Star Wars Rebels - Lost

Chapter Eleven: An Untimely Reunion

The wildlands had earned their name well. Everything on this planet was untamed and dangerous, but that was true tenfold in the wildlands. It felt as if the very ground that you walked on was trying to kill you. More inhospitable than Felucia, with the bubbling rage of Mustafar. Like everywhere here, it was totally unique, which made it unpredictable. Even Commander Skorn, who had seemed so in control thus far, seemed to be treading carefully here. He had mentioned that he had passed into these lands only once, and was lucky to escape with his life. That fact did not fill Sabine with too much confidence. The area around them seemed much more ominous than other areas of the planet that they had seen. A thick mist had rolled in, seemingly out of nowhere, and none of the roaring wildlife from before could be heard, save for an occasional unnatural shriek.
"You said you've been here before?" Ahsoka asked, breaking the tense silence.
"That's right, general. When I first got here, one of our first objectives was to scout the terrain. I came in here with a whole squad, I was the only one who survived long enough to warn everybody else about this place" Skorn replied bitterly, it definitely seemed like he held a grudge on this place in particular. Who could blame him? Sabine dreaded to think how many of his friends had been lost here.
"What is it that makes this place so dangerous?" Ahsoka questioned, stepping over a tree root. As she asked this, the root seemed to slither and creak, almost as if it was trying to trip her over. She shook her head and continued onwards.
"I couldn't say for sure ma'am, there's just something about it. This whole damn planet is a death-trap, but here...here you get the impression that it's actually trying to kill you" the commander answered. Sabine understood that, every single second she would see something moving in the corner of her eye, and then, by the time she had turned to look, it was gone. The silence was deafening, but the trio continued on as best as they could. One step at a time.

As Skorn had warned before, the night soon arrived, and the forest now was barely any lighter than the inside of the Chimaera. The commander had lost his flashlights powering up the audio recording before, and Sabine's had been damaged when she was attacked by that creature, so now the only light guiding them was that of Ahsoka's ice white lightsaber. The togruta held her weapon up high, like a torch, and used it to beat away the tangled vines in their way. It was strange, but the vines seemed to hiss every time they were struck, like a wild animal in pain. They would then retreat back upwards, almost slithering back into the trees. If she hadn't known otherwise, Sabine would label them as some form of reptile, but they were just vines. This place was just impossible. Every instinct in her body told her that what she was seeing couldn't possibly be real, and yet it was. It was both exciting, and terrifying.
"What's that?" Commander Skorn asked, noticing something glinting in the light of Ahsoka's blade. The trio moved forwards to find a stormtrooper helmet, years old by the looks of it, and almost certainly from the crew of the Chimaera. It had been crushed under some kind of great force, and the visor was completely smashed. There was no sign of its previous inhabitant.
"There any kind of video recording?" Sabine asked, leaning down and briefly wincing thanks to the pain in her foot. She picked up the helmet and reached her hand inside, pressing a small button there and causing a flickering hologram to shine from the shattered visor.
"This is unit TK-5667, we've tracked the Bridger boy to an area nearby, but we've encountered heavy resistance!" the voice stopped for a moment, and was replaced by a recording of intense laserfire "...cannot possibly reach him...full retre-ahhh". The hologram stopped on that eerie note, causing each of the trio to glance around. What could possibly have struck so much panic into those troopers? They were attacked years ago, but even the thought of what had attacked them still being there scared the trio, especially after the previous encounter. They had seen what the wildlife of this planet had to offer, and it was not particularly comforting.
"Ahem...well, anyway, I suggest we carry on moving. It's not good to stay in one place at night here unless you're setting up a camp" Skorn stated, coughing nervously a little at the contents of the recording.
"Let's make camp here, it's been a long day, and we need to be at our best if we're going to stand any chance of tracking Ezra" Ahsoka suggested, and Skorn nodded with a quick salute.
"As you say ma'am, I'll quickly gather some supplies for a small fire" he responded, jogging off into the shadows. It had indeed been a long day, and even Sabine was in need of a rest.