Knight no more

by hatten-jc

The new adventures of Xander and his crew. The sequel to Knight away

1. Chapter 1 to 5

Knight no more

Fiction: Knight no more.
This is the second part of the KnightVerse story.

Author: John "hatten" Carlsson

Beta: Corwin Verner (Hawklan) and Inachis

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. Or so I claim, except a strange sense of humor.
X-over: Probably many. But first is Buffy and Star wars.

Note: If you find errors we overlooked send me an email and I fix them asap.

Chapter 1

Coruscant, the capital of the known galaxy and the seat form which the Old Republic, the Empire and the New Republic all once ruled from was now the seat of the Galactic Republic. What remained of the New Republic transformed in record time to a paranoid dictatorship, ruled by a small group of rich and powerful worlds and sectors.

It had outlawed Jedi Knights, declared them Knights no more, simply outlaws to be arrested at sight.

It was the wrong world for any Jedi to visit.

Naturally, that did not stop some Jedi.

Rednax, Captain of the Klingon and honest owner of the armed merchant vessel the Klingon, was not the type of person who cared for politics. He was a trader and a mercenary gone legal. Working for the Worf Trading Company, he carried cargo where ever they wanted it to go. Rumors said that Rednax always surrounded himself with good looking and young girls. Most believed he was a pervert or a sex addict. Rednax only grinned like a pervert at the rumors and most of the girls only blushed.

That was what his papers said and that was what the rumors said about him.

Rednax was in fact Jedi Master Xander Harris Solo and the girls were his wife, Jedi Master Jaina Organa Solo and his other wife Danni Solo and their guardians and protectors Rona and Chloe.

For this journey Lexa Harris and the two newcomers Buffy and Willow had also joined them.

The two newcomers and his sister had not been happy about the reputation Captain Rednax had.

Xander just shrugged. "Its Lando's fault, he spread the rumors as a joke. Who knows how it took on its own life, but it protects us. People knew that Jedi Xander flies around in a ship that resembles a Ghatroc and has a ship full of student girls and fighters. So does Rednax, but the difference is that Rednax is a pervert. Put up some nasty pictures on the walls and nobody will question or even consider that the Klingon and the Enterprise might be the same ship."
Buffy blinked. "That's why you and Danni were hanging up those perverted paintings," she said with sudden realization.

Xander gave her a pervert glare. "If you think Rednax is nasty, just imagine what kind of a girl, a girl must be who willingly becomes a part of HIS crew," he said, giggling as he looked her over.

Buffy and Willow blushed.

Danni smirked, the pictures were nice. If only she could convince Xander and Jaina to have orgies with Buffy and Willow, she quickly dried the drool, and the boys that sometimes joined them.

Lexa and her best friend Dawn were too busy to look at the sights to listen what they were saying. The two 15 year olds were awed by all the new things they could see.

Jaina laughed. "Keep it down. All of you." Coruscant was not the place to be discovered.

It is an impressive, wonderful and scary place. Rumors have it that you can learn about the whole galaxy just by visiting the different areas of Coruscant. So many aliens and visitors had made a permanent imprint of the world city that you could find anything or everything in the cavern like under regions of the town or on the tower like sky scrapers that filled the sky.

"So, what are we going to do?" Willow asked.

Jaina smiled. "We girls are going to the shopping mall, while Rednax over there has fun in a famous strip club," she said, smirking.

Lexa looked at her brother "Uuuh... Why Xan?" she asked.

Xander sighed. "Remember, I'm Rednax and I have friends in those places," he said. He had indeed friends where he was going, friends with important information.

Lexa blinked and then nodded. "Right, but ihks," she said.

Buffy rolled her eyes. The 007 game was a bit irritating, but she understood the need for it. "Right, but being at a mall for the whole time? Not that I complain, but it's not going to take that much time, is it?"

"I said THE shopping mall. It's the greatest single shopping mall in the galaxy. You could spend a month inside and still not see everything." Jaina answered her.

The girls were drooling as Jaina continued, Xander just shrugged. THE Shopping mall was big, but not the biggest in the galaxy. It did have perhaps the greatest assortment of different things from the whole galaxy when it comes to fashion and other things useful in the home. Some of the others that were the same size or bigger were that big because they had weapon traders, armor markets or starships dealers.

"It's not the biggest," Xander said. "That one we visited on Nar Shadda? It's bigger."

Jaina shook her head. "No, that's a market, an inside market. This is a shopping mall." Why could he not see the difference?
"Shopping malls were made for beings to shop for what they need and have FUN. Markets were made for beings to shop for what they need and go home, right away, directly, now. "

Xander blinked. "No difference. I feel the same way in both places." Unless it was a shop with starship parts, now that was fun to shop in.

Jaina hung her head in defeat. "Aargh, you are a barbarian," she said, disgusted, and her beloved husband just looked proud.

The girls vanished, leaving him alone.

-KNM-

Later in the darker parts of the city

The music was pumping and half nude and totally nude beings were dancing on the stage. Girls of different species, mostly humans and twi'leks, were having sex or doing other exciting things all around.

Xander looked on, trying to be excited and thanks to Danni's help, he did keep up his appearance of enjoyment. As Jedi he could feel that most of the girls that worked here, around 80 % or more, wanted out of the place. They regretted or even hated what they were doing. The feeling of drug use was heavy in their minds.

Danni licked his ears to keep him excited or at least looking excited. This place was awful. Not like a strip club on her planet. The Zeltron's were empaths and only girls or boys that wanted to work were exciting to watch and feel. In this place it felt like most of them were forced to by desperate need or greed, not by excitement or passion. It was awful.

"Rednax, been a long time since I last saw you," a drunk, bearded man, Xander's age, said as he drunkenly sat down beside him.

Xander started. "Sabaco, this is a surprise," he said, shaking the other man's hand. His real name was Athar Karde.

Athar was a street kid, adopted and trained by Talon Karde. The two were unlike most fathers and sons, both cared for the other. Athar wanted to be all that Talon was and more. To keep his dreams and the legacy of the Karde name alive. Talon was just happy to have an eager student and that was exactly what Athar was, a great student in the art of smuggling, spying and information gathering. Not even Mara Jade had known about Athar until Talon Karde had told her about him one year ago.

Athar smirked. "So Rednax, is she your girl only or are you shearing her?" He grinned and grabbed Danni at the breast.

Xander smiled. "Danni, do you think you need more man than I am?" he said, looking at the other.

Danni smiled suggestively as she stopped Athar's hand with her own. Massaging his fingers and slowly, tenderly kissing his hand, she quickly let a small data card fall into his hand. While she massaged his hand, she also removed a data card from his hand.

The change of information was done and nobody could see it.

Athar's grin widened. "Don't look like that to me," he said smugly.

Xander rose up, looking angry as he grabbed Athar. "Listen Sabaco. We might be coworkers sometimes, but piss me of like that and I put your head into a meat grinder. Understand?" he said.

Around them the music silenced.

Athar nodded. "Yea sure," he said. The information exchange was done. "Listen, don't think you can piss me of too much. There are guys with hostile guard snakes. Do you get it Rednax?" he said as he pushed Xander's arms away.

Xander nodded. "I get it." Guard snakes. Hostile guard snakes, if what Athar said was true than the Republic was growing Ysalamir, the force lizards that neutralized the use of the Force around them.

Jedi hunters.

Meeting in this place meant that Athar wasn't sure about the security of his fake id or Xander's fake id, and thus a theater was played. He could sense that Athar had watchers. They didn't seem to care about what was seemingly taking place. So it seemed to have worked.

"Sabaco, if you still need work, Worf Trading does like to hire competent people," he said, pretending to offer his friend work.

Athar shrugged. "I'm not desperate yet, but if I need a lift, I may ask you." not that he would. He had other escape ways planned. "I'm starting to feel too sober. See you later," he said as he walked back to the bar.

Danni squirmed against Xander's side. "Let's go to our room and have some fun. All this fighting's gotten me all excited," she said in her best I'm so brain dead voice.

Xander nodded as he groped her on the way out. "Sure sugar sure." Both of them felt that Athar watchers ignored them. Believing they were just what they pretended to be, a pervert starship captain and his whore.

-KNM-

At the same time

"I refuse." Buffy said. "No way is a shopping mall going to defeat me," she cried out.

Beside her Jaina, Willow, Lexa, Dawn, Rona and Chloe were sitting, hanging by the walls or on a chair near a cafe. "I thought she was the vampire slayer and not the mall slayer," Chloe said.

Jaina sighed. "Buffy, there are over 600 cubic km of shopping stores built in this mall. Give up, you visited four or five percent of the human stores today. That's 19 hours of nonstop no rest shopping. We're dying here. Please give it up, it's too much."

Dawn's legs were trembling as she stood on a repulsor platform. "No, we have to keep shopping. Never surrender."

Jaina slapped her hands over her face. "You've collapsed twice Dawn. Give up." She and Danni were the only ones who knew about Lando and Xander's private bet.

Now she understood why Xander had refused to follow Buffy into a shopping mall. At first she believed Xander was an idiot, taking that the risk and the bags of goods they had somehow gotten extra price on was huge.

"Please, I'm dying," Willow whined. At first she had been so happy that the kind old Lando Calrissan had given them an almost unlimited credit-stick that they could use inside the shopping mall, but in the hands of Buffy it looked like a sure sign of doom.

-KNM-

Later in the ship

Xander was not confused or shocked as a repulsor taxi stopped outside the ship and a driver asked if he could help him off load the tired sleeping passengers and a truck load of gods they had. He was a bit surprise that it literally was a truckload; a second repulsor skiff was parked behind the repulsor cap.

Loaded with stuff, it must've been 9 tons of stuff.

Xander grinned. Lando would be so pissed off. He had managed to win a bet against Lando. He had said something about them being fine moneywise unless he let Buffy and Dawn go on a shopping spree. Those two girls could spend a fortune. Lando had laughed and said that that was fine. No way those two girls could spend that much and a second bet was made.

Buffy, Willow, Dawn, Rona and Chloe had to be kept uninformed about the bet. The credit-stick would work only for 20 hours from the moment the first things were paid for or until 4 million credits were spent, whichever came first. They would have to shop for more than 1 million, if not, the CGT in the Enterprise would be Lando's CGT and it was worth much more than 4 million and if the girls did manage to shop for more than a measly million, 10 % of the final bill would be his and Jaina's.

(CGT = Crystal Gravity Trap.)

Seeing the price tag, he grinned again. Sweet, over 3 million in useless stuff, that would be over 300 000 credits for him and Jaina.

Danni, also knowing about the bet, was in awe. She had asked Buffy that she would buy something for both of them and she apparently bought something for all of them and more and what is an aqualis bio light?

Xander blinked, reading the instruction. It was filled with a glowing plankton like lifeform, as long as normal air surrounded it, it would glow. If the air ever became stalled or dangerous for human life forms, the bio light would die.

"Nice, better than a bird," Xander said, remembering how they used birds in cages to see if the air was breathable in the old mines on Earth.

The bio light looked like a small painting, glowing with white, yellow, green, red, pink and blue light, constantly and slowly shifting the color. It reminded Xander of a lava lamp. That would be something to hang on the wall, kind of a hippy thing.

-KNM-

At the same time

Republic intelligence HQ

"So what can you tell me about the activity of the girls?" The officer said as he stared at the two tired agents.

"They are crazy, absolutely crazy. They spend more than 3.400000 creds in there," the first agent said.

The other added. "They got me a new body cloak and boots," she shrugged. "I got too close and the blond one started to buy things for me, until she realized I wasn't part of her gang." She shivered. "It was crazy and I'm keeping the cloak and the boots."

The officer nodded weakly. "Right, if the report is correct, then Rednax is just a trader, a successful trader, with a tendency of going around with a shipload of hired whores. A stupid way of spending your money," he sighed. "And I was so sure he was a Federation agent and a Jedi."

One of the agents nodded. The other was looking at her new boots. They really did look good on her.

-KNM-

Next day

Xander was happy. 340 500 credits were his and Jaina's. Buffy, company and he had anything they would ever need in useless stuff. Looking at a portable micro nav-computer, he mentally added, and some useful objects too, if it actually worked as advertised.

Jaina's legs were still tired after the shopping day born in a twisted Sith torture chamber.

Whatever power the Summer's girls had inside a shopping mall was a terrifying thing to behold.

In the galley Xander was sitting behind the holo-theater, watching death reports.

"It's here right?" she asked him.

A moment he seemed to ignore her. Then he slowly looked at her. "No, I don't think so. The Beast has changed his standard way of hunting," he said. "It seems to be smarter than the other monsters."

On the holo picture they could see a picture of a Duros with her neck ripped open and the blood drained.

Jaina shivered. "Vampire."

Xander just nodded.

Chapter 2

-Flashback-

Shesharile 5

Crunsh, a Lieutenant in the special swoop law unit, had seen much, but this was not normal. "Master Xander, what do you make out off this?" he asked his friend, THE Jedi Master of the Shesharile system.

The Jedi looked pensive as he noted the signs. Three humans with their necks ripped open, but no sign of blood left in their bodies.

"Something that should not exist," he said with hunted eyes as he looked at Crunsh. "Did any of the droids or security cameras get a recording?" he asked.
Crunsh nodded. "Looked mighty strange," he walked up to the smaller guy and said: "Listen Rednax we're friends, right?" The Jedi nodded as the Lieutenant used the fake name he once used to infiltrate them. "The guys here were dealers, Death Sticks, the works, and even body organs. If they could earn money, they did it," he looked pensive. "We've been hunting them for months now, then this. Whoever did this, did us a favor, but this is not an act done by a onetime criminal. Whoever killed them enjoyed it and the next time his target might be an innocent. So tell me who or what did it."
Xander nodded. "Is that all of the gang?" he asked.

Crunsh frowned, "No. Two bodies are missing. We found evidence of their bodies, some blood and body tissues that indicate that they were also killed. Why? "

Xander sighed. "I hope I'm wrong. This is of the record, until I got evidence of what it is. DO not put it on any official record, got me Crunch?" He saw that the big ex- biker agreed. "It's a parasite, a vampire parasite. It takes over a body when it's on the brink of death. The infection is almost direct.

Consciousness, compassion, love and care, it's all gone. What is left is a monster, a monster that can create more of his breed. I hope I'm wrong. I really do hope it's just another sick mass murderer," he said, sensing a disturbance, a deep dark feeling of wrong. The dark side of the Force had been strong in this room only days before.

Crunch frowned. "I see."

-KNM-

Later in the record room of the law officers

The tech talked constantly, carrying a cup of cav and a bag of sweet bread with him. "The holo-recording is like a bad jump," he said.
(Bad-Jump = mistake in Hyperspace travel. Bad things happen. Bad Jump = something really bad, strange or scary has happened.)

Xander nodded. "Just like my honeymoon, then," he said with a smirk.

Crunsh laughed. He had heard from both Jaina and Xander about their honeymoon from hell. "Yea, I remember that story."

The tech perked up curiously. "What? What happened?"

Xander shook his head. "Nothing much, my wife and me were just attacked by some enemies. Spend most of the time fighting or running for our lives."

The tech nodded. "Bad jump. Right, watch this," he said.

The record was a bad holo, made by a R4 unit guarding his master's repulsor car. Outside the car they could see dead guy no 1 and dead guy no 2 carrying a blanket with something human sized rolled into it. As the two criminals dropped the bag, he could see part of a human head; the rest was hidden by the blanket.

"It's not smoking," he said to himself. It could survive in sunlight.

The second recording was from one of the criminals' own cameras.

The dead guy was standing up. Now you could see the face. It was vampirish, but twisted, like the master of Sunnydale. The vampire himself seemed shocked about something. He was watching something on the wall and was touching his own face before he smashed his fist in the wall in a fit of rage.
Now Xander knew what it was the vampire had been looking at, as a fragment of the mirror landed before the vampire. "Stop the record. Can you zoom in on the fragment of the mirror?"

The tech nodded. Xander frowned. It had a reflection. The potential slayer mutated. Buffy and Willow had almost died. Tony said it felt like something had been removed from their bodies and souls when they came to this universe. The Slayer spirit and the ability to use magic were gone, but some power was keeping them alive, letting the Force slowly replace what had been removed.

A mystical power leaked out of the girl Dawn, Buffy's sister, which kept the other two alive and perhaps kept this vampire alive as well, until it could adapt to the dark side. Buffy's sister had also been surprised, but Buffy had explained it. Dawn held the power of the Key, a dimensional key.
It felt almost like the vortex he himself could control.

It explained how they were alive. The source of the reason why they came here was a wish. Apparently a vengeance demon took the chance to save the world by removing the Key from the grasp of a hell goddess. Dawn's body to had adapted and changed to fit in this universe. He wasn't sure she even had the key inside of her any more or if it too had been changed or even destroyed.

A vampire, a mutated Dark-force vampire, he shrugged. "Right, normal record thanks."

Crunsh frowned. Xander had seen something in that close up, but what?

The criminals heard the sound of the breaking mirror and the vampire attacked them. Some blood splashed by. The sound of fighting was heard and then there was silence, a moment later the sound of somebody screaming in Basic and another voice in English. Xander translated. "He's asking Victim no 3. Where am I? Tell me or I kill you."

Then the sound of a dying criminal.

The vampire was back, cleaning himself in the bathroom.

He walked out again. "No wait, move back." The tech pulled the recording back.

Crunsh gaped at what he saw. "Spawn of the Sith" he said in awe. The vampire was moving back and forth, almost invisible. You could see the room on the other side of the body, like a living shadow.

Xander sighed. A sound of a door opening and Criminal no 4 came into sight. Then again the sound of a battle, outside of the camera's eye, then a sudden move and the camera fell down on the floor, aimed at the right direction. He could see what was happening in the room again.

Criminal no 4 was on the floor, drained off blood, and the vampire was feeding him his blood.

"I can give you a close up," the tech said.

Xander nodded. "Do that." he said.

Once again the vampire was bending over and feeding blood to the dying criminal no 4. Blood was pouring out when suddenly something big left the vampire's body and landed on the floor. A blood red worm, it dried up and turned to dust in less than a minute. The vampire moved away from the body, watching. Then he walked out. He returned half an hour later carrying a teenage girl.

The sound of the girl screaming and begging for mercy and also the sounds of an ongoing rape were heard.

-KNM-

Eight hours later

Criminal no 4 sat up screaming.

The vampire gave him the girl and then he fed the dying teenager blood from the criminal, showing him how to turn others. An argument started between them. With one of them not understanding English and the other Basic, vampire no 2, formally known as criminal no 4, activated a translator droid.
Xander frowned. "They had a translator droid in the bathroom?" The tech shrugged.

"The recording stops about here." The tech said. "A short moment later the two must have gone away. From the fact that the Translator is missing, they must have taken that and the girl's body with them."

Xander looked at the recordings. "I need a copy. That Crunsh, is a vampire, and it just created two more vampires." He looked at the big strong ex swooper. "No compassion, no sense of right and wrong. They hunt in packs and like you said. Spawn of Sith."

There was silence.

"Bad jump," the tech guy said again.

He was right.

-KNM-

They had found the girl four days later.

She had sneaked away to murder her old school friends just because she wanted to be a cool criminal. Crunsh had helped him keep the capture a secret. What they found was interesting and could perhaps be considered torture.

1. The vampire girl was alive. Her heart beat was 1/6 of a normal human and she needed air to breathe, but less than a normal human.
2. The face was twisted into a permanent vampire face.
3. The body had strange worms inside of it. They were around 4 cm long. It seemed they carried the vampire's sickness over to the infected.
4. She was strong, perhaps 3 times stronger and faster than a normal girl.

They had seen the vampire turn into a shadow. It could cloak itself, and both mortal eyes and sensors had a hard time spotting them. They were not invisible, just difficult to see, and it showed the power of mind manipulation. The teenager seemed less smart than she had been before, more willful and aggressive, less in control of her emotions. Anger, lust, hunger, hate and envy ruled her and worst, it hated any Jedi because they used the lightside of the Force. It felt it inside of them and hated them for it.

The new breed could be weaker in physical things than normal vamps, but they had powers that could affect the mind. Mirrors and holy symbols did not work. Sunlight or normal light hurt their eyes. They were extremely light sensitive. They could eat normal food, but they also needed blood or they would become weaker, while draining the blood and absorbing the life energy from another living being often seemed to enhance their strength and speed.
The light sensitive eyes explained the sunglasses she had had on in a half dark room.

They could be hurt by using Force Light. It burned away the worms inside of their bodies and that was what had killed her. The body slowly turned to slime in front of their eyes and so began the great vampire hunt on Shesharile 5.

Later, the vampires showed they were hard to kill and could survive twice as much damage as a human could. Unless you got a direct killing shot, they healed in minutes or hours, depending on how damaged they were.

A month later Buffy was moving again and, with the help of Rona and Chloe, fifteen vampires had been killed. The infection here was over, but Crunsh found out one was on a ship going to the core worlds.

End flashback.

Chapter 3

Xander mused: "So, from what I can see, our friend is hunting and creating a new brood, only one or two, no more. It seems like he limits the number of turned vampires in his service. Only the most obedient need ably."

Jaina nodded. "It's still a danger. We have to hunt it down," she said.

Xander wasn't so sure about that. "Feel it Jaina. The Beast has left the planet, yesterday or even today. What's here now, are just leftovers or worse, a distraction."

Jaina frowned as she felt around. Xander was right. They could feel the presence of a vampire, just not where it was. "Unless he's hiding on the other side of the planet far away from us," she said.

Xander nodded. "I give you that, but no, I don't think our friend is here anymore. This is a smart guy. He's looking for something. There are too many guards and soldiers, too many dangers on this world. No, he wanted out of here. Whatever is left is a distraction and a distraction we either have to deal with or trust that the natives can handle them," he said, frowning. The Beast was a former scholar that had turned mercenary thief during the war, too smart and tricky for comfort. He had kept the alpha vampire from Earth alive, but then dusted him once he knew nothing more of value.

Jaina frowned. She remembered the deaths the vampire they had hunted had created on Adarlon thanks to the Beast. Revenge is not an act worthy of a Jedi. Justice is. If they hunted the Beast then the monsters on Coruscant would run free, but if they stayed to clear Coruscant, then the Beast would escape and unlike normal vamps he showed more intelligence and less emotion. The others seemed to lack control. Unless the Beast was around to control them, they feasted too much on mortals and started too many fights between each other to survive for long.

The Beast seems to be able to control a pack of the other vampires. Xander said it was an alpha vampire. Buffy and Willow, after seeing the evidence, argued about the differences between the Slayer and the Guardians, and he even calls himself Beast.

Buffy liked the new name. "Guardians," her own powers were still weak. She had to relearn to use them again and it was different, she could feel that. The more she learned about channeling the Force, the stronger she became physically. From what she saw Rona and Chloe do, she knew that the Guardians were not as strong as she had been as a Slayer.

Chloe's precognitive ability were superior to anything she had ever seen as the Slayer and Rona's learning ability rivaled what she could do. Willow's theory was that the difference in the darkside and the power of demons created different weaknesses among the vampires, and that perhaps the Beast, as they called him, was seeking a darksider.

After all, the Guardians had sought out Jedi Knights and Jedi Knights seemed to be seeking them out, even before they knew what the other was.
Which was exactly what Xander had said, Jaina pointed out, Willow and Buffy just rolled their eyes, they were not surprised at all, duh, Xander is a vampire hunter after all, of course he'd understand.

-KNM-

Evening on a planet that never sleeps

Deep down below, under the city streets, in the overbuild ruins and caves created by generations of old buildings, a catacomb that was as endless as the streets above, but much more dangerous. Mutated life forms, old pets and monsters lurked down here, and also beggars, streets rats and drug dealers.
To Buffy and Willow's surprise, Jaina knew her way around this place.

Xander smirked. "She and her brother used to sneak out from the palace like building they lived in and play with their friends down below."
Willow gabbed. "What and their mother let them?" she asked in shock.

Jaina laughed. "Mom was then the Minister of State, the president of the New Republic until she retired. It wasn't that she let us. We sneaked out leaving poor C3P0 and Uncle Chewbacca behind. As it was, our trusty Noghri bodyguards kept a silent eye out on us, but they didn't let us know that they'd followed us. It was years later that I was told about that. They had a big photo album with holo-pictures of us doing stupid things like climbing deep cliffs or exploring unstable ruins. All the time when I believed our adventure lust had nearly brought us to an early grave, a Noghri was nearby and ready to save our foolish necks if need be. The first time we did it, we were 7 years old and we kept it up until we were 15," she smirked. "But we became friends with Zeek down here and also with King Onibald Daykim of the hidden refugee city," she said, smiling at the childhood memory. "Unlike Mom and Dad, the Noghri approved, our adventure lust was a good sign for them."

Buffy giggled. "A king of a hidden refugee city, it sounds strange," she said and then fell silent.

"Hawkbats," Jaina pointed out around them, over a canyon so big it looked like it was trying to become the Great Canyon, with edges of duracreate steel and hidden deep underground. It was still magnificent, illuminated by lamp fungus, one of the rare plants that could eat duracreate.

Willow was puzzled. "Where is that light coming from?"

Buffy shrugged. "The fungus I think."

Jaina nodded. "Once you hit deep enough, the buildings become old and weakened, that's where the lamp fungus grows." She waved her hand. "Let's move it. Hawkbats are dangerous, especially in large numbers."

They sneaked forward.

Xander cloaked them as they found one of the hidden refuges.

It was a city under the city. It had its own laws and government. The poor and the broken from above had found a new life in the underground, trading what little they could find, steal or hunt.

Jaina moved unhindered as they walked in. A mild mind manipulation around them was enough to make others ignore them or believe they belonged.
"I'm tired." Buffy eventually said. "Where are the suckers?" she asked Xander.

He shrugged. "Do you feel anything Buffy, Chloe, Rona?" He could feel them, not in which direction they were, just that they are there.
Chloe nodded. "Yes, it's that way, a sick and corrupted feeling." She swallowed.

Rona frowned. "I think she may be right. I'm not sure, it's weak." They had found out that Chloe was a tracker. Something about the darkness gave her the ability to track anything using the darkside of the Force over an impressive range. All of the Guardian could feel the difference between a dark side Force user and a lightside user. Chloe did it on a far longer range and with greater detail.

They looked at Buffy.

She sighed. "You know I'm not fully trained yet," Buffy said.

Rona defended her against herself. "But you were THE Slayer, the greatest in over a thousand years."

Buffy sighed some more. "Right, I was the greatest because Willow and Xander followed me home and my Watcher let me keep them."

Willow gave an irritated hrumph at that. "I'm not a dog."

Xander nodded. "HEY," he said in a mock insulted voice.

Buffy grinned as she focused. "Let's see, nothing. Wait a moment. No, nothing, and what's that? Oh, Xander and Jaina, they feel nice, have to protect them.
Let see, nothing again. Nothing, no, there was something. Uuu. Uuu. Something is stinking in that soul."

"Um that way I think, it's stinky," she said frowning, pointing ahead.

Xander nodded. "Exactly the same way Rona and Chloe said." he smiled.

Buffy snorted. "Hey, what do you expect from the greatest Slayer in a thousand years?" she grinned.

Chloe grinned. "That you can find a dog and keep it."

Xander frowned. "Hey, I am not a dog."

Willow nodded vigorously. "Me neither."

Buffy struck a pose. "Worship me, I'm the greatest!" she said and then started to giggle as Rona and Jaina started bowing in front of her. She sat down. "I need a rest. My strength is still not up to Guardian level or even up to my cheerleader level." The near death experience had drained her or perhaps she had been using her Slayer strength without improving her normal strength by training and now without her Slayer strength… Even Willow looked more refreshed than she did.

After joking a bit and resting, they continued.

Walking in the dark, Willow could not help herself as she watched Xander.

He had grown up so much and changed. Yet he was still the same as always. She knew he was much smarter than he pretended to be. During his first year in school his father had called him a sissy because he liked math, history and languages and was a good student in class. A month later Xander's grades started to slip. He started to act stupid and become the class clown, until even she believed that he was stupid.

Perhaps even Xander had believed that he was stupid. Seeing Tony and Jessica Harris there, she had been irritated. Then she found out that THIS Tony and THAT Jessica were completely different from what Xander had grown up with. That version of Tony and Jessica were good parents, helpful and kind and Alexandra or Lexa was a funny young girl who reminded her so much of Xander. Her story about having the 4 years older Jessie and Larry as her protectors and big brothers was sweet.

Finding out that HER alternate self was a bigot who disliked psionics and was the queen of the school, the bane of Jessie and Larry's life, a real Bitch, now that was scary, but Lexa was fast becoming friends with people, especially with Dawn. Lexa and Xander had already become brother and sister and she hang around her new big brother or Jaina as much as possible, helping them to train the Jedi. Lexa's own Psi powers where growing. It took time and normal training time for a Psi was anything between 2 years to 25 years before they had mastered all the abilities their powers gave them.

A normal Psi power had around 11-14 different abilities, each related to each other. Once you'd learned one ability, you could learn another one. Some of the abilities could combine to create a new effect or give you access to yet another ability, but such abilities demanded that the user truly mastered them, not just learned to use them.

Then there were the PSI-strength and PSI-Endurance. According to Tony, Psionics were born with a limited 0same time and the PSI-Endurance was how much psionic power you could have inside of your body. PSI-Endurance was something you could train and get stronger in. It was rather how much gas a car has in the gas-tank. The PSI-Strength was the engine of the car.

Jessica had a low PSI-Strength, but her constant use of her empathic ability had given her a high level of PSI-Endurance. Even if most of her psi-abilities were simply too weak to be all that useful, she could use them all day and more before running out of power. Compensating for her weak PSI-Strength, she had trained for years in improving her PSI-Endurance, making the abilities she could use extremely effective.

Tony on the other hand had a slightly above normal level of PSI-Strength. His endurance was also high, but nowhere near Jessica's. Jessica's less dangerous and harmless empathy and mind-reading ability was one she could use non-stop for the whole day without anyone knowing. That had made her endurance higher than off most other PSIs.

Tony's PSI-Healing abilities demanded something to use them on. His PSI-endurance had first begun to improve when he started to work in the hospital and was detoxifying a patient who had had too much to drink or had been bitten by a snake.

Lexa showed promise in both PSI-strength and PSI-Endurance. So far her PSI-Strength was larger than her endurance though. She could empty her PSI-Endurance in one single use of her PSI-abilities. Much of the training she was doing was to increase her small endurance so it could keep up with her high level strength. As a kinetic she could easily train her PSI-Endurance by using a kinetic shield for a longer and longer time each day.

Lexa had mastered how to use psychokinesis to resist physical damage with a kinetic shield (Protects only against physical objects.) To kinetically hold somebody and trap him so he was unable to move was an ability she had to touch someone to use. It was a great ability to use in combination with wrestling. Somebody who had mastered Kinetic-hold could combine that with Kinetic-attack and trap somebody at a distance.

Those were the power she knew how to use, then came the powers she was still training in.

The second power was vibration sense, also called Kinetic vision, using Psychokinesis like a blind feeling herself around with her hands. Then came enhanced move, using Psychokinesis to improve your speed of movement. Each led to a different new ability. Vibration sense would lead to telekinesis, then super jump, and finally to Kinetic attack. Lexa really wanted to master Kinetic attack, since then she could use Kinetic-hold from a distance. Enhanced move led to the ability Walk on fluids and eventual to the ability to walk on air. Once she mastered both sides, she would be able to learn how to fly.

Vibration sense and Enhanced move must really be hard to learn though. Kinetic shield was still cool, Lowbacka could hit her shield at full strength at least once and she would not be hurt, and she'd finally gotten her Kinetic-Hold power so strong that Lowbacka actually felt resistance when he tried to break her hold on him. That took all her PSI-Endurance to do though. Once her endurance was large enough that she could use her full PSI-Strength, she knew she would be able to hold a Wookiee, but she was stuck with vibration sense and enhanced move.

Tony only smiled at his daughter and said that some powers could take months to learn. Just keep at it. Her mother and father were no help, both of them were psionic sure, but one was a telepath and the other a healer.

It was fascinating how different the power of each born PSI was.

Willow was trying to learn as much as possible, because she had changed. The magic in her body and soul had been removed, ripped out of her, and something new had entered her. A new power existed in her.

What it was? No idea, she had't yet asked Xander as she was afraid of him knowing about it. The Force was Xander's and she did not want to intrude, yet she wanted something for herself so much.

Willow blinked, they were already there, shrugging she focused on the here and now.

The room had once been a big dinner room with plenty of smaller rooms that might have been corridors and a kitchen once. Now it was half crushed, but it was the base of the vampires. Plenty of smaller rooms and corridors littered the place. Crawl ways connected them with each other, making it easy to hide in.
Xander nodded. He felt them now. Where they were, he could not tell, but they were near.

Chloe gasped in terror at seeing a pile of dead bodies. Rona swallowed. Each of the bodies' had been drained and eaten from.

Buffy felt sad and disappointed with herself. She was so used to piles of dead bodies that she wasn't really shocked or surprised by the sight, just sad.
Vampires.

Chloe's gasp echoing in the room had awakened the suckers.

Seeing the heavily armed strangers, the nine vampires lifted primitive clubs made form iron bars and duracreate. Four of them held real vibro knifes. From what Xander saw, they had no long distance weapons.

"Ready?" he asked.

Rona, Chloe and Buffy activated their shield gauntlets. Rona and Chloe also activated lightsabers. "Born ready," Rona said, smirking.

Buffy pulled up a Dl-44 blaster pistol. She really wanted her own light stick. "I wanted my own light-stick," she pouted.

Xander, Jaina, Rona and Chloe turned and screamed "Lightsaber," at her in perfect unison.

Buffy shrugged. "If it looks like a light-stick, it's a light-stick."

They growled, irritated at her words.

The vampire blinked. The Jedi had forgotten all about them. "Let's attack," one said.

It started to move with a speed faster than a human by at least 5 times, showing it had fed on blood within the last six hour period. Normally they were around three times the speed and strength of a human. Without blood for 2 days or more, they grew weaker until they were down to normal human strength, but with fresh blood recently drunk, they could improve up to 4-6 times the speed and strength of a normal human.

The blood did not have to be human, most aliens or even animals worked. Hell, some of the vampires were aliens. They had seen a Duro vampire.

As the first one attacked, Jaina activated her lightsaber and with one cut removed its two arms as she side stepped. Then, as it started to stumble, she sliced down from the vampire's left shoulder to the hip on the right side, burning the vampire in half.

Xander just waved his hand, sending two vampires flying into a wall so hard they were crushed and turned into slimy goo.

Rona was fast. She dodged and cut low, bringing one crashing down as his legs were gone from his body. She then cut with an upwards motion, splitting a second vampire in half.

Chloe, slower than the vampire and Rona, and far less skilled, had a hard time of it, but she knew where it was going to attack even before it knew where it was going to attack.

As fast as she could, she parried the attack, cutting the vampire's arms in half.

As it screamed, she removed the head and then kicked out with her legs, making a vampire trip over her feet.
Rona slashed down at the vampire by her feet, burning up its heart, dusting it.

Buffy just lifted her gun from behind her back. "Boom, boom," she said as the two last vampires' heads were burned up. "Hey, I like this gun. Could I get a bigger one and a light-stick?"

Willow looked at her uncomfortably. "Um Buffy, I think they get angry if you call it a light stick."

-KNM-

Later

"Klingon, your hyper- space exit is in 25 minutes, enter flight vector 225.025.200. Star acceleration at 40 Mglt. No racing in the space lane," the voice of ground control said over the PA as they slowly flew away from the capital of the republic.

"I thought it would be more exciting," Buffy said from her seat in the back.

Willow, sitting near her, nodded. "I know, more like Star Trek or Babylon Five. Swoosh and they are away. This feels like, like an airport," she complained.
The depressed voice of Xander agreed. "It is. Big worlds like Coruscant move like snails."

Buffy nodded. "So where are we going then?" she asked.

"Byblos. The most likely ship our Beast could be on was on its way there and Lando is also there. Byblos is in the colonies."
Willow perked up at that. "Ooh, the colonies, are they far away?" she asked.

Xander snored. "No, it's right next door. 19 hours in hyperspace and the Enterprise can make the journey in 14 hours. Let me explain how the regions lie between each other. From the center of the galaxy, the deep core region is a new area that has been populated. The core worlds region is the old human home worlds. The Colonies region, where the first human colonies were created like a millennium ago, the Inner Rim region, then Expansion region, the Mid Rim region, Outer Rim region and at last the Wild space," he grinned. "Then we have the Unknown Regions."

He grinned. "And it gets better. Each of the regions contains thousands or millions of sectors and clusters, which have themselves hundreds or thousands of stars. Now we only count stars that have the potential of housing life. That means about 10 % have a planet with some kind of life. The Minos cluster is the place where the Shesharile system and Shesharile 5 and 6 are. You know, my home on Shesharile 5. Now, Shesharile has around 100 solar systems that have worlds that could in theory host life. Remember what I said about 10 percent?"

He grinned, seeing Willow and Buffy pale. "That's 1000 stars without life caring planets in the cluster," Willow said.

Buffy cleared her throat. "Um, a question. Why is Minos a cluster and not a sector? What is the difference or did they just like cluster along or something?"
Jaina nodded. "Good question and you're right, they do cluster along. A sector is a group of star systems bound together by being close and having common economical and political interests or a common ancestor. Like the Duros sector, it's all over the place. No, what's different with a cluster from a normal sector is that the starts are closer together, bound together by their gravity fields. "

Willow nodded. "A star cluster," she said, "but why is sometimes a journey half way across the galaxy like a week or two and yet it takes days to travel across the Minos cluster?"

Xander shrugged. "Hyperspace routes, the ships hyperspace engine classification just tells you how fast it can move and accelerate in hyperspace. Minos has lots of space junk like lost moons floating around that you have to drive around unless you want to collide with them. Every object in NORMAL space leaves a deadly shadow in hyperspace. While the big hyper routes have nothing in the way and you can let the hyper drive run wild and reach faster speeds, in areas like the Minos cluster you have to be careful and reduce your speed."

Buffy frowned. "Hyperspace, don't really get it," she said.

Willow nodded, hoping her friends would have a good answer.

Jaina nodded. "Nobody knows what hyper-space really is, but what we do know is that it's impossible for ANY object to stand still in hyperspace, just like light-speed is impossible in normal space, but there seems to be no upper level of speed you can reach, in theory. Ships that enter hyperspace do not really enter. We skim on the surface between hyperspace and normal space. Objects in both hyper and normal space can affect us."

Xander nodded. "Jaina's dad Han Solo - you're going to like him he is an honest to God pirate - his ship the Falcon has a 0.5 hyperspace-drive. That means that his ship accelerates with half the speed of light in hyperspace. My ship accelerates with 75 % of the speed of light."

Buffy nodded. "Um." She frowned as she did her math. "Even with hyper-space, if you only accelerate with the speed of light, wouldn't a journey take like hundreds of years if the galaxy is that big?"

Jaina explained. "37 000 parsecs from one end to the other, one parsecs is 3.26 light years long. It also has the Rishi Maze, a dwarf galaxy that's on its way to merge with our galaxy in a million years or so. It's part of both Wild Space and the Unknown Regions as it's almost unexplored. A second bigger satellite galaxy, that's considered part of Unknown Regions, because it's unknown. To get there you have to breach the hyperspace barrier across the border of the galaxy. The barrier is disturbances; inter galactic junk carried along by the galaxy movement in space. It can be breached using hyperspace engines, but it is not easy to navigate and using ion engines it would take one hundred years to breach it."

Willow frowned. "That didn't answer the question. Even with speed many times above the speed of light, how can a journey from one end of the galaxy to the other take a month or less?"

Jaina nodded. "Hyperspace," she said, grinning. "The distance between two points in normal space is longer than the distance is inside hyperspace. Try to understand the physics of hyperspace and you go nuts. The geography is hard enough for us to have to use Nav-computers. In the old days they used computer maps, a calculating program and hoped for the best."

Xander leaned back in his seat. "Then comes the final point of interest, less than half the galaxy is explored, during the days of the Old Republic the Jedi bragged that they had a computer archive off the whole galaxy. What they did not say was is that it only contained data on the whole of civilized space."
He looked at Willow. "When the Empire took over, many worlds and even some sectors spent millions off credits to hide themselves."

Buffy was puzzled. "How do you hide a sector?" she said in bafflement.

Jaina shrugged. "You remove the information about it and the hyper route leading to it from as many computer files as possible and hope for the best. In some areas it worked. There were lost areas of space even in the colonies that were re-discovered as the locals considered it safe to come out again."
Xander nodded. "So do you still think this is like an airplane Willow, Buffy?"

They looked at each other.

"Willow, is there any way the USA could hide so that a airplane couldn't find it?" Buffy asked. Willow shook her head. "Byblos, what do you know about that?" she quickly changed the subject.

Xander smiled at her. "Let's see," he said, pushing a button on the computer, double checking. "It's the home of the Byblos University of Engineering and the Byblos Drive Yards. Heavy duty transports and space weapons. They create high quality space mines and an asteroid hangar package. Just find a rock and you have a space home. Byblos repulsor-drives and Muurian Interstellar also has its home there. Nice." he said as he read the file. Muurian transports were nice ships.

"BlasTech, SoroSuub and Sienar Fleet system have corporate towers and industry on Byblos because they have a law which makes it easy to sell and build weapons. What on most worlds is considered illegal, they consider legal." It was also the place Lando asked them to meet him later.

Willow nodded. "What is the planet like?" she asked.

Xander read on. "Where we are going its urban. The planet is cold and the natives protect the planets wild life fiercely, so fiercely that all urban buildings are gigantic towers to maximize the living areas without hurting the wild life. 5000 levels and more are not unusual."

Jaina added, "It's mostly known for its high technology and military hardware, but dad told me it has wonderful skiing resorts and a 38 hour long day."

-KNM-

16 hours later

High traffic in normal space meant that it took time before they reached the planet.

Byblos was a neutral planet. It's worth as an industrial planet, a mighty planetary shield and a fleet of fighters kept the Republic away. They had a loose alliance with both the Imperial Remnant and the Republic. Playing both sides in the middle rarely ended well, though. If you learned from history that would be a lesson you would learn.

The Remnant was not an official part of the Galactic Federation, but the Imperial Knights and the Jedi had formed an alliance and it was only a question of time when the Imperial Remnant would join. They had already rendered military aid in the fleet vs. fleet combat between the Federation's smaller forces and the Republic's larger.

The cockpit and the gun turrets were filled with girls, as Buffy, Willow, Lexa, Dawn, Rona and Chloe all wanted to see. Riley was no less curious, but he had more control over his curiosity.

The Starport was a gigantic tower over 3000 levels tall, and star ships could land on each of the 3000 levels. It was build like a huge barrel, with the inside hollow, and smaller ships could fly inside to land in the docking bays at the inner walls. The docking bays at the outer walls were used by the big bulk transports.

"That's incredible." Willow said as the Enterprise lowered itself deeper and deeper in the hollow inside the tower and then slowly started moving to the docking bay at the inner wall.

"It looks like a gigantic defense wall or something. Only the keep in the center is missing," Dawn said from the gunnery turret.

-KNM-

Later, after a perfect landing

Jaina stretched where she sat. "We survived Xander's landing. Jay," she grinned at Xander's face as the other girls started to question him about that.
Danni, Buffy, Willow, Dawn and Lexa vanished quickly to the University of Byblos to get some study material and also to check up if any students had vanished. Vampires of any kind seem to prey on the weak and the young. Xander's patience was tried as the law officers helped him seek information. A mass murderer loose on a starship traveling the galaxy was not a good thing and if that guy had visited Byblos, he would have taken time off for his hobby.
Xander told them the murderer was discovered at Shesharile 5, but vanished as a crew member inside a ship to Coruscant. They had been hunting him ever since. They had lost the track on Coruscant, but four ships had lifted off with an extra crew man that could have been the Beast. Three of them were on their way to Byblos.

The information was not good. Just normal murders, the Beast had dropped off the radar.

At least he now knew where the last of the four ships was going. To the Dark Lady of Sith. The Beast wanted to join her.

This would be a mission he and Jaina with Rona and Chloe as backup had to take by themselves. Buffy wasn't at full strength yet and Willow was the same.
Dawn and Lexa, forget about it. Danni? Same thing there.

The officer leaned over, at the look on the Jedi face. "So has your guy been here?" he asked. Xander shook his head. "No. He was on one of the other ships. The Beast managed to lose us at Coruscant. We lost too much time sneaking inside, finding the information, then sneaking out to have the time to make sure our information was correct."

If they had had the time to double check the information, the Enterprise's x0.75 hyperdrive could drive by any transports, especially bulk ships. Normal hyperdrives were at x2, meaning a 19 hour journey would take 14 hours for the Enterprise, while on a ship with an x2 hyperdrive the same journey would take 38 hours.

Had he ever said that he loved his hyperdrive?

Chapter 4

About the same time

"My lady, I have found Jedi Master Alexander. Their ship is in the docking yard at this moment. I am unable to enter the ship without being noticed." The man bowed in front of the image of Lady Lumiya. "What are your orders?"

The Lady looked at him as if he was a bug, "Reprogram one of the refueling droids. Have it install an unshielded lowickan firegem in their fuel and also send me the hyperspace exit vector and any information they give to star-port control." Most star-ports demanded that a ship gave them information of the next planet and star-port they would fly to.

The man nodded. "Your wish is my command."

Lumiya nodded as the hyperspace transmission was terminated. That would be the end of them.

-KNM-

Later at the university

Inside four gigantic towers, each with over 6000 levels, were housed the prestigious College of the City Towers of Byblos. Each year around two million students graduated and much more than twice that number enrolled. 6 000 000 million students enrolled as a whole. Using the greatest of teacher droids, teachers and around 100 000 professors as permanent members of staff, it was a big place.

Dawn gabbed. "What are we going to do here?" she asked.

Lexa nodded. "Yea it's like wow." The library and then the number of students walking around had the two feeling very much like fish out of water.

Dawn looked around. "Why are there so many stressed out students?" she asked in confusion. The older students looked much calmer and quite amused.
"The university has a long standing policy of weeding out the students unwilling or unable to learn. With a combination of long complex lessons and difficult tests, only the best remain after a year of learning. Its half season right now and the stress is at its breaking point. Many students will leave, burned out,"

Jaina shrugged after explaining the method.

"Six million enter, but only about 2 million graduate. Only the elite, the best of the students make it, and we are here to check the university papers for students who have vanished and see if we can find some nice updates or new programs for R3 and R6," she was silent about Xander's plot of finding a professor in hyperspace theory to build him a super nav-computer.

Willow grabbed the computer, reading about the study and weeding tradition. It was brutal. They actively broke students whose skills in improving their learning were too low. First year was murder: study and learn and improve or you would break.

Suicides and mental breakdowns were not that unusual among students suffering during the weeding period. The teachers would make sure you broke or walked away. The second year was calmer, harder lessons, but at a calmer speed of learning, with more help from the teachers because now the incompetent students were gone.

She shivered. No wonder there were so many stressed out students around.

-KNM-

Later at one of the university many restaurants, the one on the roof, the Constellation restaurant, a place where guest and visitors ate more often than the students who often had to eat at the Biscuit Baron restaurants because they were cheaper.

As the others arrived from the tour at the university, Xander and Lando were already sitting there and eating something light while waiting for them.

Jaina sat beside Xander. "Is he here?" she asked. Xander shook his head. "No, the Beast is somewhere else. I believe he is going to Lumiya," he said simply.
Jaina frowned. "Not necessary. That ship passes by the Cloak of Sith. He could be searching for whatever exists in that area," she said, talking about the leftovers off the once great Sith Empire which was crushed millenniums ago.

It was one of those areas where the hyper-routes had gone missing over the millennium to keep power seeking fools away. Most people would not know where the old empire once was or that it even had existed.

After that she said hello to Lando. Even after losing a bet like the one he lost with Xander, Lando was still a gentleman and once Xander told him about the trade, old Lando would be happy in deed.

Xander nodded. "Well, Jaina and I have been speaking about the CGT. Being Jedi, we can sense what it can detect and the Federation needs it more than we do. The going price of a CGT is around 16 million."

Lando jumped in at that. "12 million actually," he corrected.

Xander nodded. "12 million, I stand corrected. You get the CGT for the bargain price of 5 millions." He leaned forward. The cloak was a wonderful thing to own, but the cost of spare parts was astronomical. Just maintaining parts could in theory cost a cold million a year and even if it worked it was using jury rigged non standard spare parts glued together with high hope and engineering skills.

"And you buy our slightly used, but working cloaking shield for another 6 million. Also included in the deal are a new working sensor mask, the new black hole military class, and also a set of new military class sensor and communication jammers. I want them powerful, same class the Screamer Y-wing uses," Xander grinned.

Lando blinked as he leaned forward. It was good he had activated a sound bubble shield. "You have a cloak?" he asked with marvel in his voice.
Xander nodded. "Anakin and I stole it form the Grand Admiral's escape shuttle," he smirked. "Half of those 6 millions are Anakin's credits. The rest is Jaina's and my money," he leaned back. "The sensor mask we might need to hide ourselves. The jammer's for when the fight starts to get ugly."

They would need it in the future, both the money and the equipment. The Enterprise and Jaina's XJ-Wing, the Starsaber, were both high maintenance ships and the galaxy was in war.

The sensor mask was the poor man's version of the cloak. By combining anti-detection systems and holographic transmitters it made the ship blend in and be invisible to the human eye and difficult for sensors to detect. The further away it was, the more difficult it was to detect a ship hiding under a sensor mask, but once it was discovered the sensor mask was just in the way as the enemy could focus their sensors and attack and the ship under a sensor mask could not have active shields.

A ship under a Cloak had active energy shields.

The Jammers on the other hand were a weapon against communications and sensors. By flooding the sensors and communications with static disruptive noise, you could disrupt communication between fighters and their mother ship.

Lando leaned back. "You could buy your own Correlian corvette for that price," he mused.

Buffy jumped in at that. "Oo a Corvette, do they come in red?" she said, not really knowing what a Corvette was in this universe, but any sports car should be red. End of story.

Chloe snorted. "It's not a sports car. It's a military ship I think."

Rona shook her head. "No, it's a multipurpose ship, also called a blockade runner," she had read up on them after Leia told her about the adventure she had on the Correlian corvette Tantive 4 and how it was destroyed over Tatooine.

Buffy frowned. "It should still come in red," she sulked.

Willow piped in, "I, I think a battle ship would be cool if it was yellow," she blushed.

Lando tried to ignore them. "Right, it's a deal, 5 million for the one and 6 million for the other. You do know that you're getting a bad deal here?" he asked. Combine the cloak and the CGT and any pilot could fly around cloaked.

Xander nodded. "But I get a fast and honest deal. We can load up the cargo on the Lady Luck later today."

Jaina sighed. "I'm going to miss that cloak."

Lando snorted. "So that's why you were so glad I wanted to meet you in this place." And as the kids had arrived so fast, he could go home to his wife that much faster.

They had agreed on a meeting at a later time to see who would be the winner, a place where the weapon laws were a joke and a place where he himself had connections in the weapon industry.

Jaina nodded. "We heard that you have connections here and were hoping that we could get the jammers and sensor mask by tomorrow night." They needed some down time on a planet.

Lando nodded. "To the deal then," he leaned back. "What is really going on in the Minos cluster? I heard rumors about monsters." He did not like rumors like that, especially during war.

They started to talk. It was not good things that Lando had found out.

Xander himself recognized what was happening to the war against the Republic. It was going cold. A gigantic galactic cold war was being born. Here and there skirmishes would break out on the borders between the Federation and the Republic. No big fleets of ships though, as both sides were licking their wounds and were looking over their shoulders as new players had appeared on the field.

The Galactic Alliance was a second new big player which distanced itself from both Republic and Federation planets. The Republic was still the biggest player and had a bigger fleet of war ships than the Federation did, but so far they had lost most of the fleet VS fleet fights against the Federation.

The Republic had declared the Galactic Alliance enemies soon after they broke free from the Republic. The Federation asked them to join them or at least have a trade alliance with them.

So far GA seemed to be paranoid against both sides.

There were hundreds of miniature empires, even federations and trade alliances and other star-nations out there now and they all feared the Republic and each other.

A galactic wide cold war.

Xander shivered, the future path was difficult. One mistake and the cold war could break out into complete war or turn into generations of mistrust and espionage.

-KNM-

Four days later

Xander watched the new toys he had installed. He had to hire a repair yard to install the external parts of the sensor mask, but after two days of work, he was done.

The girls had been having fun skiing, expect Dawn as she did not like the cold according to Jaina. She spent most of the time indoors enjoying herself, but the others, Willow, Buffy, Rona and Chloe, had fun in the cold. Shivering and going out into the snow willingly? Not this Jedi.

In fact, from what Jaina reported, all of the Force guardians seemed to be able to use the Force to warm themselves up. She and Chloe had tested that theory. Hours of testing later, Chloe was going around dressed up in a bikini even as it was freezing could outside with temperatures below -20 Celsius. No damage to her, the Force itself was keeping her body warm. A method Jaina managed to learn, using her Jedi skills of absorbing and dissipating energy.

"Now we're ready girl. I know you miss the shield, but it was difficult to maintain and if it had broken down, we would have been fucked." Xander said, petting his ship. Naturally no answer came from the ship, but he had a feeling she liked it. Either that or he was going crazy.

Lifting up something strange he frowned, a tracker. Someone had put a tracker on his ship hull.

He returned it to the place where he found it. Once they were up in space, they would dump it. Perfect, the starships fuel cans were coming. "Just put them there. My cargo droid knows where to put them," he said to the cargo personal.

He frowned, one of the cargo workers looked afraid. He smirked, so that's the guy who put a tracker on them. He wondered if the man worked for a pirate or something.

As the Jedi inspected the fuel barrels Tonner sweated. If the firegem he hid inside the barrels was discovered, they would find out about him. So far the Lowickan firegem was safe, but the moment the ship would enter hyperspace the shift between normal space and hyper-space would cause an unshielded Lowickan firegem to explode into pure energy.

He hoped the barrels with starship fuel would not be considered a shielded area. No, the Lady would not make that kind of foolish mistake.

As Tonner sweated Xander was having fun. The guy was so nervous. He could feel the guy was afraid that Xander would discover something. Something he was to blame for, the tracker.

Ignoring the guy right now he inspected the energy readings from the fuel. High energy, perfect.

"T-1000, come and load them in." he said, grinning as his cargo droid started to lead the barrels in. It was a simple cargo lifting droid, but it looked SO much like a 2 meter tall human skeleton that he named it T-1000. The cargo droid, only having the simplest brain, was unable to understand a joke even if you explained it to him. Obediently it lifted the fuel barrels inside the ship. It was good at lifting and carrying things.

"Perfect. I feel we are on the right track here. Right guys." he said friendly to the cargo personal which nodded. Tonner twitched in terror. Did the Jedi know?
Amused, Xander let the idiot go. How could that idiot think he could trick him? Jedi Master Xander Harris Solo would not let any fool trick him. He padded himself on the back. The moment they were in space the tracker would be dropped, then one simple safe jump in to space would take care of it.

-KNM-

Later, as they flew away, a lone tracking device floated away in space.

"We are going by Shesharile to drop of Lexa and Dawn. Buffy and Willow, both of you need training before you can use your skills and powers in real combat and you still need to get used to this universe," Xander said.

"Then Jaina, Rona and Chloe together with Riley and me will go after the Beast. If we are correct, he entered a dark and awful place and I'm not talking about a garbage recycling tank either."

Chloe shivered, remembering her close encounter with garbage recycling plants. Something darker and more evil than that could not exist.
Willow sighed. "I may need to find out what my powers are," she said hanging her head. She wanted to be useful.

Xander nodded. "Yeah, let us just enter hyperspace," he said as he pulled the hyperspace activation level and the ship vanished into hyperspace.

Chapter 5

Inside the hangar of the Enterprise

Deep inside a fuel barrel the Lowickan firegem glittered as if electricity was dancing inside of it. Then it slowed down, the shielded radioactive protection of the barrel stopping it from exploding.

Jaina stood up as they entered hyperspace. "I better take the chance to refuel my Starsaber." She walked away into the hangar.
Grabbing the fuel pump she cranked up the barrel and pushed down the pump system. It sealed itself quickly. Inside the barrel the firegem started to glow as the vibrations from Hyperspace turned it more and more unstable.

"Jaina, can you come and give us a hand?" Rona yelled from down the hall. "Something's wrong with the washing machine."

Jaina rolled her eyes. "Ask Xander!" she yelled back as she started to refuel her XJ-Wing.

Seconds later the voice of a frustrated Rona echoed through the ship again."But it's the washing machine. Last time Xander fixed it, it exploded," she whined.

Jaina snorted at the memory. "That was not his fault or so he claims." Xander said he had had no spare parts for the machine, so he improvised and he'd been so sure that he'd gotten it right that instead of testing things in first, he just activated the machine and boom.

Rona moaned: "You really should get a new washing machine. How old is that thing anyway?"

Jaina frowned. "I'm not sure, around 120 years or so. It's older than the ship," she said, musing. "It does have some good features." Like that half of the machine could be and was used to hide weapons. Most sensors read it as a solid piece of machine and metal.

Rona wasn't convinced. "Like what?" she asked.

Jaina just smirked. It was pure luck that they had found that washer and once dad had seen it, he'd explained right away what it was they had. A real treasure, he had one himself. Mom hated it with a passion. He'd to stop her from shooting it many times. Jaina giggled at the idea of her mother Leia Organa Solo shooting a poor defenseless washing machine.

As they walked out of the hangar, the increasing glow of the firegem was hidden by the walls of the barrel.

-KNM-

Later

Jaina stood up and wiped her hands. "And that's that." She walked to a safe distance from the washer. "Right, lets activate it," she said as she pushed the on button.

BOOM! The whole ship rocked in space as Jaina and Rona were thrown around like puppets from the strength of the exploding washing machine.
The lights died, then the emergency lights activated.

"You see, I warned you, it's evil," Rona grumbled from the corner she had landed in.

Jaina shook her head. "Don't be stupid, it wasn't the washer that exploded. Look, it's perfectly fine." She looked around; the emergency hyperspace cut of lamps were blinking.

A small burning trail of smoke from the washer quickly made her eat her words. The old champion had finally surrendered to age.

Jaina frowned. "I think the washer died." She shrugged as she hurried out. She could see that the hangar was sealed off. Something had exploded inside.
"My Starsaber," she gasped in fear.

Then the ship rocked again, like a big fist had smashed it on the side and then it rocked once more.

Jaina turned and rushed to the cockpit. That was laser fire. Someone was shooting at them.

Inside the cockpit she could see a panicking Dawn sitting in the pilot seat. "I… I.. I didn't do anything or touch anything, I promise." she said, on the verge of tears.

Jaina ignored her as she jumped into the co-pilot seat. "Get out of here Dawn, Xander is coming," she said.

A nude and angry as hell Xander rushed inside. You take ONE bubble bath and your ship explodes. Just ONE bubble bath in peace, was that too much to ask? His only cover was the pink bubbles still hanging on his body, somehow almost hiding the naughty bits. (The Force is a mighty ally. Hide you it can.)

Dawn blinked. "You use bubble bath?" she asked in surprise. "Pink bubbles?"

Xander froze and turned to her slowly, leveling his gaze on her. "And?" he asked. It was relaxing, incredibly relaxing and if you trained as hard as he did, then you deserved a relaxing bubble bath, even if it was pink. "The not pink bubbles hurt my gills."

Dawn shrugged. "Nothing, it's just the pink foam. A bit girly you know."

Jaina shot a glance at her. "Hey listen to me girl. My man is all man." Ok, so the pink did look a bit girly, but it was so relaxing.

Dawn nodded. "I can see that. But pink bubble bath?" she said, starring at Xander's nude body.

He quickly hid his male pride. "Get me a pair of pants. They're in the bath room. NOW Dawn," he said, jumping in to the pilot seat. "Now I regret using leather."

Dawn hurried out, giggling the whole way.

Outside Lexa blinked. "Was that my brother rushing by dressed in his birthday suit?" she asked. Seeing Dawn grin as she rushed by, Lexa could only say one thing. "Damn and he's my brother." She frowned though. Why did Xander look pink?

-KNM-

Outside there was a fleet of ships, not good.

Republic war ships and they had just identified them.

"Starship Enterprise, power down and surrender or you will be fired on," came the cursory warning before the ships opened fire.

A-9 Interceptors and Howlrunners flew by, doing strafing runs with the XJ-Wings following close behind.

"Can you get the shield active?" Xander asked. Jaina replied, "Yes, but I'll have to go back and repair it first. Show them who the king in space is," she said as she rushed by.

Rona joined them. "Wow. If you're going to pilot the ship like that through all combat, I'll be a happy girl."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Danni, get in the co-pilot chair, now."

Then he snapped orders at Rona. "Get in the top turret and see that Chloe goes down," he said.

Buffy's head popped in the door. "Why does Chloe get to go down?" she asked. "Holy, you always fly nude?" she then said with a big silly grin. "What,

Xander is nude?" Willow said as she pushed her head in between Buffy and Rona.

Danni ran inside and took one look around. "Is this a combat or are you having an orgy?" It seemed like a perfectly normal question to her. She was hoping for the orgy.

Dawn yelled, "I got you pants," as she rushed in with his uniform. Blushing and grinning.

Buffy looked back and forth between them "What is Dawn doing with your pants?"

Willow nodded. "Yes, she's only fifteen Xander."

Xander was trying very hard not to lose his temperament. "It's a battle, they're attacking us. I was taking a bath, had NO time to get dressed because I had to save our behinds. Now let me fight and dress myself. All personal to battle stations NOW!" he ordered them.

Buffy grabbed Dawn. "You better have a good explanation or Xander is dead."

Then the ship rocked again from the laser bolts. Buffy frowned. "Fly more careful Xander" she yelled.

Willow frowned. "What's going on?" Dawn shrugged. "It's a battle."

Looking up and down the gun wells into the gun turrets, Willow got her answer. Chloe and Rona were spinning around and shooting the quad laser cannons fast. "It's a battle Buffy. We are under attack," she said in a fearful voice.

Inside the cockpit Xander pushed the engine to max as he rolled the ship to avoid the rain of fire. Pushing a button he activated the twin auto blaster. "Take the blasters," he said as he focused on flying the ship and putting on his pants. The leather on the seat was sticking to his skin.

Focusing on the Force he stretched out with it and the others joined. First Jaina and then Danni, stretching out he found Rona and Chloe and they joined also.

Suddenly

Xander, Danni, Jaina, Chloe and Rona were all flying the ship.

Suddenly
Jaina, Xander, Danni, Chloe and Rona were repairing the energy shield side by side with R3 and R6.

Suddenly
Rona, Chloe, Xander, Jaina and Danni were shooting inside both of the gun turrets.

They were joined in the Force and the Enterprise started to move in perfect harmony. All of them knew each other skills and worked together in perfect harmony.

The joined rolled the ship as the squadron of XJ-wings attacked them with no hesitation. He aimed and pulled the trigger, sending a concussion missile at one of the X-Wings.

On the top turret the joined pulled her trigger, switching from single cannon fire to full linked fire. The four cannons joined and created a powerful fireball that penetrated the shield on the nearby Nebulous-B. The explosion destroyed half a meter of armored hull and one gun-turret. A rain of missiles came down on the Nebulous-B from the joined in the cockpit.

The missiles slashed down and hit their target. The powerful engine was the Nebulous-B escort cruiser's strength as it gave it the speed it needed, but it also was its weakness, and four missiles later a large part of the ship was nothing, but molted slag.

The joined kept using the auto-fire mode, letting the four cannons in her quad turret fire one after the other, like a Gatling gun. The rain of fire slashed between the attacking A-9's, causing one to burst out in fire and the second to break in half.

The joined pushed the power button, the shield was fixed and Jaina took a second to look at what was left of her beloved X-Wing before running to the cockpit.

The joined stood up, letting the joined sitting down take her rightful place by the sensor and shield operations.

The enemies attacked again and like one, the Enterprise returned the attack more fiercely than ever before.

Xander swore, as the joining broke up. "That was harder than I thought it would be," he said.

Jaina nodded. "We wasted a squadron of A-9 and I see half a squadron worth of XJ-Wings hunting us."

Danni smiled. "Yay us and now they're angry and sending out more ships," she said, even managing to sound happy.

Xander grunted. "Does the hyperdrive work?" he asked worriedly.

Jaina shook her head. "No. the main power line between both the main hyperdrive and the backup is gone. We need repairs before we can use it," she said. "And my Starsaber is dead. It exploded."

Xander blinked at that. "Oh." He nodded, right focus. "Danni, find us somewhere to hide."

Danni nodded, "Inputting the coordinates now."

Xander nodded and peered at the screen. "Sweet. Just two hours nonstop combat then, if we're still alive, we can shake them off in orbit and try to go planet side and hide." He looked at Danni. "Are you sure there are no asteroids fields, nebulas or moon sized space bases around to hide in?"

Danni shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. That's the best I could find," she said.

Xander sighed. "It's fine. Two hours, nothing I can't do," he said, dodging, twitching and trying constantly to out think the enemy. The assholes were getting smarter.

He frowned. What was he forgetting? "The jammer, activate the jammer aimed at the fighters, on my mark." He turned to Jaina. "Be ready with the auto-blaster. Danni, sensor readings, I want detailed targeting data." He pushed the intercom. "Rona, Chloe, on my mark I'm going to start jamming the enemy fighters and do a full reverse. Start shooting and do not miss."

Chloe started. "We're going to attack them?" she asked in shock. That was the single most stupid idea ever.

Xander typed in some numbers with his left hand and the countdown started.

5

4

3

2

1

Jamming

All the enemy fighters could hear was a screeching sound as all communication and targeting information was gone as their sensors were jammed.
Then the Enterprise moved into the offensive.

Xander pulled a full reverse and attacked.

The four squadrons (2 squadrons off XJ-Wings, one squadron off A-9 Vigilant Interceptors and one squadron of Howlrunners) were taken totally by surprise as the ship attacked with a rain of coordinated fire and, without orders, half deafened by the jammers and with no targeting data, the squadrons were scattered to avoid collisions or to escape death.

As the big dreadnaught started to fire its guns, Xander did a second reverse and continued on the course.

Danni kept an eye on the screens. "The big one is using our jammers to improve his fire control," she said.

Xander nodded as he switched them off. "That's the down side. Less powerful ships we can turn blind and stupid. The bigger ships just get a better picture of us, unless we focus our jammers directly on them."

Danni frowned. "I know. With so many enemy ships, we don't have the option of focusing on just one." She growled, irritated, as a second capital ship joined the hunt, a small Kuat Driveyard Dagger corvette. It was 200 meters long and looked like a baby star-destroyer.

Jaina grinned. "Remember our first combat?" she asked.

Xander nodded, those were the times. "Yeah, we destroyed one like that in record time."

But this one moved faster and seemed to have bigger weapons and was manned by trained troopers.

They ran away, not attacking.

Danni peered at the Dagger corvette. "It looks cute. Like a new born baby Star Destroyer," she giggled.
Xander ignored them as he was trying to keep them all alive. "Anything I can use Danni, give it to me."

Danni nodded, looking at the sensors with a frown, trying to see anything. Then she smiled as she leaned over. "I believe in you Xander," she said as she kissed his neck. "Later, once we're safe, we're going to have lots of fun, just the three of us" she said, sitting back at the sensor chair.

Xander blinked, pushing the ship in a rolling dive, then up again, trying to shake of the pair of XJ-Wings on his rear. "Thanks Danni, whatever it was, it worked." He reversed the ship, using the fact that he had a class 6 hull and was much bigger than the fighters to his advantage.

"Yehaaa, die mother fucker!" he screamed out in the radio and rammed five A-9 Interceptors. The tiny fragile ships with the big deadly guns didn't have a chance.

Jaina blinked. "Um, Xander…" But she could do nothing as Xander returned on course. The two XJ-Wings moved away to attack from a distance. No longer could they hide from his guns by using his own hull as protection.

Rona growled in the gun turret. "Take that you ugly bitch!" She got one of them.

Chloe called: "More XJ-Wings are coming in!" Those bastards were fast.

Danni frowned. "I found something we could hide behind." she said a bit nervously.

Xander glanced at her. "Talk to me, what is it?"

Danni continued, still sounding a little unnerved: "A gas giant. Lots of storms, deadly atmosphere and only a fool would enter it just to hide."

Xander frowned. "Why didn't you mention it before?" He blinked. "Right, me ramming the A-9 makes me either a fool or a desperate fool?"

The girls nodded.

Xander shrugged. "The A-9 has no shields and a hull rating of class 2. I have full shields and hull class 6." He looked at them. "I'm flying a freaking turtle."
And they battled on.

Escape maneuver after escape maneuver, attacks to drive the fighters away so that they could escape again. Then finally the gas giant loomed in front of them.

They careened at the gas giant at full speed. It was stormy and deadly weather down there, with thunder and lightning that could fry a starship.
It was perfect. He dove in. "Danni, take the controls. Jaina, let's fix her up fast, there's no way we can survive down here for long."

She nodded as the ship rocked back and forth from storms that could rip asunder an armored truck like it was made of paper.

The engine room was a mess. Xander felt lucky he had a Mon-calamari shield system. While the Mon-calamari was not that good at weapon systems, their energy shields ruled. Each shield had two backup shield systems, forcing the enemy to shoot it asunder 3 times before it was dead and stayed dead.
Right now he was on the last backup system. "Right, fix the shields. I'm going to see if there's anything I can do for the hyperdrive."

-KNM-

Later

There was nothing he could do. The main power line between the hyperdrive and power core was blown to bits and the hyperdrive itself needed repairs before he could use it again. He would have to create a new power line and that would take days.

Jaina yelled at him, "Xander come here!"

"What?" he asked, turning around the corner. "Sith spit!" he swore. The hangar doors were welded together by the explosion, but a part of the XJ-Wing had, like a missile, ripped open the floor and damaged the atmospheric maneuvering and repulsor systems.

Jaina nodded. "We have to do something." They frowned. The ship rocked. "I bet it's pretty heavy to maneuver right now."

Xander nodded. "Take over. Use the ion drive. I know it will ionize the atmosphere and create even more thunder and lightning storms." He shrugged. "But unless you do it, I don't think I can fix this." Or survive, both of them were thinking.

She nodded. Unless they repaired the repulsor and the atmospheric maneuver system, flying out off the gas giant would be very difficult.

As she rushed out Xander frowned. Now, what could be used to fix this? He looked at the broken parts of the XJ-Wing. Lots of parts and he'd have to cannibalize it for spares.

"Xander, what is going on?" Buffy asked from the hangar doors.

Xander ignored her as he continued to remove components, fighting against time.

"Xander, I asked you what is going on?" she yelled.

Xander looked up. "Trying to repair the ship or ship goes BOOM. You are not helping." He kept fixing. "Damn it. Buffy, come here NOW." he ordered her.

Buffy jumped. "What?" The sound of desperation in his voice made her obey.

"I have too big hands. I need your help now." He ordered her and pulled down in the repulsor engine. "Put your hand inside there. You'll find a ring in the middle and a knob. Putt your hand on the knob and draw it out a tiny bit."

Buffy nodded. "It's out a finger length." Xander smiled, good. "Now put this oily metal ring around the knob and push it back inside again. Right. Do not touch the cable connected to the oily metal ring."

Buffy was just about to ask why when: "Ouch it bit me!" she screamed out as she got a nasty electric shock.

Xander nodded. "Yea and our life hangs on that the nasty thing is connected and not broken."

Buffy grumbled an "Ouch" struggled further "Ouch" to put it in place. "Ouch" It was not easy. "Ouch." She could not see, just stick in "Ouch" her hand and feel around "Ouch." And the cable kept on shocking her.

She glared angry at the engine as she said, "It's done." She removed her hands. "Will it work?" she asked.

Xander shrugged and pushed a button. A humming sound came from the engine. "It works."

Buffy grinned. "I so rule!" That was fun in a painful kind of way.

Xander grinned back. "Yes. I'm going to make an engineer out of you yet."

Buffy kept grinning. "What next?" she said, eager to help. This was fun in a dirty some way, too.

Xander kept moving. "The atmospheric thrusters, I need them repaired like fifteen minutes ago. Wait here." He got the spare parts from the store and the big spares he had taken from the XJ-Wing.

"Now let's start," he said as the two curled up together in the dirty engine. "Take of those lipstick lookalikes. Screw them off counter clock wise," he instructed. Buffy nodded quickly as she took one off and Xander put in another.

This was so different then the Xander she once knew. He was focused, intelligent and so much more skilled.

After coming here, they had had almost no time to adapt, as Xander, Rona and Chloe had started hunting the vampires. Tony, Jessica and Lexa had helped them learn Basic, combining some medical druggy thingy and droids to input the knowledge at a record speed, if she only could have learned French that way. If only. In less than a month they had learned the absolute minimum what they needed and the sucker called Beast was running to the City planet Coru something. Xander and his wife Jaina, Xander was married and they had a second wife. That was so ALIEN. A red skinned alien wife named Danni.
Buffy focused as she helped to repair the ship, memories off Xander and Jaina asking them to join with them on the journey to give Buffy and Willow a chance to get to know the new improved Xander Harris Solo, Jedi Master, flashing in her mind. Her first question was, if Jedi was some kind of cheese. Big mistake, that.

Even know she wasn't sure what a Jedi really was. It sounded like a mix between a fighter, a priest, a monk and a knight. She and Willow had not been that impressed by the Cheddar monk's order at first. If Xander could have become a master in such a short time, it couldn't be that big a deal. They were much more impressed by the power the students were using and by Rona and Chloe.

Then they finally got it, when Xander and Jaina had demonstrated for a stupid student just what a Jedi Master could do, using the power of the Force. Xander was a Jedi Master and Jaina and he were the main teachers and they were powerful and skilled in the use of light-sticks.

Xander screwed back a card like object onto the engine and slapped on the protective metal hull. The atmospheres maneuver thrusters activated, as if by them self.

Another drumming sound came from the atmosphere maneuver thrusters. It did not sound good.

Buffy frowned. "Its sick, right?" she asked.

Xander nodded. "Sick as a dog, we have to replace that part. But for now all we can do is force the sick wounded old thruster to work and hope it holds together." He looked at Buffy. "What we did is like pumping a crippled full of drugs, then forcing him to run a marathon on stilts. The thrusters can crash at anytime. We're torturing the engine right now."

Buffy nodded. "But we did good work, right?" she asked. She was covered in oil from top to bottom, but she no longer felt useless. This was a completely different universe and she could adapt. Fixing things was fun and perhaps she could learn that.

Xander nodded. "We did the impossible Buffy. Now go and change, we'll return to space soon and then the fight will start again," he said. "Buffy, believe it or not, but you have talent in fixing things."

Buffy nodded.

Later with Willow, Dawn and Lexa curled up in the love seat of horror. (A sofa two could sit on with no problem and 3 could snuggle up together made from the jaws of a monster, a HUGE monster)

"What's going on?" they asked as Buffy walked in, changed from her oiled down clothing to something fresh.

Buffy thought about it, "Um. Engine was hurt, so we fixed it. We're returning to the fight soon."

Willow nodded. "What are we fighting?" she asked. Buffy shrugged. "I forgot to ask that."

Willow hung her head. She felt so useless. Untrained, uneducated and unskilled, too many uns in her life right now. She just wasn't used to being the one who didn't understand.

Suddenly the ship went from rocking and trembling around from the storm outside to a more directional movement. The Enterprise's ion engine was pulling more power, they were moving up again.

In the cockpit Xander was chewing gum as he piloted the ship. Above them the whole fleet of ships had gathered around, lying in wait.

"Danni, prepare an emergency call for help. Jaina and Danni, you both look really sexy right now. Rona, Chloe, be ready to rumble."

Rona glanced at Xander. "What, don't I look sexy?" she asked.

Xander shrugged. "Ask your boyfriend," he said simply and the battle was joined.

XJ-Wings, Howlrunners and A-9 attacked them, squadron after squadron.

He pushed straight at the main ship, a 600 meter long Interdictor cruiser, at the full speed of 440 Mglt. At the last second he switched power to the maneuvering thrusters and turned around, pulling 300 MGLT he skimmed the surface of the Interdictor. He was in the zone.

All of the great pilots, Han Solo, Lando, Wedge Antilles and Luke Skywalker, had talked about THE ZONE.

Time was standing still for him. Each move was sugar sweet and perfect as he zigged and zagged between the cannon turrets. Aiming the missiles at the bridge of the ship, he pulled straight up, sending a rain of four missiles point blank into the bridge of the Interdictor cruiser.

The small defenders, close range fighters, had no chance of stopping him as he outmaneuvered them. A quick break to the left and he dived down under the Interdictor, using its massive hull as a shield from the Dagger who was attacking him. As the Interdictor started to spin out of control, he came up again.
The fighters were attacking him; the auto-blaster was blazing out fire as fast as Jaina could blink. She got another one. Most of the XJ-Wings were not hurt by the auto-blaster, but they were tagged which made it easier for the Enterprise's target computers to get a fire lock on them.

Xander turned up and flew right by a four hundred meter ship, ignoring the rain of fire they send towards him. At full acceleration, he was past them before they could blink. The fighters followed.

The XJ-Wings and Howlrunners were at his speed, the A-9 was faster. They were fragile, but had big fangs.

The A-9 came like waves around him while shooting their guns, eating away at his hull and shields. There was little he could do about it unless he tried to outmaneuver their attacks, but that would give the XJ-Wings the chance to get ahead.
Now he had no choice. The XJ-Wings fired their proton torpedoes at him.
"Aim the jammers at the missiles. In two." he said.

Jaina nodded. "Right." she said, then activated the jammer and waited.

At the last second Xander pulled a ship breaking turn, a full 90 degrees straight up, just as Jaina aimed the jammers at the torpedoes.
The A-9's were scrambling for protection or they would have slammed into his hull like rain on a roof. They succeeded, but they were left spread out in disorder.

The Squadron leader called to his fighters, "Let's pull together now," he ordered them to join up again.

The torpedoes lost their target lock and were unable to find the target again. They started to seek prey blindly.

"Turn the jammers off," Xander said and suddenly the missiles could see again.

One by one they found a fitting target lock. ION engines lock on.

Danni giggled. "Brilliant. Out of 24 torpedoes only two 2 are locking on us now."

Jaina started. "What? Don't tell me…" she said, giggling. The torpedoes, confused after being jammed, had found alternate ships to lock on to and the A-9's started to explode around them in space.

Xander pulled up his radio. "Right X-Wings, listen and listen well. There are two ways we can do this, the hard way or the smart way. The smart way would be for you to run," he said, closing communication.

Jaina nodded, time for her to test her skills. She switched places with Danni and entered Jedi Battle meditation, improving the skills of the Enterprise crew and creating an almost joining level of cooperation, while seeding fear and confusion in the hearts of the enemy. It was a skill her mother was much better at, yet it was a skill she was more skilled in then Xander was. Like her dad Han Solo once said. –When the going gets tuff, you Jedi go all dreamy.-

Rona's rain of fire made the two missiles explode. That was pure luck, but it sure looked impressive. "Chloe, where are we going?" she asked.

Chloe shook her head. "I think he's attacking the fleet again."

Rona started to slam her head in the wall. "Why? Why not run?" She pulled herself together. "Let's fire and forget then."

They attacked.

Now the X-Wing pilots and the Howlrunners were nervous as the heavy freighter attacked. Moving like a star fighter and armed like a gunboat, it was not an easy target by anyone's estimate.

Danni's fingers flew over the consoles. "Jammers on," she said.

Xander took full advantage of the sensor blinded fighter pilots. Like a bull in a china shop he threw his weight around, while Rona and Chloe turned another two X-Wings into burning balls of fire. Chloe made a Howlrunner explode and nicked one at the side, making the pilot lose control and twist straight into his wing man, causing both fighters to burn.

The XJ-Wing pilots weren't bad, they turned and attacked. Xander's constantly changing course and heavy attacks were driving them apart though.

The Howlrunners weren't beginners at this either.

Then one of the pilots managed to get the others' attention. They all turned tail and started to regroup into an attack formation. Then, just as they were returning, Xander turned tail and ran at full speed.

Fifteen minutes later the XJ-Wings and Howlrunners following him were falling further and further behind.

Then the XJ-Wings and the Howlrunners weren't following them anymore. They had orders to wait for reinforcement.

The planet was finally in front of them. Activating the sensor mask he dove down and vanished in to the soup of the atmosphere.

It wasn't a good landing as the repulsor worked only at 5 % and they needed at least 25 % for a smooth touchdown. Then the atmosphere thrusters suddenly died on them. With the ion engine blasting at full power, they managed to turn a crash into something they would survive.

Then something in the Ion engine died and the ion engine refused to work.

Half buried in the soft ground, they were surrounded by jungle and sea. To look on the bright side, it was a good hiding spot.

Danni and Jaina rushed out, followed by Rona, to put up the camouflage.

By now Xander was trembling from the aftershock. He did it, no, they did it.

He sat down in the sofa, calming himself, as Danni and Jaina snuggled up next to him. "Xander, what happened?" Willow asked.

That was a good question. Something had exploded. Not the X-Wing, but something, and then they had the luck to enter normal space near a Republic patrol fleet.

"No idea what happened Willow. No idea. Sabotage and emergency hyperspace cut off, we entered normal space in the middle of an enemy fleet," he said.

Rona groaned. "That was one hell of a combat situation," she said. Her hands were still trembling, pulling the trigger that many times was hard work.

That was almost an hour of combat and chase.

"Now we rest. Tomorrow we start fixing her up." Xander said, before taking one girl under each arm, carrying both Danni and Jaina into the bedroom for pre-resting activities.