A/N: Just wanted to say thanks to 'JEDICLONECOWGIRL', 'JEDI MASTER PLO KOON' and 'FENOR9' for their short reviews. Thanks.
CHAPTER 2:
As the clone transport left Coruscant's atmosphere, Ewn caught sight of the 'LIBERTY' through the starboard viewport that had been built into the transport's door. He'd never seen a Star Cruiser up close before-only from the decks that circled the temple, and even then they were kilometers away-and the wonderous sight that was the ship was enough to make Ewn's jaw drop.
The sheer size of the Cruiser compared to their transport was overwhelming. As the pilot passed the bow, Ewn counted how long it took to reach the docking bay. Six minutes and fourty-six seconds.
'Incredible aren't they?..." Cody said as their transport's thrusters lifted them into the bottom of the much larger ship.
"Yeah, I didn't think it would be this big..." the boy looked out of the viewport again as the ship landed on the docking bay floor. Around them, dozens more clone troppers were preparing the floor for the departure of Ewn and the rest of the occupants from the transport. A series of cables were connected to the undercarriage to hold it in place and refuel it, Then braces popped up from under the floor to support it.
Both side doors came unhinged, and the sides fell open, turning the two doors into exit ramps for the passengers. Ewn took up his travel pack and followed Cody down into the the docking bay.
A man dressed in the dark grey flightsuit all officer wore met the clones and Ewn at the bottom of the ramp.
"Captain..." Cody said as he reached the grey suited man, saluting him, before moving off to the side.
"Commander..." the Captain said, turning his attention to Ewn. "You must be the youngling..." Ewn nodded, a little intimidated by the Captain. He had reason to be, the Captain was a oddly scary looking man, with a large bald patch on his pale head and grey eyes that watched Ewn like a Kath hound.
"We've prepared quarters for you east of the bridge," the Captain moved to the side and gestured for Ewn to follow. "This way..."
Ewn just nodded, then followed the Captain over and into the turbo-lift, which stopped at the bridge.
Here he took this chance to look out at Coruscant. He'd never been off planet before, and the silver and bronze cities that were just visible from the ship were almost as awe inspiring as the Liberty. Perhaps even more.
The Captain beckoned him again, dragging Ewn from his sightseeing and leading the young jedi into a room right off the bridge, where a bed, holodesk and meditation mat had been set up for him. "I hope this is to your liking...sir..." the Captain said, adding the 'Sir' at the last second, as Ewn surveyed the room. It was roughly the same as what he had at the temple-apart from the few personal effects that littered his room there-so Ewn had no complaints.
"This is perfect, thank you Captain..."
The Captain nodded. "Our journey to Dorin will take around ninety minutes, we will have someone bring food up to you later on."
Ewn looked over to the captain. "Okay...th-thank you..." he said. For some reason, he all of a sudden felt as if he wasn't welcome on the ship.
The Captain nodded once more. "You've never been on a crusier before have you?..."
Ewn shook his head.
"Then the jump to Hyperspace will effect you..I suggest you lie down until we've safely made the jump."
The Captain bowed-looking a little annoyed at having to do so to a teenager-and then left without another word, leaving Ewn to pack his things away.
0ooo0ooo0ooo0ooo0
Ewn sat on the meditation mat in his quarters. It had been almost an hour since the Cruiser had hit Hyperspace, and he'd spent the most of the time sitting silently-legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees-having gotten bored of pacing his quarters.
The jump to Hyperspace wasn't as bad as Ewn expected it to be. Being told to lie down by the captain made him a little anxious about the event, but it just felt as if a weight had been placed on his chest for about a minute, then nothing, as if they weren't moving at all.
He had also tried to run through saber Kata's earlier, but the Captain had called in over the room's comm unit and asked him not to-in case something was damaged. That put him down a bit, as he was very eager to practice, but in the end, he followed the Captain's request and just meditated-albeit rather reluctantly.
A quick 'bleep' tore the young Jedi from his trance, and, upon standing up and looking at the camera screen on his wall,realised he was starving. Outside, Commander Cody stood with a tray of food, waiting for Ewn to buzz him through. The youth did so, and smiled as the clone entered his chamber with a tray of Corellian vegetables and some blue milk.
"Here we are Jedi..." the clone smiled as he sat the tray down of Ewn's table. "How are you liking the trip?..."
Ewn sat on the bed, and took up the milk. "It's alright, pretty boring though."
Cody giggled. "Yeah, that can happen. We clones are always on duty though, so there's no time to get bored."
Ewn nodded."I wish there was something for me to do."
"The Captain just doesn't want you to get injured before Dorin."
"And I thought he just didn't like me."
"He's always been like that." Cody said with a chuckle, standing up. "I'll leave you to your meal, but I'll be back up right before we pull out of Hyperspace to check on you."
Ewn opened his mouth to ask if Cody would stay a while, just so he would have someone to talk to, but all that came out was an "Okay..." then watched as the door closed on the clone.
Ewn regretted not asking Cody to stay immediately. He'd never so much as spent an afternoon alone on Coruscant, so isolation wasn't something the teen was used to.
He sighed to himself, then turned his attention to his meal, taking up a purple carrot and biting it in healf with his left canine. It wasn't ba...
BAMMMMMM
The sound of an explosion echoed throughout Ewn's cabin, and the entire ship jerked to the left, sending the apprentice flying into his wall, along with everything in the cabin that wasn't bolted down. His shoulder collided against the carbon steel and the impact rocked him, his vision blurring and his arm going numb.
He didn't move for a moment; actually, it was more like he couldn't. His head felt like a Rancor had stood on it. 'What happened?...' he asked himself. At the temple he was taught that Hyperspace travel was one hundred percent safe.
Ewn had no time to think, as the roof opened up and Cody leant in, as if Ewn were stuck in an arena pit and the clone was looking down on him. "Ewn?...damn..Ewn give me a second,ok?...I'll get you out." the figure that was Cody disappeared for a moment, leaving the boy to look around his room. It was then that he noticed that his cabin was on it's side. The roof hadn't opened, the entire ship had been tipped on it's side. His doorway was now the roof.
For a few minutes, Ewn lay there, still not recovered from his crash, until a thin rope dropped down into the cabin, a clone following it. "Jedi?..." Ewn raised his head to see a trooper that wasn't Cody standing over him. "On your feet youngling..." he said, reaching down and taking the boy under his arms and lifting him to his feet. "We've got to get you out of here.."
"I need my things..." Ewn said, his eyes still slightly glazed over. He stepped past the clone and began searching the small mess in his cabin for his possessions.
"We don't have the time..." Cody said, leaning over the doorway above them.
"It'll only be a second." Ewn replied. He wasn't losing his affects for anything. Sinking starcruiser included. He reached the closet built next to the bed, and pulled it open, revealing his cloak crumpled inside. He pulled the brown dressing from it's hook and threw it over his shoulder.
"No jedi...there's no time for searching..." the clone who'd been lowered into the room insisted, wrapping a cord around Ewn and tugging it, indicating to Cody to retract and pull them from the room.
"I've got it." he muttered, grabbing Cin Drallig's holocron from his cot's strewn covers. The next second, his entire body lifted from the floor, and he and the clone lifted up to the doorway, where Cody wrapped his arms around Ewn to pull him over the edge.
"Are you alright Ewn?," The boy looked up, seeing a half dozen troopers gathered together, all watching him.
"I'm fine, I'm just dizzy."
Cody pulled him to his feet as another trooper reached out to give clone who'd rescued Ewn his hand, pulling him out of the pit as well. "Good, we don't have time to waste...come on," he started off up the hall. "The ship's going down, we have to abandon her."
The clone who helped Ewn out of the room put his hand into his back. "Come on jedi," Ewn followed his lead, his haze finally starting to fade away. The group of clones and Ewn snaked down the halls, left and right, and through a series of doors to the evac-bay.
"What's going on?," Ewn asked, watching the dozens of men and women, clones and officers, hastily climbing through the circular doors into the evacuation pods."Why is the ship going down?,"
"The Separatists," Cody said, clearing the path to one of the pods and motioning for Ewn to climb in. "They littered our flight path with Grav-mines and pulled us from hyperspace." Cody and the rest of the clones followed Ewn into the pod, where Cody helped strap Ewn in.
"How would they know our flightpath?," EWn asked as Cody pulled his straps tight and sat down in his own seat.
"Isn't it obvious?," Ewn shook his head. "Someone gave them away." Seconds later, before Ewn had a chance to ask anymore questions, he was jerked to the side as the pod exploded from it's port. The sensation was much like the jump to hyperspace, though much more brief. He felt the G-force lift almost as quickly as it had set in, allowing him to watch through the porthole as chunks of the colossal ship broke apart from each other and fell into the atmosphere of a nearby planet.
"What are we going do?," Ewn cried, just now realising that they were alone in the void of space with part of the Separatist army bearing down on them.
Cody, who was sitting at the small comand console across from Ewn, pointed out at the planet where the debris was falling to. "There. We'll hide on planet and fire off a signal to Dorin, General Koon should reach us in a few hours," the pod formed an arc and headed towards the planet-where Ewn noticed many of the escape pods were heading. "Until then we'll just have to keep out of sight,"
Ewn gulped, fearful as the escape pod entered the planet's atmosphere, clenching his blue eyes together as he braced for impact.
