becoming much less ‘silent’ in the process. Nix didn’t press you to learn how we interact with the Force for a number of reasons, but one was probably so you wouldn’t lose the unique talents you’ve spent so long developing.”

“Would that be so bad?” Rassi asked, not feeling especially fond of the isolation the Enclave’s doctrines had imposed on her.

“That’s for you to decide,” Kelda said. “But it’s a decision to make when you’re fully aware of the consequences of all the options.”

“For now our current abilities are probably ones we want to hang onto,” Solna said. “I don’t know if we’d be able to hear what happened here so clearly if we lost them.”

“I hear distant echoes of pain, and a terrible wound in the Force,” Ravas said. 

“The mine ahead, strong remnants of the Dark Side remain within it,” Kelda said, her eyes closed and one hand raised in the direction of the central opening to the mine complex.

“Another Dark Side Nexus?” Ravas asked.

“Not quite,” Kelda said. “If it once was then time had brought some measure of healing.”

“Or there is a smaller, more focused nexus within which the remnants gather around.”

“I think we need to go in there,” Rassi said.

“Something’s waiting there.” Solna’s eyes were closed too as she listened intently for the faded whispers.

“Then we should be the ones to face it,” Ravas said, her outfit shifting from the robes she usually appeared to be wearing to heavy fabric with solid plates affixed to it.

“Can you hear its call?” Solna asked.

“I only hear the echoes of pain which remain here,” Ravas said.

“I think it will only meet with us,” Rassi said. “I think it recognizes us.”

“This is very likely a trap,” Kelda said. She remained in her robes but the thin illumination which usually surrounded her was stronger and more solidified.

“Could it be another Death Shadow?” Ravas asked. “Without being able to sense it directly, I can’t tell from here.”

“Maybe,” Solna said, “but it doesn’t feel like the others.

“It could be using a different hunting strategy,” Ravas said.

“We’ll go together,” Rassi said, taking Solna’s hand. “If it is a trap we’ll hold out until you can get to us.”

Ravas and Kelda shared a glance and then a sigh.

“Trust in each other,” Kelda said. “We are with you.”

“But we will keep our distance until you call,” Ravas assured them.

Rassi checked with Solna who nodded in agreement.

The mines held more than they’d expected. There was an answer in there. Once which their people could have found with ease.

One which the Elders already knew?

Rassi didn’t like that idea, but the more she turned it over in her head the more correct it seemed.

What had happened here was not a mystery to the Enclave’s leaders. They knew what they’d done and they knew the result. They kept that knowledge from the rest of the Enclave but that was hardly surprising – the Elder’s power lay in the belief that they were supreme due to their devotion to the Enclave’s teachings. No one who could feel what the mine had become would believe for an instant in the Elder’s possessing any devotion to the ideals they spouted.

As they passed into the darkness, Rassi found herself wondering the Elders had been wrong or whether the ideals themselves were?

She suspected both were as flawed and corrupted as they claimed the rest of the galaxy was, but that left her with a deeper question; if she no longer believe in the Enclave’s ideals, then what did she believe in?

The answer, of course, was walking at her side and holding her hand in a warm, soft grip.