Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Dathomirian Trek

I frowned and checked the waypoint datapad again, for the fourth time. The location marked should have been just over two kilometers from where I was standing, but all I saw in front of me was a large, empty expanse of Dathomir's scarred landscape. There was nothing there.

I had driven for what had seemed days since arriving at Dathomir's tiny Science Outpost, one of two locations on the planet where anybody lived. In reality, it had been a trip of about six hours. At first, I had feared an encounter with a Nightsister, or perhaps something even worse, but in the end it was the environment of the planet itself that was the biggest hindrance.

Dathomir's confounding surface is riddled with an extensive network of valleys and chasms, like the deep scars of a vicious attack by some ancient, clawed giant. Such environmental hazards are difficult enough to maneuver through with a speederbike, which performs best over level ground. To add to the misery, though, Dathomir's ravines are infested with a vile species of tree, that is more a weed than anything else, but astoundingly hardy and tangled. Driving through it is almost always impossible. Consequently, a lot of time is wasted trying to find alternate routes around particularly thick patches of this vegetation.

After six hours of hard riding, I now stood on a small rise at the edge of one such ravine, where I had a clear vantage point of the landscape to the east, for several kilometers. From the intelligence I had gathered from the dead Sith, I expected to see a settlement of some kind, a town, an encampment, something. Anything. But there was nothing but an odd, empty plain.

And yet...not empty.

As I concentrated on the distant horizon, I could feel a faint glimmer of presence rippling through the Force. There was something out there, I was now sure. What or where it was, though, was beyond my skill to know. To find out, I would have to venture out into the empty expanse I saw before me.

That, however, was a task for another day. Exhausted, dehydrated and sore, I made camp for the night. Tomorrow, I would investigate the mysterious plain to the East.