#shaydia

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The splash of something heavy breaking through what was probably one of the cursed hidden, toxic sinkholes on Quesh drew Shaydia’s attention away from mentally tracing the path of the dimalium-6 thorough her veins.  She knew full well she wasn’t actually feeling the serum move through her body, but a morbid part of her wanted to think she could.  Vector was still shooting her worried looks.  The fact that she had unhesitatingly injected herself with an unmarked chemical had clearly upset him.  He wasn’t asking questions though.  He’d either learned from experience that she couldn’t answer, or Lokin had suggested a possible reason for her reluctance.  Shaydia was sure Lokin had his suspicions.  He was a Fixer after all.  He knew better than she what Intelligence was capable of.

A panicked voice rose over the splashing and Shaydia abruptly realized that someone had fallen into a hole.  She and Vector rushed in the direction of the noise, skidding to a halt when they saw the scruffy blonde frantically looking for something long enough to hand to the armored figure sinking into the sludge.

“Republic,” Vector murmured.

“Yes,” Shaydia agreed.  Without any other hesitation, she approached, “What happened?  Can we help?”

“Do you have a rope or something?” Pale eyes fastened on Shaydia’s face, “Anything long enough for him to grab?”

Shaydia pursed her lips, but Vector was already moving.  He pulled his electrostaff off his back and stretched it out over the pit to the grasping hands.  Shaydia saw the muscles of his torso tighten as he threw all of his enhanced Joiner strength into pulling the man out of the pit.  The armored figure came free and Vector dropped to his knees, winded.

The other woman rushed over, “Corso, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, captain,” the man’s voice was tired, but there was no uncertainty in it.

Turning to Shaydia, the woman held out her hand, “Thank you.  I…I don’t know what I would have done if you two hadn’t shown up.”

It was only years of Intelligence training that kept Shaydia’s face neutral when old memories placed the woman’s eyes.  She took the outstretched hand, “I’m glad we were close enough to help.  He probably needs to see a medic fairly soon.  The sludge on this planet can get through anything.”

The man was pushing himself to his feet, “I don’t need a medic.  Let’s go.”  Shaydia saw his helmet turn slightly to Vector and she realized he had recognized him as a Joiner.

The woman noticed too, but she cocked her head curiously, “I’ve never seen a Joiner off of Alderaan, and you seem a lot more independent than the ones I ran into there.”

Vector nodded and bowed, “We are Dawn Herald.  We are not like other Joiners.  We have much more autonomy.”

“I see,” her eyes were thoughtful, “Well, thank you again for helping us.  Come on, Corso.  We have work to do still.”

As they disappeared, Vector turned to Shaydia, “Your aura is brighter.  Do you know her?”

“I do,” Shaydia said quietly.  She looked up at Vector, “That’s my baby sister.  I didn’t even know she had survived.  Mother hid her in a crate when our transport was attacked.  They scuttled the ship.  I thought she died.  It makes me wonder…”

 “If the rest survived?”

She shrugged, “I know one did, at least for a while.  She was Force sensitive and I’m sure the Sith took her to train.  I have a hard time imagining her as Sith though I know they could twist anyone,” she shook herself, “Let’s get back to the ship.  I’m sure we’re going to be given another mission soon.”

There were no messages yet when they reached the Phantom, so Shaydia decided to return to Dromund Kaas.  She made her way to Intelligence headquarters.  She had every intention of looking for her family now.  She realized that her previous worries about Intelligence finding out about them were ridiculous.  Of course Intelligence knew who they were.  And the best way to find them without having her search traced was to search from headquarters where one more search would be unlikely to draw attention.  They could be flagged, of course, but Shaydia doubted it.

In less than an hour she had found files on every single sibling, and her parents though she knew for a fact they were dead, and she had loaded them all onto a dataspike.  She returned to the ship excited, and happier than she’d been for weeks.  Vector smiled at her when she almost danced into the room where he was reading a datapad, “You seem happy, Agent.”

“I found them, Vector.  I found them all.  Maybe I’ll never see them, but I know they are all alive and well.”

“We are pleased to hear it.  And you never know,” he said, “maybe you will have the opportunity to see them again.”