**The Wayfinders Find a Way**
Tahiri had thought that sending her 2 diplomatic Jedi-types and their fast new luxury light freighter to serve as the research and scouting vessel to assist the Wayfinder Society on a mission to study a migrating pod of Purgils was a great idea. It was a rather large migrating pod at that , over 30 full grown space whales migrating from their ancestral homes in a rogue asteroid field near the Ralltir system to some other galaxy.
What she had not known was that Kalen secretly, though understandably, had a deep and raw hatred for Purgils. And to be honest you couldn't really blame him for his hatred when you consider the fact that Purgils had killed about 96% of people Kalen had ever known. Of the 50,000 that had begun riding the wake of the whales in that far away galaxy where Kalen and 2 generations of survivors had spent the last 70 odd years.
When Kalen read the mission profile he had even considered outright rejecting the mission and telling Tahiri to find someone else to do the mission. But a sense of professionalism and the large amount of bonus pay that came attached with the mission had changed his mind.
So with that the Corra IV hosted 4 Collegium scientists with a bunch of sensor probes and other equipment for a 4 day round trip to study the pod of whales. Kalen had asked if Karracca wouldn't mind leading the mission for the most part, and made some story about wanting to focus on his meditations. Karracca, though, knew enough of Kalen's backstory he intuited that it might have something to do with the Purgils and readily accepted.
The first 3 days had gone without incident. The scientists were studying the Purgils at one of their last feeding ground before they began their long journey across intra galactic space; they would move back away from the large pod before they departed on their long journey the next day, and study their departure from a distance. Then a knock suddenly came at Kalen's cabin door as he was reading a Jedi tome. It was a Style Ataru training manual, and was nearly 700 pages long, but it just so happened that 38 of the pages near the end of the large leather bound book were actually written by his grandfather. Zujenia of COU had been kind enough to send him a link to an antique dealer who had a copy for sale and Kalen had received the Tome only days before they left to pick up the scientists.
“Yeah, what's up?”
“Oh, Master Joss, Master Karracca begs your pardon but he would like to know if you would kike to say anything to the Purgils sir.” His protocol droid said through the door.
Kalen was a bit dumbstruck. Say something to them? The monsters that killed almost everyone he knew ...wait a second, he thought it over, and realized the implied statement in what D-3PO said was that they could actually speak to them. Kalen and his people had never been able to actually make contact with the whales, they simply jumped to hyperspace in the wake of the pod and had ridden that the whole way home. He spring out of his bed and headed to the bridge.
After several minutes of explaining his backstory to the scientist operating the translator device, Kalen finally got to what he wanted to ask the Purgils. The scientists thought for a few as to how best to word the question Kalen wanted answered. Kalen looked out the bridges large cockpit window at mid sized, presumably adolescent Purgil that was sitting face to face with the ship.
After typing on the device for a bit the Purgil made a noise in response.
“He says yes, that pod that travels through an area of space is a distant cousin of his. He said they will be meeting them at their mating grounds next winter.” The scientist said.
Kalen thought for a minute “Can you ask him if he heard about a story of 5 ships that hitched a ride with that pod about 8 months ago?”
“Sure.” The scientists typed away for a minute and the Purgil burped another response. “He said, yeah, they heard a story about that. He referred to the ships as ‘wake surfers’. They were all sorry to hear that one of the ships was destroyed sadly…”
“Wait, only 1? What happened to the other 3?” Kalen asked hurriedly, realizing he only saw his mother and fathers vessel actually destroyed. The other 3 dreadnaughts just hadn't arrived with them. This meant Kalen's cousins and roughly 35000 other people might still be alive.
The Purgil replied to the scientists once again “He says he heard that 3 of the wake surfers had fallen off on the way.”
Over the next 30 minutes the adolescent Purgil had gone and brought back his mother, the pod leader and Kalen was able to ask if they could relay a message to their cousins and have them try to rescue the ships that had ‘wiped out’ on their way back.
The scientists smiled when he read the translation “She says you seem like a good lad and she will relay the message. Though her cousins may not appreciate freeloaders trying to hitch a ride, from your story I can tell that you meant no harm. They will return to the place where they dropped you off in about a year and a half, I will ask them to drop off any surviving ships they find there for you.”
Kalen processed his thanks to the large old Purgil and then went back to his cabin, and began crying tears of joy. His people might not all be dead after all.