Dante-RevanThanks for your review, it was the first one I've had my entire life, so that makes you special! And thanks for noticing that I worked hard, it's quite difficult coming up with various vocab words. Thanks for the technical advice, too. I'm still trying to figure out how to work this site, but I'm getting better. Gradually.
Hope you like this one, took me a while to type.
Chapter 2
Recovery
Zenith Renar had just awoken in the med bay.
It took a moment for his eyes to focus. But when they did, he saw the Miraluka sitting closely next to him, laying her hand on top of his. If he could see her eyes, he knew it would be full of relief.
And love. That… was a problem.
"Zenith?" She never called him Zen. "Are you awake, my love?"
He lay still on the bed. He must've slept a long time, for his stomach cried for food and his injuries from Malachor seemed to be recovering. His headache remained, though. He looked down upon himself and noticed he wasn't in his once glimmering Jal Shey Armor he'd retrieved from Dxun. Instead, he wore simple Jedi garments. His pants were loose and black; he possessed no footwear at the moment, and had various shades of black that werefolded around his upper body. The sleeves were thin coated, long, and comfy. The clothing piece even provided a hood. Also, most unique about it, was the vest he wore. Normally, it would be a thick black or mud brown, but this was pure white and had unique symbols on it, possibly a foreign language long forgotten to the galaxy. He then looked around the room, seeking out a difference.
Everything was fine, except for the lighting, for it was dimmed. That was when Zenith started to remember what events had brought him here…
"Zenith, can you hear me?"
Zen felt stupid for a moment by not responding to her first question. "Yes, Visas, I can hear you."
Visas let out a deep breath, and slowly formed a smile. This hurt Zen a lot. Visas thought she loved him, but she only desired him for his defect. His defect in the Force. He didn't love Visas. When the two opened themselves to each other through the Force at Telos, he saw this fact. But Visas wouldn't live if Zen didn't love her back. At the end of all of this, she expected them to be together… walking the beaches of Naboo, running the plains of Dantioone… If he had to tell herthat he had to leave her, leave the galaxy to a place uncharted, to fight another war… to fulfill his destiny… alone… she would be crushed beyond care.
No, he thought, not if I tell her. When.
He didn't want to deal with this pain of attachment. That's why, long ago, he accepted the sentence of exile gratefully.
"Where are we, how long have I slept?"
She smiled warmly at him, grasping his hand a little tighter. "We are coordinated to the Citadel Station on Telos. We're in hyperspace now. Atton says we should be there in less than a standard hour. We've been traveling for 43 hours since you fell asleep."
On the inside, Zen snorted when Visas said 'fell asleep'. He couldn't remember exactly what happened, but he did know that he didn't crawl to his bed, grab his stuff bantha, pull the blanket to his chin, suck his thumb and 'fall' asleep. He still felt the vibration of when his skull hit the solid floor of the Ebon Hawk's… cockpit? Yeah, he thought, it was the cockpit.
Zen tried to get up, but his muscles and tendons protested immediately. Visas pushed him back down, used the Force to ease his pain. "Please, my love. Lay still. You need time to recover." She grabbed a med pack and injected the serum into his thigh to relax a convulsive muscle. "And now, we have plenty of time."
In the softest of a voice that even the Miraluka couldn't hear, he said, "You have no idea." No one had any idea of what would happen. Kreia had told him. She had told him of the fate of his crew once they arrived at Telos. Something would go terribly wrong, but he didn't know what. 'Once upon your destination, something will go terribly wrong, even you can't summon enough Force to stop it. You will survive, of course. The Force won't let you perish. But you friends...' Kreia had said that one would… no. No one. Zenith was determined to take no loses. Despite what Kreia had foresaw. His crew had worked too hard and too long to die on their return home. He would loose no one.
"Where is…" He was going to say the Handmaiden, but thought better of it. "…Everyone?"
She noticed his hesitation, but made nothing of it. "Your pilot's at the cockpit. The Zabrak is on his break from continuous inspections of the ship. The Mandalorian… we're trying to get him to lie down and recover from his facial wound, but he follows the tiny droid around, assisting with repairs, when he can. They seemed to have formed a bond, for two personalities terribly different. The battle droid is… itself." Zen winced at that. He never thought of HK as an 'it'. Visas missed his wince, though, for she looked down and drew lightly on the creases of Zen's fingers, carefully avoiding the few cuts that still remained.
"The bounty hunter," she continued. She paused, though; he sensed she sought Mira through the Force. "Is at the cockpit, also. Irritating our pilot." Zen smiled at that. Mira was always good at bugging Atton. She was 2nd to T3. Visas, looking down shyly, expressed a slight grin. It was nice that the woman was finally getting a little humor into herself. But he noticed that Visas forgot someone else.
"What about Brianna? Where is she?"
Visas stopped drawing on his hand and hesitated. "Who?"
Who? Zen was shocked that Visas never figured out the Handmaidens name. "Brianna, the Handmaiden. You never said where she was."
"Oh, of course. The Handmaiden." Visas responded with no emotion, "She's resting, lending a hand when she can. She's already recovered from the minor wounds she's sustained." Visas didn't mention that Brianna mostly lent her hand to healing Zenith while Visas meditated her Force power on aiding the Hawk's travel through hyperspace. She thought that as knowledge that Zenith didn't need to know.
Seeing as how she fell quiet, Zen asked, "Visas, why don't you call people by their names?"
Zen saw how obviously she was caught off guard. "I mean," he added, "you don't go around calling me exile. But you call Bao-Dur a Zabrak, you call Mandalore a Mandolorian or The Warrior, you call Mira a bounty hunter, you call Atton the pilot, and so on. I'm just wondering why. Do you have a hard time remembering names or something?"
She struggled for a moment her face gazing at his. "N-no… not really… I just… that's how my people talk to those… that are different."
"Aren't I different?" Zen just had to ask.
Visas didn't budge as when she answered. "Yes, you are different. And you're special."
"And the others are not?" Zen protested. He knew his questions and knew he wouldn't get full answers from Visas. This whole time, it seemed she had held a prejudice against everyone else… not trusting anyone else's skills but his and her own.
Visas held her facial stare at him, and then realization came in little ripples to him through the Force. "I see, Zenith." He waited for her answer. "This is a little Jedi test, and I've failed miserably." Little or no answer, just what he expected from Visas after their journey. He watched her as she slowly stood up. "I must go and meditate. The ship is still unstable from…" Malachor "…recent events." Bless her, Zen thought, for not saying that horrid name.
She bent down and kissed his cheek. She would've done the lips, but they were cut. So, she would've done the forehead, but it was still swollen from the blow Sion had given him. The safest place to touch him without giving harm was his cheek. At least, she thought it was. The fact that she kissed him felt like a stab in the gut to Zen.
I just don't love her, and I don't have the heart to tell her.
He left that thought concealed, as most of the thoughts going through his head are. Visas had left the room, so he leaned back and closed his eyes again. Only for a moment, though, because he felt a familiar presence at the door. He slowly opened his eyes and leaned his head up from his pillow. Brianna stood, leaning on the door, giving him a warm smile of greeting. He gladly smiled back.
Visas had to work hard to even get the tiniest smile on his face. All Brianna had to do was stand their and look at him. She was about to make a topic to discuss, which would probably turn into an extensive conversation that would last from 2-3 hours or so. That's the average length of their conversations. But then, he felt it, a disturbance in the Force…
Oh, no… Zen thought, Its happening. Just like Kreia said. I have to stop it. I have to—
The ground shudders under their feet and they hear metal tearing off of the exterior of the ship.
From the cockpit, Atton's voice yells, "We lost something!"
Zen gets up and is behind Brianna by the time him and the entire crew crowd into the cockpit. Bao-Dur was the first to get there. "What do you mean we lost something? We're in hyperspace, what did we hit?"
"Nothing…" Atton worked frantically at the controls. "I think." Mira mimicked him on the right side of the cockpit. "Check the readouts." He added.
Mira read off a data screen to the side of her as we heard more metal creaking tear off the crippled Hawk. "You're right, we lost something. Big. The panels along the ion engines are weak and loose. That explains the noise. It's a blasted miracle they've stayed attached this long. And our port stabilizers were ripped off, which makes our landing capabilities a wee bit tougher." All faces went tense.
Bao-Dur read off another data screen close beside him. "The engine's leaking, also."
Brianna spoke, hiding any signs of fear. "Well that doesn't matter, does it? We're getting out of hyperspace in half a minute."
Bao-Dur turns from the screen and looks out to the canopy at the stars flashing by. "If the ship wasn't thrown off course."
"If?" Reminders of what Kreia had told Zen at the Trayus Core spun through his head. They were in serious trouble.
Mira, for a moment, leaned back from the controls. "Oh, c'mon, guys. You're the most negative thinking Jedi I've ever met!" Atton leaned over to the hyperspace switch. "What are you doing?"
"Getting a jumpstart out of a situation we don't want to be in, what else?" Atton responded. Mira protested, "But if we exit now, Citadel would only be a speck from our view port!" Atton ignored her, he got used to doing that recently. But her protest brought others from his companions. Soon, everyone was either offending or defending him. Atton, though annoyed, showed a lot less fear at the moment compared to how Zen felt. Something's wrong! Zenith searched drastically through the Force, trying to find the fault…
"—safer if we exit hyperspace now because we can give off a flare, signaling we need help." Bao-Dur said.
"I checked the cargo hold; we do have three flares ready to fire up if needed." Mandalore added. His scars stood out vividly now that he'd finally displaced his helmet. Bao-Dur nodded. He and the Mandolorian started getting along after dragging the General onto the ship. He turned to Atton and said, "Do it."
Atton slowly pulled the switch back, and leaned back in his chair to watch Telos appear in the canopy.
It didn't. They were still in hyperspace.
"Atton, I said do it!"
Zen found the flaw. "The hyperdrive." He muttered.
"I did! I did do it!" Atton reaches for the hyperdrive switch another time, pushes it back up, and pulls it back down again. The lines of stars only zigzagged when the ship shuddered. "I-It's not my fault!"
Zen raced to the back unnoticed by everyone but the astromech droid. Mira bit her lip. "Atton! If you don't drop out of hyperspace in 17 seconds, our atoms are going to be spread throughout the galaxy longer than the Corellian Trade Spine!"
Atton's hands began to sweat with Mira's comment. "It's not my fault! I swear! We must've lost more in hyperspace then that cursed data pad says! Check it again!" Atton works at the controls making adjustments, trying to escape death. Bao-Dur read the charts hastily again, so did Mira. "Uh-oh…" were the words that escaped her mouth.
"You were right." Bao-Dur turned and sprinted down the corridor. "We did loose something else." The rest of the crew could only stand and watch as their fates were decided on their companions.
At the back of the dark, sparking engine room, T3 found his Master. Zenith was gathering fallen cables and placing them in and out of the hyperdrive. He was changing its power source, and making a very large mess of it along the floor, so T3 couldn't assist. Then another shudder shook the ship as Atton tried to exit hyperspace. With that, sparks blew from the hyperdrive, and its lighting glow went out. "Sith's blood!" Zenith cursed.
"6 seconds, Atton! Do something!" Mira's voice was frantic.
Fast footsteps grew louder behind T3. "General!" 5… 4…
T3 saw his master pause exactly 2.67 seconds after being called before reaching his arm out to the little droid. T3 found himself being propelled forcefully off the floor and landed somehow on his mechanical little legs above the cluttered thick cables. He whirred a complaint for his masterfor using the Force on him like that.
3… 2…
"Zap it!" He was pointing to the hyperdrive. "Zap it now! With everything you got!"
1…
His master began to run out of the room. Before T3 could give a question, he saw his master turn Bao-Dur around from entering the engine room and made him sprint back to the cockpit. He shouted. "NOW OR NEVER, T3!"
…0
It was now, and T3 popped a zap blaster out of his cylinder-like head and sent voltages into the core of the hyperdrive. The shock flew the droid backwards out of the room and screeched while electric bolts shot throughout the area. The energy the little weapon caused brought power back momentarily to the hyperdrive. More and more vigorous shuddering went throughout the Ebon Hawk. The droid whirred frantically as it tried to get back on its wheels.
Both Zen and Bao-Dur were thrown off their feet in the main room, but pure will and Force push got Zen to the cockpit in time the see them exit hyperspace. Looking out the canopy, though, his jaw fell in line with the rest of the crew.
12 meters from their face, stood Admiral Carth Onasi, staring just as shocked from his office window of his TSF Capital building. They exited hyperspace just shy of blowing right through Citadel Station. Now 9 meters separated them from crashing into the Admiral that was known to keep the Republic from crumble.
"Pull up, Atton!" Zenith shouted, panic boiling . "Pull up!"
