Chapter 22 - Trouble follows Us

She awoke from a beep from R-D, her R2 unit, with him telling her that they were about to exit hyperspace. Ash was glad. The cockpit of an X-wing was crapped and small. She pulled back on the throttle and the starlines turned back into stars again. It made her a little dizzy.
Ragoon VI, a forest planet, shown bright in front of her. She started the descent towards the planet. This time, Cin took the lead. They landed in a small clearing surrounded by trees. She had R-D start the cool down cycle while she popped the canopy and jumped out of the ship. Her master was already out of the ship and looking around.
“Doesn’t the Force just flow so strongly through this place?” he asked.
Ash let out a breath and let the Force flow.. She tried to become a part of that flow. It was a very relaxing.
“Okay, what first?” Ash asked walking over to her master.
“Nothing. This trip is about the Force and meditation. So go find a relaxing place and meditate,” Cin said.
Ash wasn’t expecting that. Although Cin had said this before, she thought he would at least have something planned.
She agreed with him, made sure she had two lightsabers clipped to her belt, and begun to explore. The creatures on this planet were beautiful, but Ash didn’t look at them too long her fear they might turn hostile..
She found her way to a waterfall with rocks and stones.. This was peaceful to her. The sound of the rushing water, the smell of the fresh moss. She could relax here. She found an unsteady rock by the waterfall and tried to balance on it. She stayed there for 2 hours just listening to the waterfall and the creatures around her.
Then, her master showed up.
“Nice seeing you here!” he yelled.
This broke Ash’s concentration and the rock began to totter and she fell off into the water.
“Agh! Why did you have to got disturb me like that? I was relaxed!” Ash said.
“I couldn’t resist myself,” Cin said smiling.
Ash smiled and used the Force to splash water on him.
“That’s what you get when you’re mean to your padawan,” Ash said.
“Fine, I’ll leave you alone,” Cin said and walked back to where he came.
Ash got out of the water and walked back to the ship to get new change of clothes. She got out a loose outfit and changed in the cockpit of her ship. Then she got out and went exploring again. She just walked and walked for hours, until she ran into something weird.
There was a cave ahead with trees surrounded by it. Ash couldn’t sense the trees with the Force or anything in the cave. Nothing in that area she could sense. It frightened her. She walked closer, and once she took about 10 steps she was hit by something inside of her. She didn’t feel as relaxed, she seemed totally lost. She tried again to reach out to anything nearby, and nothing happened at all. She tried to reach her master through the Force, but again, nothing.
She took 5 steps backwards and she was relieved. She was more concentrated and relaxed. She could sense the other things behind her and her master. She called out to him, hoping h would hear her. This was really starting to creep her out. She started to run back to the ships when she met up with her master.. She was out of breath when she met him.
“What’s wrong Ash?” he asked grabbing her.
“I don’t know. It’s really weird. There’s this cave and I can’t sense anything inside it or around it, and when I get to close, I can’t sense anything anywhere. It was like I was cut off from the Force. It was scary.”
“Come on, let’s go check it out,” Cin said and started in the direction Ash came from, then Ash lead the way. When they got there, she showed her master what it felt like.
“Your right. When we walk within a certain distance of this cave, our link to the Force is cut off,” Cin agreed.
“This is not good,” Ash said. “What do you think it is?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Cin said. “Come on; let’s go back to camp before something bad happens.”
Cin led the way back to their ships and they went to sleep. It was starting to get late. Ash hadn’t even noticed.
She tried to go to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that cave. What could possibly be in there? She hoped her master knew. She also knew that she wouldn’t be able to stay away from that cave. She was going to figure out was it was all about if it killed her. She had never heard of anything being immune to the Force.
She finally got to sleep, but that didn’t last long. She woke up early and went back to the waterfall to meditate and see if the Force would help her find any answers.
Nothing.
She went back to the ship and sent a quick transmission to Echo, hoping she would read it sometime today. It read:
Echo,
Hi from Ragoon VI. Listen, we found something extremely weird here. There’s a cave that neither me or Cin can sense inside; and when we get to close to it, our link to the Force is cut off. We can’t even sense each other besides us. It’s really weird and creeping me out. Anyway, just thought I would tell you that. Maybe you have an idea of what’s going on.
-Ash
She sent the message and then got back out of the ship to go look around the cave more. To her surprise, she saw her master searching around there too.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she said.
This caught Cin off guard, sense he didn’t sense Ash coming.
“Oh…it’s you. Well, now I know that it really does cut your Force link off. I couldn’t sense you behind me,” Cin said.
“I told you something was weird,” Ash said.
“I think your right,” Cin replied.
Ash walked up to the cave entrance and ignited her lightsaber so she could see inside. The blade felt extremely powerful in her hands. It never usually felt this heavy or uncontrollable. This must be what it feels like to hold a lightsaber for a non-Force user, she thought.
She walked back into the cave. It was dark and murky. She put an ear up to a wall and listened. Somewhere in the distance, she heard footsteps and perhaps blaster fire. That wasn’t good.
“Master, can you hear that?” she called back to him.
“Hear what?” he asked.
“Footsteps and blaster fire behind this wall. Come here and listen,” she said calling him over. He walked over and put his ear to the wall.
“You’re right. Something, or somebody, lives here, and it doesn’t sound like their too happy with someone else. Let’s go,” Cin said pulling her back to the ship.
“Wait…what? We’re just going to leave? Somebody might be in trouble!” Ash said.
“Yes, but we’re powerless to help them,” Cin pointed out.
“I don’t care! We have to stay,” Ash said. She knew she shouldn’t disobey her master, but she couldn’t stand around and let someone get hurt when she could be helping.
“Okay, well at least come out of this cave. If we can bring the battle to where we can use the Force, then we can help them.”
Ash agreed to this and started to walk out of the cave. Then, as he was walking, she heard yells and screaming getting closer.. She got about 5 steps away from the cave when someone yelled at her.
“WAIT! STOP!” someone yelled.
Ash and Cin turned around and out of the dark cave came a young girl, maybe a little older than Ash with long scruffy-lookin fire red hair, running towards them. She got up to Ash and grabbed her arms.
“You have to help me! There’s not much time! They will catch up with me any minute; we must get away from this pla…” The girl started to say, but was then knocked out by a stun bolt from behind. She fell into Ash’s arms. In front of them, a group of maybe 20 people cam up with blasters.
“Stay right where you are!” one of the men said. They all had blasters pointed at them.
“Hand us the girl and we might let you go!” another man said.
“I’m sorry, we can’t do that. This girl obviously didn’t want to be with you,” Cin spoke up. Ash was proud of her master for being brave. Ash sure wasn’t right now.
Then a man noticed Ash and Cin’s lightsabers.
“You Jedi?” he asked.
“Ya, whose askin?” Ash said.
“No body you need to know about,” the man said. The rest of the group aimed their blasters and fired. Ash couldn’t use the Force to help her and was shot down. Then she blacked out..

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