Adai shook her head and tried to think. Why everything dark? She looked up through the glass and noted faint traces of light filtering through something blueish. Oh that’s right... the snowbank. She couldn’t be that far beneath the powdered ice because light still reached her, though just barely. After spending a moment or two collecting herself one more time, she turned and groped for a broad, smooth button near the side of her seat. Her fingers ran over many other ones, but they found what they were looking for and she pushed it.
The cockpit opened slowly, from the weight of the snow. Tons more fell in, and the strikingly cold ice almost burned Adai’s exposed skin. The blinding light of the nearby sun relentlessly attacked her, and she shut her eyes, before opening them again slowly, and standing up. Other than the chill breeze that caressed her cheek, the air was not that cold. The sun shone brightly, and she clambered out of the ship.
With snow crunching under her boots, she looked at the surrounding landscape. There was snow. Everywhere. And where there wasn’t snow, there was exposed, harsh rock.
Looking down, she suddenly remembered the droid.
“Oh no, R4!” she said, rushing to the side of the ship where he was. She dropped to her knees at the spot where she thought the droid would be and started digging furiously. After a short while her hands felt metal, and Adai started to dig the snow out from around the dome.
She sat back on her knees and breathed a sigh of relief as the thing came to life, beeping.
“I’m so sorry, R4... just... gimme a few hours, and I’ll be back. I’ll go get some help.”
The droid yelled something rather uncouth at her, but she got up and ignored it. Closing the cockpit and covering it with snow again just in case anyone happened to stumble upon it, she started taking the first few steps down the mountain.
The first mile was steep and tricky; she had to pick her way carefully through the snow, judging how deep the banks were and being careful to step on the most stable ground she could find. She was starting to get cold about an hour later, as she was trying to make it down the sunny side of the mountain. But she knew that in another hour or so, the mountains would be casting frozen, dark shadows over her.
Adai’s head was really beginning to pound, so much in fact that she just grabbed a handful of ice and held it to the swelling spot on her head. She wondered if Bacta would do any good.
After a while, the slope grew to a little gentler decline, and the snow wasn’t as thick. Adai could still be seen piling the ice on her head, mumbling to herself as she trod down the mountain.
How could she be such an idiot? So foolish? Stealing a Jedi star fighter, thinking she could do some good alongside the infamous Obi-Wan Kenobi and that Skywalker kid of his. Adai scoffed at herself. How could she have thought she could have gotten anywhere near Greivous’ fleet? If the droids didn’t dismantle her ship, the enemy fire would have done a great job at reducing her to dust.
And then she had to ruin a perfectly good ship. It probably wouldn’t have happened if she had hijacked one with a full tank of fuel, or if she hadn’t chickened out at the last minute and do the most ridiculous thing: go into hyperspace. Where? She had no clue. Just get away from the battle, get away from Coruscant and the consequences that awaited her if she decided to fly right back into that hangar. Not only would that make her look like a coward, fool, and idiot, but the Council might even do the unthinkable: release her from the Jedi Order.
Oh Force no! What horrible fate was she in for when she got back to Coruscant? If she got back to Coruscant? Was she really stranded here? What if this was an uninhabited planet? Her skill with the Force wasn’t developed enough to detect people. She could move little things, and communicate with choice people mentally, and the only person she knew she could sense was her mistress, and that was when her shields weren’t up.
“Augh!” she cried aloud. “What have you gotten yourself into this time, Adai!”
The young Padawan continued down the slope until the mountain started overshadowing her. But by then she was walking through trees, and as sparse as they were, she knew she had beaten the mountain. But Adai halted. Would she remember where the ship was? She had to make some sort of marker... so she looked to her belt, and grinned. It had to be her favorite part of being in Jedi training...
...she reached and took out her generic Padawan’s light saber. It had a colorless blade, and was not as strong as the other Jedi Knights’; stronger than stun and hot enough to cauterize flesh, but it couldn’t cut through metal, and it would take some effort if she tried to dismember something. And so, with her favorite thing in the world, she began shaving the bark off a few choice trees that would direct her towards the ship if she came back. Or she hoped they would help her in locating it again.
The blade vanished with a flick of her finger, and was placed back on the clip at her belt. She looked up through the trees, and realized something.
She had never left Coruscant.
Or at least as far as she could remember, she had lived on Coruscant, in the temple. The closest thing to this level of nature was the gardens that were trimmed, and de-weeded on a regular basis. Nothing too natural about maintenance.
Adai looked behind her at the mountain, trying to see where her ship might have crashed. She couldn’t tell where exactly, and only guessed that it might be nearly a thousand feet up in elevation from where she stood.
But she turned around again, and headed in the opposite direction of the sun. There were far more rocks, and far less snow, and in the valley that spanned miles in each direction seemed to be one huge forest.
Or at least what she knew to be the definition of a forest:
for-est: n A dense growth of trees, plants, and underbrush covering a large area.
So, it seemed to fit the description pretty well. She continued on downward, trying to find a path amid the sharp, blank stones. But she sensed something as she walked along... danger, fear, and grief, for some reason.
But no sooner did she feel these emotions imprinted in the air did she see something that she had been looking for this whole time.
It was a great doorway, with stairs, leading into a big gaping blackness that made Adai feel very uneasy. Yes, it was a building, which meant that there must be some civilization on this planet... but she didn’t like the looks of it. It was very, very old, and was made of the natural rock, rather than stronger, synthetic materials.
But before she thought more about it, she left and headed for the cover of the trees. Just in case.
She walked for maybe another hour or so, and the ground had nearly leveled out. Trees. Everywhere. It was very quiet, too; nothing like the noise and hustle of Coruscant. Was she liking it? Of course. But she did want to get back home. Home was priority. Even if it meant getting in the biggest trouble any Padawan had suffered in the history of the Jedi Order.
Adai marked more trees as she walked. Her feet were getting very tired, and her stomach was very empty. So she powered down her saber, sat down on a log, and popped open a food capsule from her belt.
“Mm. Chrome-flavored,” she mumbled to herself as she dumped the contents into her mouth with distaste.
As she sat there, her feet started to hurt, and she had a migraine. Goody. But she had to get up again, keep walking. Now that she found evidence of inhabitants and intelligent life here, Adai was determined to find them. More than determined, actually. Her... life depended on it. Gosh, that sounded cryptic and urgent.
But true, nonetheless. She had to treat the situation like she was not going to be found, and that she had to do anything she could to get back to Coruscant independently.
But suddenly Adai had that uneasy feeling again. She jumped up, and looked around her. Yes, it was a forest. Dead silent except for birds chirping, and... was that a locust? And the gurgling of a brook not too far away.
She looked up into the trees. Was she being watched? Her grey eyes darted from tree to tree, trying to pick out something. But to no avail. She was alone, on a strange planet, and she was getting a little paranoid, that’s all.
So she kept walking, marking the occasional tree, but suddenly aware of the noise it made. It wasn’t much, just a sharp, thick hum of the saber blade, and the dull sound of the bark being burnt away. But eventually she stopped.
And she didn’t put away her saber; she kept it in her hand, just in case, but the blade wasn’t on. She kept walking through the forest, and the day was growing old, when suddenly, Adai stopped altogether. She held her breath and paused next to a tree, ears straining to grasp any sound they could.
She thought she heard... hushed voices. Coming from the trees again. It was in a language she couldn’t understand, but she listened anyway. The voices were soft and calm, yet old sounding, and belonging to men. Were they dangerous? And as soon as she heard them they stopped altogether, as if they knew she was listening to them.
After a minute of keeping still and silent, she meant to start walking again, but when she turned around, there was something very sharp pointed directly between her eyes.