Harry Potter, The Jedi That Would Not Die
Chapter 28 – The Dangers of Dagobah
Even with seemingly hundreds of cleaning charms and the entire survey team involved it still took several hours to completely clean the base to a habitable level. The tree was still there in the centre of it but they could not see any harm in leaving it there, it just made it easier for the botanists to study it.
Hermione and Harry checked the perimeter of the base thoroughly and found no trace of anything that could have caused the sudden disappearance of the entire first survey team other than a few wild animals, none of which seemed dangerous enough to be able to be any sort of real danger to a few people armed with blasters.
As a precaution they set a watch on the perimeter consisting of the Jedi and a few of the Organa III's security personnel while the ship itself went into orbit and began scanning the planet's surface. A few of the crew also remained in order to help get the previous survey ship running again. It had taken half a day in all with a combination of the ships engines, a few repulsorlifts, a bit of magic and an awful lot of Force power they eventually managed to free the ship which seemed to be in good condition other than the fact that the bottom half of it was covered in mud and swamp slime.
It was now two days into the expedition and Harry and Hermione were busy trying to repair some of the base terminals as part of their investigation into what had happened before their arrival.
"So you really think you could figure out a way of getting a hover charm to work the same way as a repulsorlift?" Harry asked, kneeling down in front of the terminal and carefully using the Force to connect the small connectors to the board that was out of his reach inside the back of the unit.
"I don't see why not," came the muffled reply from Hermione, her head and upper body hidden underneath another unit that she was repairing. "I mean they already work the same way, it's just a matter of getting the power sorted out, if we could figure out a way of converting the ships power supply into magic or a way of storing magic then it should work."
"I see your point but at the moment I still think I'd prefer repulsorlifts on the Raven, apart from anything else they might work like a low powered deflector if we mount them around the ship, small objects or low speed large objects might either be deflected or slowed which should reduce damage to the ship dur...Hermione? are you listening?"
"Hmm...Yes, yes, of course Harry," she answered as she climbed out from underneath her unit and started trying to start it up. "What were you saying?"
"Oh nothing," he replied. "I was just saying about how I'm pregnant."
"...That's nice..."
"I'm five months gone; the doctors think it's going to be a gundark."
"...Good..."
"There's one other thing...the father...its Grand Master Yoda...I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier but I didn't want Aayla to find out in case she got jealous."
"...That's ok..."
"I don't know what it is...It must be the way the suns shine off of his ears, it just really turns me on."
"...That's nice," she replied again, a look of frustration crossing her face as she worked on the unit that simply refused to start before she suddenly exclaimed: "Oh for goodness sake," and hit the top of the unit.
In response the unit finally decided to work and started its boot up sequence.
"Ah, that's better," she smiled. "What were you saying Harry?"
"Never mind," he replied with an amused smile on his face, before pausing as he heard a faint sound and felt a familiar presence on the edge of his perceptions causing him to smile. "I think we are about to have a guest."
"In that case she's just in time," replied Hermione, her voice more serious than it was a few seconds before, "I think I just found the expeditions logs, I think the others should see this too...Hang on, what was that you said about being pregnant?"
Harry, Hermione and Bail walked up to the landing fighter just as it touched down beside the base, both the Alderaanian ships were in orbit surveying the planet, the older CR70 named the Resplendent IV having taken off a few minutes before to assist the Organa III when it was able to and for repairs to continue whilst not giving it the chance to sink again.
No sooner had the modified Z-95 Headhunter touched down when the cockpit opened up and a very excited twi'lek leapt out, ran towards them and dropping to her knees in front of Harry, bowing her head.
"Master, it's so good to see you."
"It's good to see you too Alema," he smiled, reaching towards her and pulling her to her feet, straight into a hug which she returned eagerly. "It's been too long."
When they separated Alema bowed to the others.
"Mistress Hermione, your Highness."
"Alema," replied Hermione, pulling her into a hug as well.
"Welcome to Dagobah Explorer Ani," greeted Bail. "How was your flight?"
"Good, thank you Senator," she replied before turning back to Harry. "I apologise for being late Master but I was in the middle of a training exercise when the request for my presence came in and it took a while to prepare my ship."
"Not to worry Alema," smiled Harry, "There was already a parking issue when we arrived and one more ship would only have made it worse,"
"At least there wasn't any road rage," quipped Harry, earning a smile from Hermione who was the only person to understand the Earth terminology.
"Well now the reunions are done with," smiled Bail, "Shall we have a look at what you uncovered Hermione?"
#Professor Stevens, expedition day two, start log; We have been scanning the surface of the planet since we arrived in orbit and we believe we have located a suitable location for our base, I have ordered the crew to prepare all the gear and equipment to set down first thing tomorrow, we won't be able to set down until then as we are having to use the ships laser batteries to clear several scattered trees from the area surrounding the base camp location so we can set the ship down without the risk of burning half the forest down with our engines exhaust. End log.#
#Professor Stevens, expedition day three, start log; we have put down and have started setting up the base, no sooner had the ramp descended than over half the biologists had disappeared into the surrounding jungle to investigate anything and everything they could get their hands on. This has understandably slowed the speed of setting up the base camp as almost a quarter of the researchers are away taking scans, collecting samples or just generally getting into trouble, we've had to rescue a couple with blasters from some of the more...curious animal inhabitants. At the current rate I estimate we should have most of the base structure up within the next two days. End log.#
#Professor Stevens, expedition day six, start log; the base is now up and running with all the relevant housing for the expedition as well as supply storage and several mobile labs, there are still a few units to unload from the ship but they should be completed before the day is out. As soon as that's done I will be sending the Resplendent IV into orbit to begin its orbital survey of the planet...One item of concern, Dr Lucas went into the jungle with his team to begin cataloguing the species of a quadrant several dozen miles away to see if it was worth a more detailed survey and has not checked in the last twenty four hours. So far they are only four hours overdue and knowing what Dr Lucas is like, he'll probably have just got caught up in his work and have forgotten, it would not be the first time, but either way I have notified the other teams to be cautious and to increase the frequency of their check ins to every six hours. End log.#
#Professor Stevens, expedition day ten, start log; the whole team is on edge, I sent a team out yesterday to try and find out what happened to Dr Lucas's team, you recall he went missing four days ago. The team found an abandoned and wrecked camp, all their equipment was over turned or destroyed and there was no sign of the team except for some strange tracks in the surrounding forest. As soon as the Captain heard about what happened he insisted on landing the ship and started to hand out side arms...As much as I hate weapons I must say I am very glad that we didn't come by ourselves or else we would have no weapons at all. End log.#
#Professor Stevens, expedition day eleven, start log...We've lost contact with two more teams; I have recalled all other teams until we can identify the cause. One heavily armed team has already set out for one of the camps and I am leading another in a few minutes to head for the other. Hopefully there is just an innocent explanation for this. End log.#
#Dr Harris, expedition day twelve, start log; the situation has just gone from bad to worse. The two rescue teams have gone missing including Professor Stevens. The only thing we know is that there was an explosion of some sort approximately five miles from the camp, some of our aerial scouts flew over it and saw the remains of the rescue speeder half buried in a bog. WE thought at first that they had just crashed, but there is no sign of the team and there is blaster damage on some of the surrounding trees. End log.#
#Dr Harris, expedition day twelve supplemental, start log. The Captain has ordered an evacuation of the base until we can identify what's taking our people. Some of the scientists are furious but most of us are quite relived, most of us have not been into the swamp for almost a week now out of fear. We are leaving the equipment behind; we should be gone in about four hours. End log.#
#Dr Harris, day twelve supplemental. It's a disaster, the ships sunk into the swamp, the ground just gave way when the ships engines powered up, the landing gear is completely engulfed. What's worse is that the antenna array got damaged when it sunk and is now inoperable, which means we have no way off the planet and no way of contacting Alderaan for help, we are stranded until Alderaan thinks we are in trouble and sends a rescue team arrives.#
#Dr Harris, day fourteen; the ship has sunk even further into the swamp, the Captain has declared it out of bounds in case it goes completely under while people are on board. We have taken as many supplies as we can off of it and we should be fine for a couple of months. The Captain has turned this research station into a military base, only his security guards leave the perimeter and only then to go on patrol and even they don't like it. I hope Alderaan realises something has gone wrong soon. End log.#
#Dr Harris, day...day...I can't even remember, thirty something. The swampy area that formed under the ship has expanded and now has almost made the base into an island, only one patch of solid ground remains nearby and thankfully it is big enough for a rescue ship when one comes, but they had better be quick as the security patrols have encountered many predator like creatures approaching the base, most they have managed to turn back but some have managed to get into the base...There's this flying lizard that comes in every few days, the trees in the swamp are too dense on most sides of the base to allow us to see it coming, it just swoops in...It's taken four people already. The Captain tried to send people back to the ship to see if they could either scavenge one of the shield generators or extend the ships shields around the base but they were unable to get into the ship since its last sinking.#
#Dr Harris...The base is now infested...there are dozens of these snakes crawling all over the place, most of them are harmless but other creatures are following them into the base to hunt them and several have turned out to be poisonous, we've lost several people already with several more critically injured. We've tried shooting the snakes and the things that follow them but there are just too many.#
#Harris, this place just gets weirder and weirder. This swarm of knee high spider like creatures wandered through the base today, they were more of a novelty than anything else, they did try to bite but they could be easily prized off anyone they got attached to. Dr Knobbler has named them Knobby White Spiders because of their weird shape and colour and because of their unusual textured skin...At least that's what he says, we all know he named them after himself. They didn't do much damage, all they did while they were here was bite a few people, get shot at and eat a load of the snakes on the ground so that's one good thing about their presence. Most of the creatures that ate the snakes went when they were no longer there for them to eat. Even better is that some of the spiders after eating loads of snakes buried their limbs in the ground and they appear to be forming into rough tree shapes so Dr Knobbler and the botanists are loving it as they have something fascinating to study inside the base while we wait for rescue, even if they all struggle to fit around the tiny plant. Things just might be looking up#
#...Move!...Get the weapons!...Kill it! kill it!...Don't let it touch you...This is Dr Harris, a giant Knobby White Spider has invaded the base...It must be at least six meters tall and its destroying everything in its path...and it's...it's...it's eating people, swallowing them whole then moving onto the next person. The Captains dead and most of his security guards are gone and their weapons with them. We're sitting ducks here, we're going to try making for the jungle and see if we can find a place to hide out unti- AARRRGGGHHH!...#
The projection in front of Bail, Harry, Hermione and Alema briefly showed a large creature of some kind before it turned to static.
"Did he say that the spider turned into tree shapes?" asked Harry slowly looking around at the others.
"I'm afraid he did," replied Bail.
"You don't think..." began Hermione, "In the middle of the base...that tree?"
"I'm afraid I do," nodded Bail.
Withdrawing the probe from the side of the tree whilst Harry stood next to her with a drawn lightsaber just in case the 'spider' was able to uproot itself. Hermione quickly scanned her sample before sighing in sorrow at the result.
"The DNA is mostly from the tree itself but there are a significant number of strands from other animals...including humans and humanlike species."
"It is as we feared then," nodded Bail. "No one survived, but it was no malevolent armed force, it was Dagobah itself that killed them, they were unprepared for the ferocity and the unusual nature of the wildlife and they paid the price. After that the swamp took the base and the evidence back."
"Do you have any portable shield generators Senator?" asked Alema.
"Several," he confirmed. "Both particle and ray. Expecting a potentially hostile enemy I made sure to bring a few as well as some better weapons just in case, though being outfitted as a survey ship the crew of the Organa III are not exactly trained in their use."
"We should get the particle shields up over the base as soon as possible to prevent any more uninvited guests from entering and make sure someone is always watching the perimeter."
"The latter has already been done," explained Hermione, turning and walking away, "I'll go and get the generator from the storage bunker now."
"Thank you Mistress. With your permission Master I'll go and check the perimeter to see if I can see any obvious defence issues."
"Good idea," he replied. "I will transmit an update back to the Temple."
"Master Koon, we have an incoming transmission from the Dagobah system, Padawan Potter's comms signatures."
"Put it through," replied the Jedi Master, moving to the large holo-projector in the middle of the room as it changed from showing a map of the galaxy to showing an image of the aforementioned padawan. "Harry."
#Master Plo,# he replied bowing. "We have rendezvoused with Senator Bail and Alema on Dagobah and have set up camp. We have also uncovered the reason behind the loss of contact with the previous expedition.#
"Go on Harry."
#It appears from the expedition logs that we have uncovered that while the expedition started well the researchers soon start to fall prey to the various animals and perils of the swamp. The last of the expedition were apparently finished off by a moving tree that consumed them before planting itself at the centre of the base, Hermione is currently reconfiguring a shield generator to enclose it and setting up others to go up over the base.#
"Understood Harry. As there is no hostile force to oppose please assist with the general security of the expedition as regards the wildlife. Report back in four days, I shall inform your Masters of your progress.#
Exploration into the swampy jungle began cautiously the following day, every expedition that left the base had to be escorted by either Harry or Hermione while Alema generally helped to coordinate the security around the base.
The added security quite annoyed the researchers who were restricted to when they could leave the safety of the shield and for how long which meant that most of the excursions were based around sample collection so that those that could not leave the shield would have something to study. They initially had some problems either with the researchers either wandering off on their own or firing their blasters at every single sound or tiny animal they saw but between the Jedi, Alema and Bail they managed to mostly cure them of it.
It was on the third excursion outside the shield when they first encountered any real problems from the wildlife; a large reptile tried to sneak up and attack the group that Harry was defending. It had struck at them from the swamp, diving for one of the research assistants who was collecting a sample from a nearby plant just as it struck crocodile style from the water, unfortunately for the animal it had never encountered a lightsaber before and therefore did not know what happens when you try to lunge through one. What resulted was an instant animal dissection as the creature's upper jaw and upper body was cut away from the lower down most of its length.
Most of the rest of the party (except for the shaking assistant) were fascinated by the creature and got Harry to levitate the body (or as much of it that he was able to hold inside its cauterised wound) back to the base for further study.
It wasn't until they got back to the base that they realised something was wrong.
"Padawan Potter!"
"Yes," sighed Harry, slightly annoyed about having to transport the body of the creature he had just unceremoniously dumped on the ground back to the base and therefore compromising his ability to defend the party while carrying it.
"Doctor Monroe did not come back to the base with us," replied the researcher. "I have asked the others and none of them have seen him since the attack in the swamp, last we heard he was off looking for subterranean life forms."
"Isn't Monroe the one who was complaining to Hermione the other day about not being allowed to go looking for caves?"
"I believe so sir, he was rather putout when he was told he had to be escorted everywhere outside the shield and that there were only two of you here to do so."
"You think he deliberately went off alone looking for caves?"
"I believe so Sir, yes," replied the researcher apologetically. "If memory serves he was also one of those riding a speeder bike due to his advanced years so he could have gone a lot further than he could on foot."
Sighing Harry reached into his robes and brought out his miniaturised broom, this was just what he didn't need as the minimal light was beginning to fade. "Would you please tell Alema that I have gone searching for him and that I will check in every thirty minutes, please don't wake Hermione, she can get really cranky when you do that and she needs to be ready for the mornings expeditions."
"Of course sir," the researcher replied, stunned as the piece of wood started to levitate to the young jedi's command as he gave a signal towards the security officer that was controlling the shield generator. It was powered off for a split second before being turned back on again, just long enough for a strip of shield free air to start travelling its way from the top of the shield down towards the ground. Harry expertly flew through the small gap before it vanished as the shield re-established a full dome and headed back through the jungle towards where he had killed the creature.
Harry has spent a good couple of hours scouring the swampy forests that surrounded Monroe's last known location, both from ground level and doing aerial sweeps and he had found absolutely nothing. He had investigated several caves and so far all he had found was more damp and mud than he ever wanted to see and a couple of annoyed resident animals.
They had tried scanning the surface from the ships but they could not find him, whether that meant he was dead, in an area that disrupted sensors or just underground where the scanners could not penetrate he did not know, but one thing he did know was that he would be having strong words with Monroe when they got back.
He had been trying to use his Force powers to find Monroe, reaching out with his mind to touch the surrounding swamp, trying to locate the human, but he was either too far away or lost amidst the myriad array of other animals that surrounded him. The only other technique that could have been useful was precognition and he had never been overly good at that, he was improving but not enough to direct his vision, besides it would only really help if he knew where Monroe was going to be in the future.
Which meant he was really only left with one option, which he liked even less than precognition, and that was opening himself up to the Force and letting it guide him to where it thought he needed to go. The Living Force as the Order called it, Harry did not mind doing what he suspected he was meant to do or needed to do, after all that was how he had rescued Ayala from the Death Watch several years back, but that was when he had a clear set of options to chose between and he could tell he really needed to do something, in this case he just had to wander around until he felt he needed to turn left or right but he was feeling no real pull in any directions at the moment, which was what was causing his apprehension...But it did not seem like he had any other choice.
Sighing to himself, he remounted his broom and flew to a level just above the tree line, before sinking into the Force.
As he suspected, he was getting very little pull in any direction, which meant he had better just fly around and hope inspiration struck. Returning to his starting position at the swamp where Monroe had disappeared he began a slow spiralling outward flight, hoping to pick something up.
Finally after half an hour of flying he picked up something on the edge of his perception, it wasn't the indication of a direction he was hoping for, more like a disruption to the normal flow of the Force. He paused his flight and turned his senses towards the disruption, it appeared to be some way away to the north where the ground went from being firm, moist, wet, soggy and waterlogged to just being soggy and waterlogged. He was glad they had not had to try landing a ship there as it would likely have sung before too long, even a regular fighter might have been too much pressure for the unstable ground.
The feeling he was getting from the north was like...like a chill, like he got when Senator Palpatine shook his hand for the first time. It was a feeling that put Harry on alert. Cautiously flying towards it the chill slowly grew and before he knew it he began to feel the slight itching of a pain behind his scar and a coldness running up his spine.
What worried him though was the slight pull that was starting to develop in his mind towards whatever it was and he had a disturbing feeling he knew what it was that he was flying towards.
A couple of miles further north and he sensed he was very close to the cause of the disturbance, slowly descending, he felt a flash of memory back to his third year of Hogwarts and his encounters with dementors. He was now certain; whatever he was flying towards was corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force in a strong way. All his Jedi teaching were telling him that as a padawan he was not experienced enough to face whatever this was on his own, but his 'saving people thing' as Hermione liked to call it told him that he had to go on. It was like the Philosophers Stone all over again; the sensible thing would have been to go back for help no matter how hard it was to get it, but that just wasn't in his nature, he wouldn't have been Harry Potter if he did not continue.
Landing as the canopy of tangled trees got thicker and difficult to fly between, he came face to face with an ominous looking cave with a large twisted tree above it with its roots twisted around its entrance and outer walls.
Harry could not help but liken it to the ominous feeling he got from the graveyard and from the Chamber of Secrets and it confirmed...This cave was going to be trouble.
There was a brief second where Harry had a rare moment of hesitation and decided against entering the cave on his own and was just about to turn around to move away from the cave to continue his search and to file this for later investigation by the Temple, only for his search to catch up with him. Glancing to his left as he turned he saw the speeder parked and powered down beside the tree nearest the cave and the uneven foot prints in the mud of an older man with a limp entering the cave.
"Damn," he said to himself with a sigh, "For once there was actually a chance that I would not end up doing the stupid thing."
Resigned to his course of action and hoping that this stupid idea was not going to leave him unconscious and half dead like most of his adventures did, he shrunk his broom back down and pocketed it before taking a deep breath and walking towards the mouth of the cave.
"Once more into the breach."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Really really sorry it took so long, don't worry I haven't abandoned the fic, RL just caught up with me of late which has made it VERY hard to find time to do any writing at all. It also didn't help that although I knew this chapter was coming I wasn't exactly sure how to write it or the next bit.
So if you want to make suggestions feel free to do so because I have nothing preset for the next new chapters.