Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

80:

Astera:

Setron stank. So badly. The putrid smell of the planet permeated the thick, humid air, washing over me in a hot wave when the Marauder's ramp lowered. I wrinkled my nose as I stepped off the ship, Wrecker sniffing audibly behind me before pulling a face and flipping his helmet down with a loud noise of disgust. "Smells like rancid Jotaz out here."

"That's putting it mildly." Thankfully I'd had the foresight to put my helmet on before the ship had landed, but it only took the edge off, the smell somehow still assaulting my nose despite the filter in my helmet.

"There's nothing on the scanners." Hunter held up the steadily beeping datapad, thumping the side of it with a scowl I could feel, even without the Force. "The Empire could be jamming our sensors."

"Or there might be nothing here." As far as I could tell, there was no notable human presence when I cast out my senses, the only lifeforms populating the area the thick mess of plants and trees we could see. Though we could have just been too far out for me to sense anything. Either way, these were the coordinates we'd been given, and we weren't leaving until we'd investigated them.

The familiar uncomfortable churning of unease had started up the second I'd set foot into the jungle, but it only got worse as Hunter turned and forged deeper into the trees without further comment, Wrecker gripping his gun in both hands and following after him. I trailed behind a little slower, muscles tense and searching for the threat that I was more than certain was lurking somewhere around us.

"Oh no." Hunter's low exclamation had me raising my head and hurrying to his side, inhaling sharply at the completely decimated remains of what had to have been the laboratory Roland had been talking about. The pattern of destruction was almost familiar - I'd seen it somewhere else. I just couldn't remember where.

"Woah." Wrecker stepped up on Hunter's other side, staring down at the destruction that had been wrought on whatever this used to be. "That's Hemlock's lab?"

"What happened here?" My rangefinder clicked down automatically, letting me examine the ruins more closely. Some kind of twisting vine had completely overrun the remnants of the base, thick, dark and so convoluted it was impossible to tell where they had originated from. This destruction... this had been at least months ago.

"They destroyed it," Hunter said grimly, lowering his macrobinoculars. "Another orbital bombardment."

That explained why it was familiar. Those gouge marks were identical to the ones that had marred the city on Serenno. This base had been obliterated by the cannons of Venator Star Destroyers.

"But... Omega." Wrecker's voice had gone pale, thin with fear as the implications slowly became clear for him. I-I-If she was here-"

"Don't say that," I interrupted him, my words sharper than they needed to be. They wouldn't have just left her to die if she had been brought here, my intuition told me that much. Hemlock had made too big a deal of taking her for that. But doubt was a powerful thing, and it niggled away at me, filling my head with fears I wasn't even sure were rational. "We don't know if she was."

"The Durands' intel could be wrong." I don't know who Hunter was trying to reassure more, us or himself, but I grabbed onto his words anyway - it was the last comfort we had left. She couldn't have been here."Let's get down there and check it out."

The uneasy feeling started up again as soon as we headed back into the trees, only now I was starting to feel like we were being watched too. Slowly, my hands crept to my holsters and withdrew my blasters, senses on high alert for any sort of movement.