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“You’re smiling,” the Protocol Droid said, sounding surprised, or scared, or both.

So, Selene just kept smiling as she holstered the K-16 after securing the lightsaber in the custom leather closeable pouch at the small of her back, and before checking to ensure the rest of her equipment was snug and each black leather pouch fastened tightly. It matched the rest of the leather shadow that clung to her body tightly; pants quilted on the exterior and around the ankle of each leg, for extra durability, with a jacket to match, itself quilted on the shoulders and arms and back. 

No manufacturer tags. No symbols or any other decoration except for silver buttons, small and round, like a tear. 

“It’s good you enjoy this part. As you know, we droids will lock the Wayfarer and ensure the auto turrets are active.”

Selene just looked up as she depressed the Wayfarer’s control mechanism for its main hold door, the magnetic containment field automatically switched off due to the presence of atmosphere, “You’ll all be fine until I’m back. You know what to do if I never come back?”

The droid’s head just twitched, before it answered, “Initiate self-destruct and leave the vessel.”

“The new droid is taking one of the Undicurs,” she said, as she brought the black and grey T-85 Speeder Bike to life, its engine and exhaust notes nothing short of perfection to her ears and hands.

“Is the Undicur rated for that weight?”

Selene shrugged, her lips spreading dagger thin into a full-on smirk, “If not, it knows how to repair it, and modify it, I think. Have it take the reinforced one we used for that Trandoshan that worked for the Hutts.”

“Master, is it worth bringing u—”

“—no,” she cut the protocol droid off, taking her seat on the T-85 and letting its engine roar to life, louder than before, angrier than before. Nothing else was said before the speeder bike, and its rider, were gone. 

If the droid could sigh, it might have, but there was no use. It had limited enough memory as it was, even its designation was lost to modifications and re-writes. It was as hopeless an endeavor as arguing to Selene that she shouldn’t take T1. When the woman disappeared in the jungle of the moon, the droid turned its head and addressed T1 as it appeared from the back, from the secondary cargo hold, from the Master’s ‘private stock.’ 

“Take the heavy speeder left in the speeder hold.”

The wind and thick, humid, air of Yavin 4 hit her nearly as hard as other, less tangible, sensations. Her right hand kept hold of the bike’s throttle and break, her left at her side, as if she wasn’t speeding through an alien jungle, but just out for a casual ride on a salt flat. She rode it like a speed biker, with absolute ease and supreme confidence. She rode it often enough; she had torn it down and rebuilt it nearly a dozen times. Modified it, improved it, gotten to know its every component. 

It's good she knew it so well, because her mind wandered: the Force ebbed and flowed in quicker currents on the planet than most places. It quickened her heart and pumped adrenaline through her body. There was [i]something[/i] here, if not more than one something. Was it the Temple? Was it someone else? That was harder to tell. It was like trying to spot a glittering shimmer in front of a bright star. The light behind it was blinding, it took real skill and practice to make out the shimmer before the raging brilliance. 

At one point she found an abandoned jungle camp, all prefabs; buildings, walls, towers. Imperial, no doubt, as its towers overlooked a swampy portion of the jungle. It wasn’t hard to notice the reason for such a remote camp: there were still large, jagged, chunks sticking out of the swamp—Death Star salvage. It had been an Imperial obsession, as much a reason for their presence on the moon after the Battle of Yavin as making sure the Rebels didn’t return to the moon. A little digging around, a few trinkets found, and she was off again.

She found a path that led to the Temple and followed it until the thickness of jungle suddenly gave way to clearing, as the Temple used to destroy a Death Star dominated the world before her. She wasn’t shy about her approach, speeding straight up to the massive open blast door of one of the Temple’s bays, the contrast between bright Yavin sun and Temple interior shade taking her eyes a millisecond to adjust to, as she recognized the prefabs of the Coruscant teams camp, her eyes taking in the sight even as she came to a stop next to the armed man holding up his hand.

She never looked at him, or his hand, but she stopped all the same next to him. 

He didn’t seem to like her. He must have been local. “No visitors. This area is off limits, joint venture of the Wetyin Colonial Authority and the University of Coruscant. Turn around.”

Her hands busied themselves with her ink-black hair, pinned up in a tight bun, as it was, instead of responding to him. When he began to speak again, she was happy to cut him off, “I’m an investor in the dig. University of Charmath.”

He eyes never blinked, they just narrowed, “Wait here,” he said in a dull tone before he retreated further into the Temple. It was Doctor Andrejo Iizia that accompanied the man back to her, his face bright, happy, as he waved and shouted in her direction. She chuckled at him, waiting until he arrived, “Doctor Ramalla!”

“This is the Assistant Dean?” She heard the militiaman ask, in disbelief, believing he was well out of her earshot. 

Iizia’s tone grew stern in response to the man, even as he smiled and waved at her, “She’s a bloody Queen, ensure your team is respectful in her presence.”

She could have giggled, instead focusing the energy into a smile for the older man, one of the co-directors of the dig, “Hello Andrejo, it’s been a long time.” 

“Thank you, again, for your financial support, Doctor—”

“—Sela,” she graciously allowed him. 

His sunburnt face almost showed a tint of reddish pink at the correction from the woman, “Sela, of course.” His intelligence quickly took her in, and his face double-took, even as a new kind of highly amused laugh overtook him, “you are here to do more than visit, you look like you are here to adventure, not just dig!” 

“In my experience, Andrejo, the two are often intertwined.”

“Ha! I’ve heard some of your stories, third or fourth hand, of course, but dazzling with excitement none-the-less. Um, you can park your speeder bike by the large building, and I’ll give you a tour?”

She nodded, and thanked him, before smiling up at the guard as she passed him. It was anger, it was darkness, she felt…but none of that was from the guard, but the energies she felt coming from the rest of the camp. 

[i]What am I riding into?[/i]
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