Space Ferrets!

They head to Ree's planet to track down the space ferrets. These little guys populate near the Sin farm, out on the outskirts where it fades into uncultivated territory. They're shy about going near humans. The ferrets don't like Kedrihm'Val, he smells wrong-bad to them, so while Ree and Zann try to get the ferrets to show them a way down, Oola sends a droid down into their burrows.

The ferrets get the concept of "want to go down" fairly quickly, are are quite obliging about showing the humans how to crawl into ferret-holes, but it takes them a little while to grasp that People = Too Big For Space Ferret Holes. Eventually, they're able to communicate this across the species communication gap, and one of the space ferrets escorts them to a larger passage via the river. They have to dive in order to get to the opening of a cavern, where they find a ship, crashed into an underground lake. The water is so saturated with the Force that it glows. Oola suspects that this made the animals smarter. She stabilizes the ship, and then the crew crawls on to look around. Oola patches some stuff up in order to get into the logs.

The ship is indeed the lost Makudza. The Jedi on the ship found the black crystal, which was locked in a container about yay-big, and some other unusual crystals that they decided to bring back with them. They also found an uncharted planet, which they commed the Republic to note (a message which wasn't received), and on that planet they found something they were taking back...but something on that planet chased them on another ship. They crashed on Ree's planet during their escape. A "fragment of the Pulse" is noted as being stored with the other crystals, in the ruptured area of the ship. Which means it's under that glowing water.

So what happened to the crew? The ship crashed and remained as it is for about 100 years. No hatches have open, no repairs, no one left. But escape pods were jettisoned.

They find the sealed box o' evil, and it looks like the other items might've gotten spilled from the ship through the hole. As they explore the ship a bit more, two guardian droids activate, but don't attack when they spot the Jedi. They're cooperative enough to allow Oola to tap their memory banks, which gives her information about the crew. There was an older Sin man, in his 50s, and a younger one, in his teens. A Sin woman in her 30s, an older Sent, a young Sent, and a baby--which was decidedly not on the crew when the ship left. Apparently the Sin woman and the Sent man had a thing, but this was after the Jedi 'no relationships' policy, so there's no official record.

It's an easy matter to activate the tracer signals for the pods. Two landed in the mountains, and there are three signals coming from the government offices near the spaceport.

The first pod in the mountains was pulled open and rummaged through. The computer stuff inside is intact, except for information on the thing that was chasing them. There's a depression nearby as though a scout ship landed a long time ago. Three of the pods held people; two were decoys. The record indicates that they got a message out to the Antarean Rangers, but while one was headed toward the Republic, it may have been intercepted. The second pod is pretty much the same, so the three in town are probably the ones that were occupied.

And indeed, this is the case. Ree has no problem getting what she wants. Those pods were put into government storage--hidden, in fact, in a warehouse that looks like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The logs in these pods are intact, showing bipedal, armored, many-toothed things. The photo of the critters' ship looks weird. Obviously these things didn't want to be found. The town records are frustratingly sparse regarding the Jedi they rescued, but they do register other boxes related to "the Incident." The rest of the information seems to have been erased so the Imperials couldn't find it.

Asking around for people who might remember, Ree finds Old Ted the janitor. He tells her the story: the ship crashed, followed by '50 WtFs' as he calls them. The Jedi stopped the things, but they died in the fight. A retired engineer frmo outside of town helped erase the records, and the baby was given to the Sin family, who live fairly near Ree's family farm. Ted says Ree's granddad knew all about it.

Oola and Onna, meanwhile, go hunting for those misplaced boxes: ten 3 foot by 7 foot boxes containing dead aliens, who are preserved in tubes. The things are just...freaky. The whole head opens lengthwis. Their arms end in wicked claws. The last crate, they can't find, until they find a symbol on the wall...the last crate is the wall. The locals simply built part of the compound around the alien ship.

Ree follows up with the Sin family on the missing youngster, Rent Sin. The old man hands over a box of lightsabers, two books, and a medallion. He's kind of bitter about his lost son, though that's udnerstandable. He doesn't recall much about Mora Shevann: a bit "off," he says, a bossy kid-type jackass. She was pushy, always needed to be in charge or she'd throw fits. Ree tells him she'll keep looking for his son and return him if at all possible.

Looking over the artifacts he gave her, she notices the lightsabers are a bit unusual--perhaps not surprising if they come from a family of lightsaber artisans. The books are family journals.

The crew has dinner with Ree's family, of course. Her mom has baked extra pies, knowing that Zann was in the area. Ree tells them about achieving the rank of Master, and tells them the Sin family. They say they already know the story, which exasperates her a bit, but what can you do?

Then the fun part. "I found out I have an aunt you didn't tell me about." They kind of...uhhhh. "Why would you want to know that?" her mom finally asks. "Because she's running a school for Dark Siders on Dathomir!" Ree exclaims, getting kind of irritated by now of having to constantly pry these things out of her family. Her mom is shocked speechless. Her poor dad tries vainly to fill the silence.

Ree's mom finally says, "She wasn't insane and evil... She was domineering and vindictive." How can Ree be sure Mora would do such a thing?
"Because my cousin told me," Ree replies.
"Well, they didn't get along," her mother lamely counters.
"Jude was one year old the last time you saw her!"

Ree's mother finally says that Mora got more unstable after she began to develop...powers. They still won't say why there are no pictures of Mora before the age of two, however, and Ree's mom reacts somewhat negatively to mention of Salek Endek. She doesn't seem to have thought much of the man. Ree finally decides to let it go for the night. It's obviously painful, after all, and she doesn't want to torture her family.

The next morning, her mom's feeling a bit better. She explains how Mora showed up at the age of two in Ree's grandfather's arms. "Either he had a little indiscretion and two years later he brought a little bastard home, or else he found a twisted, abused little Jedi orphan," is her mother's summation. Wow, nursing some old wounds here. Ree's mom helps her dig out some of Grandpa's old journals, but they're in code. When she contacts him, Endek decodes some of his own for Ree. Grandpa was certainly honest. He knew about the ship and that Mora was actually a Sent. Ree can gather that Mora lost it around the same time Dalt did...and maybe Rent did, too. Maybe he went with her, or she kidnapped him. But why?

Well, they've done what they can here. Back to Coruscant. While Ree reports to the Masters' Council, Kedrihm'Val talks to Dalt again...and that gets ugly.