(Star Wars) Laika & Arlaud Book 1 - Lady Sahshin's Sepulchre
Copyright© 2026 by Clee Hill
Chapter 10
For the next week or so, life aboard the Sanbrozza settled into rough pattern, only interrupted by the occasional transitions from one hyperspace lane to another as they continued their evasive reorientations towards the Ice Planet, newly redesignated as Ísalauss. Each and every transition was handled by Arlaud, Laika there next to her in the pilot’s chair, hands on the controls, not that they were ever needed. Once Arlaud decided that piloting their ship was like dancing a slow dance with a heavily weighted partner, it all seemed to ‘click’ for her, her translations and rotations and accelerations all coming together in one smooth languorous motion. This had even been true for the past five days as they began daily, then twice daily transitions, moving away from the hyperspace lanes altogether as they dropped back to normal space, updated their astro-navigational data with new readings, and jumped again, carefully approaching Ísalauss, so very far from everywhere else that it had no beacons to guide them, only the final shreds of Laika’s painstakingly collected data.
Likewise, life aboard the Sanbrozza continued to its own rhythms. Arlaud still rose early, it being their game, now, for her to try and slip out of their shared bed unnoticed, and for Laika to detect it. She never did, always waking at 6am, finding herself alone, smiling at the tricksy elusiveness of Arlaud, and finding her in the Cargo Bay, usually dancing, sometimes simply exercising, though only a couple of times with the practice swords. They just were not her, and their use was not natural or easy for her. Watching her the one morning Laika had seen how, although she was able to move and transition, stance and block and even attack, there was always an uncomfortableness to her movements. When she danced, it was joyous, when she danced with the swords, it was not. Something to ask her father’s armourer about.
And then there was the kissing. So much kissing. Laika wondering, often, how much affection Arlaud had been starved of receiving, or giving, or even simply witnessing. Much more confident in initiating their interactions, things were still somewhat chaste, she was, she said and Laika knew, still unready for more than caresses, but Laika was more than happy with that. Always wonderfully affectionate, even if they didn’t try to ‘link’ or whatever to call it, there was a degree of connection now so that when they kissed, Laika was sure she felt it in her heart and in her soul. She knew Arlaud did, too. She could see it in her eyes, her desperate need for love, given and received, and now being satisfied.
Love.
Neither of them had said it and, so far, each had seemingly been careful not to think it aloud, but Laika knew this was more than friendship and more than affection. Their connection was too intense and too profound for that. She had been in love before, she had had affectionate ‘relationships’ before, and she had even had casual hookups before, but this was not like any of that. It was better, and that was without the sex. They still had not really spoken about what would happen next, once Ísalauss had been discovered, explored, and left behind them. It was pretty well decided they would be visiting Sardasus III, both her father and her mother, but beyond that, there was only Arlaud’s stated intention to ‘hang around’ for as long as she was wanted, that she had no plans to go anywhere else, even though she had enough money to do so. Laika was both confident that Arlaud was going to be staying, but also needed the confirmation of it, even if she was afraid to sit Arlaud down and ask her, please, never leave.
Maybe after they were done with Lady Sahshin?
“You’re dressed?” Laika smiled as she stepped into the cockpit that morning, ready for their transition into normal space for the last time. For her part Laika was in what she thought of as her ‘imperious’ clothes, a matching halter top, a pencil skirt to just below the knee, and a bolero jacket, all in soft black wool/cotton blend, with a rainbow stripe down the left side of her skirt, that rainbow ribbon also used to decorate her jacket, though only the lapels, not the cuffs. Arlaud, meanwhile, was not wearing body paint, but instead her ‘work’ clothes as she had called them, the matching leather short skirt and bra top, pale orange in colour, trimmed in darker orange, with a criss-cross pattern to the front of the bra and to the small side panels to her skirt. She had even tied her hair up, for once, it now formed into two small pigtails to the side of her head, Laika realising how much more natural she looked with it loosely falling onto her shoulders.
“Yep. Time to go to work,” she smiled.
“And promptly, too,” Laika said as she sat at the pilot’s station, S1 taking the newly installed position to the rear of the cockpit where, Laika wondered, some kind of science station might be a handy addition. Something for installing once they got to Sardasus III, she decided, a minor refit, nothing serious.
Arlaud nodded, her tone serious. “I wanted to make sure I knew what to do.”
“Which is?” Laika asked, watching the readouts, there being a few minutes before their window to drop out of hyperspace.
“Nothing,” Arlaud chuckled. “Like we’ve practiced, drop back to normal space, check our position, make sure we are at the edge of the solar system if there is one, and begin scanning, with a hand on the controls and a pre-calculated jump ready if there’s a problem.”
“How many drills have you run?”
“You mean today?”
“How many?” Laika pressed.
“A couple...”
“S1? How many drills has the Co-Pilot run this morning?”
“Six, Captain.”
“I see. And her performance?”
“Between 84% and 92%, Captain.”
Laika smiled. “And my own drills?”
“A consistent 86%, Captain.”
Laika smiled as she saw Arlaud realise who had been doing it better. “Don’t over do things,” she said softly. “I’m sure it is the same for dancers, but you can practice too much.”
“Aye, Captain,” she said, turning in her seat to pop a comic salute.
“Well then. Hydan, bring us out of hyperspace, please,” Laika said, smiling as Arlaud’s face turned a rare shade of serious as she faced her instruments, re-checking but not, Laika noted, over-checking everything was as it should be. With just a quick glance to Laika and a smile acknowledging her nod, Arlaud put one hand lightly on the control yolk, and with the other she pressed the Big Red Button. Immediately the hyperspace engines switched over to deceleration...
... as the blue streaks of light coalesced into a starry sky.
“Co-Pilot?”
Arlaud nodded for a moment as she checked the navigational data. “We have re-entered normal space, Captain. It is confirmed that Ísalauss is currently passing through a solar system, perpendicular to the plane, between the eighth and ninth planets. There are a total of eighteen planet sized bodies in the solar system, none capable of supporting life, and only two supporting an atmosphere; none are located within the golden radius of the star. We have returned to normal space approximately 1 million klicks beyond the projected orbit of the outermost planetoid, and approximately 3 million klicks from Ísalauss. There are no indications of any weapons, satellites, mines, or any other signs of technology within the range of the scanners.”
“Thank you,” Laika said, proud of how efficient and proficient Arlaud was taking this. She really did know when to be serious, she simply chose not to be very often. “Let’s take it nice and slow. Bring us in slowly, just a quarter sub-light, and if anything looks like it is more than a rock—”
“—Shoot it!” Arlaud laughed.
“Or stay out of range and call me?”
“Oh. Okay. I can do that. Instead, haha.”
Laika smiled. “I know you will. S1? Have S2 meet me in the Hangar Bay. I want to review our options for once we make orbit.”
“Acknowledged, Captain,” S1 said as Laika got out of her chair, paused to kiss Arlaud on the top of her head, and as S1 took her place at the pilot’s station, she headed for the Hangar Bay.
“That’s Ísalauss?” Arlaud asked as they were sat, the next day, back in the cockpit again. The previous day had seen the Sanbrozza take a very cautious approach through the solar system, only drawing close enough to any of the planets, moons, meteors, or major asteroids to confirm their orbits and their safety. Though they had continued to a flyby of the sun, they had returned to a very distant orbit of Ísalauss, now confirmed to be a moonless rock with an atmosphere and as horrific a weather pattern as Laika had ever observed, the planet covered in clouds from pole to pole, those clouds driven at speeds of over 100mph, with gusts over 150mph at times.
“I hope so. It certainly matches the clues I have been chasing the last couple of years. Ready to bring us in?”
“And ready to punch that button,” Arlaud said, the Big Red Button armed, the calculations made, and the hyperspace engines ready to go with no more than five seconds to complete warming up; they were already on standby, it being impossible to hold them at ready. “Do you really think we might need to?” she asked, her worry unhidden.
“I don’t know,” Laika said, almost calling her ‘gilus’, recognising that now was not the time; that wasn’t her gilus at the helm, that was her Co-Pilot. “Six hundred years is a long time, and even with self-repairing platforms, it is hard to imagine any advanced technology surviving until now. However. The Sith are famous for trying to extend their lives, and for seizing upon any possible means of doing so. If Lady Sahshin has found a way to survive, then so too will her defences.”
Arlaud’s face grew serious once more. “Course plotted, Captain.”
“Well then, Co-Pilot, bring us into range,” Laika said, watching and mirroring as Arlaud pivoted the Sanbrozza, using the sub-light engines to nudge them closer to the planet, close enough they could begin a true and proper sponsor sweep of the surface, the nose of the ship always pointed a little away from the planet in case they needed that emergency jump...
... which they didn’t.
Somewhat anticlimactically, they moved into range without incident, beginning a mapping survey of the planet with every sensor they had, building up a full geographical map up to a klick underground, providing they encountered nothing which was shielded. As they watched the data streaming in and the maps begin to split into different projections, landmasses, temperature, storms, other atmospheric conditions, etcetera, it became clear this was as inhospitable a place as it was possible to be and still be classified as a planet.
“Laika? How is there an atmosphere with no plants?” Arlaud asked, double-checking and confirming the fauna of the planet seemed to have peaked at the mitochondrial. There were no mammals, no insects, no lizards, no birds, and no oceans where fish might have lived.
“S1?” Laika said, her own grasp of planetary physics not as good as her droid’s.
“It has been theorised that chemical reactions, provoked by lightning strikes, are capable of generating an atmosphere, but this is the first known planet this ship has encountered where this seems to have been the case. It is possible that higher order lifeforms were once present and were once exterminated in some extinction-level event, but that is impossible to confirm without a more thorough survey.”
“Which someone else can do,” Laika said. “We’re here for Lady Sahshin, nothing more.”
“Was the rest of the galaxy that bad that she thought this was the best place to come?” Arlaud asked.
Laika shrugged. “Perhaps. From what we know, there is an ebb and flow there between competing factions that seemed endless. Perhaps she could imagine nowhere better.”
“That’s sad.”
“Or perhaps she was hiding for darker reasons.”
“Oh. Was she ... bad?”
Laika smiled at Arlaud’s innocently naïve question. “I imagine that depend who you ask.”
“But do you know?”
Laika nodded sadly. “It is difficult to be sure. It is a long time ago and she is from a place a long way away, but she was said to have a certain ... ruthlessness.”
“What about?” Arlaud asked, her tone quiet and awed.
“The Sith are very single minded. Once they have an objective, they do not let anything stand in their way. Or anyone. She grew to have some power and some wealth, and it is not clear she did that by selling candies,” Laika smiled. “She was also known in her time for her philosophical outlook, some of which was taught to others.”
“What like?”
“Let go of the past, and it will let go of you. Remember it, but do not hold its hand.”
“Wow. That’s ... wow.”
Laika nodded. “Someone with conviction is more dangerous than someone who lies to your face. Their truth does not matter.”
Arlaud blinked. “I, haha, I think I need to go away and meditate on those ... Oh! That’s what you do isn’t it?” she asked, eyes wide in realisation.
“Sometimes, and sometimes a cute young blonde is kissing me until I can feel my nipples fizzing.”
“Who? Where is she? What’s her name?” Arlaud teased, turning her attention back to her console as it began to beep. “Captain. Sensors have located the remains of a starship,” she said, instantly serious again as the main screen began showing a projection of the planet, a blinking red dot close to the equator and currently on the dark side indicating the location.
“Keep us below the horizon, please. S1? Do we have a drone we can send down into that?”
“Not with any guarantee of survival, no, Captain.”
“I see. How long would it survive?”
“By the time it arrived within optical range of the derelict ship, it would have already begun to fail, it’s remaining viability to perform its duties at that point estimated to be ±10 minutes at most, Captain.”
“Understood. Co-Pilot? S1? Please calculate the best possible flight path for the most time on site, and launch as soon as possible. After that, Arlaud? Can I make us dinner?”
“Ooh, yes please. I like it when you cook.”
“So do I, which is why I have no domestic droids. I’ll see you in the mess. Good work,” she said, Arlaud still beaming as Laika kissed her on the cheek before heading off to prepare their meal, a gamey stew, hearty, filling, and just the thing you need to even think about going down to such a planet.
“So we’re not going to investigate tonight?” Arlaud asked as she and Laika relaxed in the mess, dinner a success celebrated with kisses. Everything was celebrated with kisses. Nobody complained even if, privately, Laika kept wondering how little affection Arlaud had had during her life. Not enough, she promised.
Laika shook her head. “We can wait a few hours and launch the drone in the morning. That way S1 has more time to survey the rest of the planet, and we can be fresh and ready to react to whatever happens. We know there are signs of some kind of artificial entrance nearby, so it is likely that Lady Sahshin had established her place to live there. Here, below the horizon, I am less concerned about anything detecting us and acting upon it. As we move closer to grab that stream of data, as I say, fresh hands at the controls cannot be a bad thing.”
“So ... early night?” Arlaud smirked.
“You’re feeling tired?”
“No. I, I need to be hugged.”
Laika turned and beckoned, Arlaud climbing onto her lap and into her embrace. “Tell me.”
“She wasn’t nice, was she?”
Laika looked into Arlaud’s eyes for a moment. The flippant answer was no, but nobody is. She deserved better. “No, she wasn’t. There have been much worse than she, Sith and especially the Jedi, but no, she was not a nice person and there were a lot of dead people in her wake.”
“But she stopped.”
“She did. She stopped, she left, and she was never heard of again. I don’t even know how long she was here for. There is nothing she could grow or hunt to feed herself with, but who knows what resources she brought, or whether she visited neighbouring systems as Ísalauss passed through, people with no idea who she was, and bought supplies from them. She could have come here simply to die, or she could have lived for a very long time. From some of what she wrote before she disappeared I think she came her to escape it all, nothing more.”
“What did she write?”
Laika thought for a moment, capturing her words in her mind and recasting them a little into modern Standard. “The only way to extinguish a lightsabre is to extinguish a life.”
“Yikes! That’s bleak.”
“And not true, either,” Laika said, her words deliberately and obstinately upbeat. “They are not just a weapon, they are a tool, even a test.”
“How?”
“The greater your connection with the Force, the rengan, the easier they are to wield, becoming almost weightless in the hands of some.”
“Like you?”
Laika smiled. “On a good day.”
“So that’s why the meditation? The closer to the Force you are, the easier you can use your lightsabre?”
Laika nodded. “And, now...” ... the closer I feel to you, gilus.
I love this too, Arlaud thought, giggling as Laika picked her up, carried her to their room, and after she had unwrapped her, she kissed every last doubt and misgiving from her mind and body.
9am prompt the next morning and they were in the cockpit once more, Arlaud at the controls, Laika beside her, S1 hard connected to the terminal socket at the rear of the cockpit, the secondary Hangar Bay depressurising ahead of the drone’s launch.
“Everything ready?” Laika asked, sounding as casual as she could; Arlaud had needed a lot of kissing last night, and had been quite subdued this morning, a side of her she hadn’t really seen until now, finding it almost alien.
“The drone has been ‘juiced’,” Arlaud said, managing a smile, that being, seemingly, her term for the work done by D2 overnight to try to better proof the drone against the excesses of the local weather. “S1 is plugged in, helm is hot, and we are 8 degrees below the horizon.”
“Very well then, Co-Pilot, bring us up with a slow approach to the drop zone.”
“Captain,” Arlaud nodded, very business-like, as she manoeuvred them higher, relative to the derelict site, until they were above the horizon...
... and nothing. No alarms, no screaming new sensor data, nothing.
“Can I breathe out now, Captain?” Arlaud teased, not looking away from the helm.
“I think we call can,” Laika smiled, chuckling at her co-pilot’s ‘phew’ as they began their approach, everyone continually scrutinising the view out of the window, not that it showed them much, as well as the data streaming in, in more granular detail, now, but all simply reconfirming what they had already established from orbit. This was a cold dead planet with really bad weather systems, and that was it.
“Drone release in 3... 2... 1,” Arlaud said, pressing a specially configured button on her console as the doors of the secondary Hangar Bay opened and the internal cameras showed the drone flying out. Like the Sanbrozza, it too was vaguely clam-like in shape, with added control surfaces to enhance operation in atmosphere, plating to counteract the heat of atmospheric entry, and even a small navigational shield emitter, fitted overnight, to protect the drone until it arrived on site, when it would be switched off and the race for telemetry before destruction would begin.
Silently, Laika and Arlaud watched the dual screens, one showing optical feed, the other tracking data, as the drone eased its way into the atmosphere, its engines struggling to keep it on course, correction following correction as the drone descended through the storms and the clouds, the optical feed showing nothing recognisable until it burst through the bottom of the cloud layer. Now it had only the winds to deal with, data showing them still gusting over 100mph locally but averaging a much more manageable 30mph outside of those gusts.
“Flyable,” Laika muttered as the drone’s internal scans confirmed it had only suffered a 28% hit to its operational abilities.
“Amazing,” Arlaud whispered, watching as the drone came into view of the landing area. Whatever Lady Sahshin’s starship had once been, it was not that any longer. The spine had long since caved in, the main hull falling away to either side, further exposing the interior to the weather. There was not much left, even the superstructure succumbing, leaving only a skeleton with scraps of hull here and there surviving.
“Do you think it can fly?” Laika smiled.
“Not without a Force push,” Arlaud giggled, that being one of their newer practiced techniques; she was improving but not what S1 would rate as ‘competent’.
“Okay. Why not send the drone in closer then?” Laika said, watching as Arlaud did just that. If this was Lady Sahshin’s last resting place, it was a lifeless place. Everywhere was snow and ice, cut and carved by the wind, the short path from the landing pad to the shadowed entrance looking perilously uneven. As the drone drew closer, it’s lights illuminating the passageway carved into the mountain, it showed a surprisingly intact corridor, running deeper inside than the drone could penetrate from outside without the rock breaking the connection, the walls seemingly one single piece of stone, the surface looking almost liquid like.
“How did she do that, on her own?” Arlaud asked.
“Her lightsabre would cut that quite easily. Or perhaps she had droids with her.”
“Sensors are indicating no active power cells,” S1 said.
“Or she used the Force to help clear the way,” Laika shrugged. “If she was powerful enough, and everything I have heard about her says she would have been.”
“But not enough to fix the weather?” Arlaud joked.
“Some people like the weather to be dramatic.”
Arlaud shook her head. “I loved to be out in the fields in the summer.”
“And as you grew older?” Laika asked, carefully.
Arlaud shrugged. “It was just nice to be outside, even when it rained, but it was nicer when it didn’t.”
“I see. Have I ever told you that my father’s estate is in the temperate region of my home world? My mother’s, too?”
“Can we go now?” Arlaud asked, knowing the answer; they both did.
“Let’s deal with Lady Sahshin, first. After that we can send a message to my father.”
“Wow! Really!? I can meet a Prince?”
“You can, but not for a month or so. We have a long trip back before we can take the hyperspace lane through the Sardasus system.”
“That’s okay. I can practice lots of paint patterns so I can make a good impression.”
“You will, don’t you worry. Now, why don’t we see about finding a safe place to land the Sanbrozza so we can put our snow gear to good use?”
“We’re going now?”
“The drone is finding no reason not to.”
“Oh. I, I thought we were being cautious?”
“We are, Arlaud. I want us to be able to land as close as possible, and we can send a couple of drones to clear the path, making it safe. We will also be keeping the hyperspace engines online.”
“But I thought you said you can’t jump to hyperspace inside a planet’s atmosphere?”
“I said it was not a good idea. That didn’t mean that you couldn’t, but you would risk setting fire to the local atmosphere if you did. With nothing here to worry about, if it’s us or the atmosphere, there is no contest.”
“Oh. Okay then, so, landing pad search begins,” Arlaud announced as they very thoroughly surveyed the small mountain top where Lady Sahshin seemed to have settled, and the bottom of a small valley between it and the next nearest mountain, not too far away from where the wreck of Lady Sahshin’s spaceship lay. The atmospheric entry proved not to be too bad, the larger bulk of the Sanbrozza, the greater area of control surfaces, and the assistance of the various inertial compensatory meaning that they were able to drop through the clouds buffeted but still on course, Arlaud bringing the Sanbrozza to rest on its landing struts with an assurance that impressed Laika. The ship was still settling into place, adjusting the struts to ensure the ship was level, and already a small flock of drones was released to scan and map the site to the tiniest detail. Defying S1’s earlier predictions, the first drone was still on site, exploring the entrance to the ruin, a sealed door preventing it from going any further for now.
“I can’t move!” Arlaud complained as she and Laika stood in the airlock of the port side gangway, still closed, for now at least keeping out the cold.
In the end it had taken the drones longer than anticipated to clear and make safe a path to the entrance to Lady Sahshin’s last resting place, that path having to zigzag its way up the side of the valley so that it was possible to walk without too much danger of falling. Though the snow and the ice had been cleared, melted with heated bits until the chunks could be broken down enough to be lifted away, beneath there was nothing but rock, and they did not really have the time or the equipment to carve stairs. So they had compromised with a low gradient series of smaller paths, one atop the other, almost, taking them to their destination.
The weather had not helped. Though the wind at that altitude was now ‘only’ gusting between 40-50mph, that was more than sufficient to ensure their progress would be slow and painstaking. At least it was not snowing, although at -12°C that had still guaranteed they were in their ‘snow gear’. This meant, for both of them, a unitard underneath everything that was made of a micro-corded woollen blend, over which their wore specially insulated trousers, and over the tops of which they wore an insulated shirt with a second looser top over that. Their feet were inside double layered socks, the inner layer micro-corded wool, again, and the outer knitted wool which was uncomfortable but necessary, and warm. Their boots were well up over their ankles, fur lined, and tightly laced to help protect their ankles if they should fall. Their hands were in two sets of gloves, more micro-corded wool with mittens over the top whose fingers couple be pulled back if they needed to do any fine work. Their heads were kept warm inside a balaclava, over which they wore a second hat, leaving only their eyes visible, except they were not; they wore laminated visors to protect them from the cold and the glare, the local sun close enough to illuminate without granting them any heat. S1 had theorised this may have been having an effect upon the weather, but neither druid was a scientific specialist. Finally they were both wearing jackets over their tops, these being heavily lined for warmth and coming up to their necks, the hoods of which had been folded back to form ersatz scarfs.
There was, in short, only the skin around their eyes that was covered in one layer of clothing, the rest being covered with two or more.
“S1 cautioned us against running,” Laika smiled, hoping her voice conveyed what could not be seen. Indeed, S1 had given them a very thorough briefing, observing the planet seemed to hold to a 26 hour day, and they had approximately 8 hours to complete their initial survey before night would come and movement would be too treacherous. Not that they expected it would come to it, but both women were carrying insulated water flasks in their jacket pockets as well as more of the energy bars Arlaud had stolen what felt, now, like a lifetime ago. Laika also had her lightsabre with her, in case of anything they might need to defend themselves from. Just because there had been no defences and no traps yet did not mean they could continue riding their luck.
“I know, but almost an hour just to get up to the top?”
“We need to conserve our energy, gilus. The cold will tire us, even under all of this.”
“I’ve never been in the cold before. Nothing like this. We had winter in Comisetti, but, hah, we were usually indoors unless we were being taken to the spa, and that was amazing, being so hot when it was, er, not really cold at all.”
Laika nodded. “We’ll take you to a spa again, don’t worry. Ready?”
“Ready,” Arlaud confirmed, all humour gone from her voice, Laika again reminded how her young friend could turn her seriousness on and off as she needed to.
“Ready,” Laika replied, keying the ramp to lower and the door to release as they stepped down the steps in the middle of the ramp.
“Oh that’s cold!” Arlaud gasped, Laika nodding her agreement as the ice-chilled wind hit their lungs, making them abruptly grateful for all the layers of warm insulation as they began their ascent, not talking, not even talking as they concentrated on making good time, both slipping several times, never enough to make them fall, but always enough to make them promise, aloud, to be more careful. The drones had done their best, but even if they had burned the ice down to the bare stone, with wind would have chilled the atmospheric water over it, re-coating it in yet more ice.