I own nothing...
Dedicated once more to Nana Cloud.
Jada woke up early the next morning. She yawned and looked at the ionawood carving again. It was definately a boy...Jim. She didn't know that she could ever love someone as she loved Silver. Wait-just-a-doggone-second...she couldn't love Jim. Silver...She shook her head and quickly changed into her favorite pair of purple pants and a green tank top. As she stood, she caught sight of her reflection in a mirror that Silver had got her for her birthday one year.
She studied herself for a minute. Her blue hair was showing at the roots. Her purple dye was wearing off. Curse that salessquid to Open Space! He said that it would last a year at least! It was barely five months past! She stuck her tounge at her reflection and walked out of her room She quietly crept around the sleeping crew members, nervous about waking them after such a day as yesterday.
Her feet took her out on deck and she quickly climbed a shroud. She made a comfortable seat in the rigging and sat, looking out at the trillions of stars and faraway planets. Silent, she just let her mind wander. The closer and closer they got to their destination, the more and more she questioned their motives. Silver was her captain and her hero. But slowly, Jim was being elevated to the same status. Didn't matter how dirty she was, or what she was doing, Jim always had a smile for her. His smile was so nice, uncomplicated.
Once they reached Treasure Planet (Silver had told her), her loyalities would be stretched to the max. Where did she belong? Even Amelia was causing her stress. She had taught her about things that a girl should know. There had been several very pleasent chats over toast and tea. Dr. Doppler...what a hoot! Jada loved his boylike curiousity about everything on a ship and she enjoyed doing word puzzles with him. (She had snitched a book of word puzzles from Jilcon 3 and the Doctor couldn't get enough).
But Silver had saved her...saved her from the giltrons and from a life of loneiness. Who had calmed her nightmares, who had taught her all she needed to know? Who had made sure that she knew a trade and she could fend for herself? Slowly, the ship came to life underneath her. Amelia would be wanting breakfast soon. She could wait a few more minutes couldn't she? Jada sighed and looked out to the starboard. Suddenly, a giant emeral green planet burst free of a solar cloud and Onus bellowed,
"PLANET HO!" There it was...beautiful. But now Jada had to make her choice. Stay or go? Surely they wouldn't mutiny so early. She could still think about it, but now that the planet was near, Amelia would want her breakfast. Jada heaved another sigh and climbed down. She dusted her hands off and walked towards the galley. She was about to go down the stairs when there was a blur of brown/black and something grabbed her wrist. She had a split second to wonder, then she was jerked along with the running Jim.
"JIm?! What the bloody Hell-?!" She fell silent, for her eyes saw Silver pound onto the deck, and saw his cybrogic eye meet hers. Before the door slammed shut, she saw him pull the whistle from his pocket. Then the door was slammed shut and locked. The shrill whistle still cut through the wood.
'They're mutinying NOW? No!'
"Mr. Hawkins?" inquired Captain Amelia, looking up from her papers on her desk, her expression puzzled.
"He's a—they're all pirates. They're mutinying—right now!" cried Jim, breathless and panicked. Amelia stared at him.
'How did he find out?' thought Jada, as Amelia dashed to her weapons cabient and started tossing weapons to everyone. Even her panicked state, Jada caught Amelia's words.
"I'll see they all hang!" Jada shuddered, and then a flintlock was thrust into her hands. Dr. Doppler managed to misfire his, causing an energy blast to hit the wall just next to Amelia, barely missing Jada's curls. She uttered the smallest of groans, then a laser blast hit, going through the door, barely missing them. Jim fired back, but missed by a mile. Jada saw Amelia toss him a golden ball, which in Jada's panicked state she recognized as the map. Morph, however, intercepted it. Jim tried to grab it back.
"We have to get off the ship," Amelia said, coldly loading another laser rifle.
"But I can't!" Jada wailed mutely. "Silver..!"
"But, Captain…" the Doctor stammered, pointing at the door. "We can't get out, there're pirates out there! We're trapped like—" Amelia pointed her laser rifle at the floor and blew a hole in it. It wasn't quite big enough, so she shot it again. Jada's hands were shaking around the flintlock in her hands. Jim suddenly grabbed her wrist again, and pushed her into the hole. As she slid through, she had enough time to smile.
Sooner than Jada would have liked, they were running along the hallway in the mechanical room, and for some unfathomable reason, Jada was leading. What was she doing? Her feet were betraying her mind. She heard an energy rifle go off behind them and she threw herself forward.
"It's just the Captain!" said Jim, grabbing her as Jada heard Amelia shout that they needed to get to the longboats. As they continued to run, Jada heard oddly specific yelling from behind.
"Get the map!"
"Get Jada!"
'Does Silver think that they are kidnapping me? That's ridiculous. I'm-I'm going along willingly!' She halted and turned. She could see a red gleam between two boards in a door. Silver. She smiled before hearing a gun load. Silver's big one. A tear formed in her eyes, then she blinked it back and she turned again to face Jim, Dr. Doppler and Amelia trying to launch a longboat.
A tremendous explosion told her that the door was now gone. She turned, her flintlock in her hands. She gripped it hard, and looked down the sight-path. She could easily blast them to Open Space. She tried to pull the trigger...her hands shook so violently that she couldn't aim it. She threw it down in disgust and ran back to the longboat. Amelia and Doppler were already in it. Jada jumped and landed pretty nimbly beside the Doctor. He lifted his flintlock and shot upward over the crewmen's heads, hitting the bay's air conditioner. The machine swung violently back and forth, hanging from the ceiling by nothing but its wires. Jada watched in terrified fascination until finally the wires snapped and the heavy conditioner plummeted, crashing through the wooden screen some of the crewmen were standing on. They, along with the air conditioner, fell through the damaged screen to their deaths in an instant.
"Did you actually aim for that?" asked Amelia, looking at him with puzzlement and a hint of admiration.
"You know, actually, I did!" Dr. Doppler looked inexplicably proud of himself, when Amelia threw herself on them and shoved them down as energy blasts lit up the air where their heads had been a second before.
"Don't shoot!" shouted Jada, throwing her hands up. Several laser blasts answered her cry.
"It's no use pleading!" said Amelia, growling and shooting at them again. Then both their eyes caught sight of Silver pushing the lever on the bay doors. They were closing. Amelia grabbed the Doctor.
"Doctor— when I say 'now', shoot out the forward cable. I'll take this one." she said, gesturing with her rifle. The Doctor nodded. Jada breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to smile at Jim. But where was he?
"Jim?" she wondered. "Where's Jim?" They didn't hear her and were preparing to shoot. "Wait, Captain, Jim!" she screamed.
"Where is he, blast it?" Amelia shouted at the Doctor, and he pointed to his right to one of the catwalks of the longboat bay near where they had run from
"He's there! The morph has the map; he must be trying to get it back!"
"Morph, give him the damn map!" shouted Jada, throwing a stray (tiny) asteriod in the direction of Morph.
"We don't have time! The door will be closed soon!"
"Give him time! We can't leave without him!" wailed Jada, ready to rip her hair out.
"You've got to give him some time! His mother will kill me if anything happens to him—" the Doctor cried, gesturing wildly with his flintlock.
"I haven't that much time to give him! One minute—then we, at least, must go! We can retrieve him later!"
"Oh, com'n that isn't fair!" shouted Jada, practically pulling out her hair.
"One minute," the Doctor repeated, and they all grew silent as they watched Jim battle for the map.
Jada watched with bit lip, as Silver approached Jim, and suddenly Morph dropped between them with the map in his mouth. They both began to call out to Morph, sweetly and even a little bit panicked, to come to them. Morph swayed one way and the other and Jada understood how he felt. She felt just the same, unable to make a decsion between the two men in her life.
Morph finally paused in midair between the two of them. He looked from one to the other, eyes wide. He suddenly seemed to make up his mide. Wheeling about, he dove into a coiled line underneath it that had been left on the catwalk, and disappeared in its center. Jada cried out that time was almost up. Then both Silver and Jim took off for the coiled rope, racing each other now for whoever could get there first.
Jada couldn't tear her eyes from the race. Suddenly, she could see that Silver's cyborg leg was now hindering his speed, almost seeming to hurt him. Then he fell altogether, and Jada was amazed that even that did not stop him. He was actually crawling on towards the coiled line. He was pulling himself along, and a feeling of great desire, almost to the point of obsession, leaked from both his human and his cyborgic sides. His eye started to glow a possessed red. When he reached out to grasp the center of the coiled line when he'd made it there, a sickening smile slithered across his face, and Jada realized that this wasn't the Silver that she knew.
Then, she saw Jim lean down, grab the map and he started to run back to the longboat. At that moment Silver took his mechanical arm, it whirred and he took out his flintlock. He aimed it at the retreating back of Jim.
"SILVER, NO!!" screamed Jada, her eyes meeting his. Silver hesitated, and then lowered his gun. Jada saw that the light in his mechanical eye had faded from red to it's familiar emerald glow. He hadn't shot him. She breathed a sigh of relief as Jim came running.
"Now!" shouted Amelia, not waiting another second. Jada watched as the cables exploded with showers of sparks. They dropped like a rock, slamming into the bay doors so hard that Jada feared that they would break apart. It remained together and they dropped through, as Jim leapt and managed to grab the larboard bulwarks and he hung there, his hand still clasping the map.
Jada instantly ran to him and hauled him up. It was difficult as Jim was so much bigger than her. When she finally got him over the edge, they both collapsed to the floor, panting hard. When she opened her eyes, his big blue ones were glimmering not two inches from her face. Kissing distance...Their eyes had locked and Jim opened his mouth as if to say something.
"Captain! Laser ball at twelve o'clock!" Doppler cried, causing Jim and Jada to pop up off the floor, then throw themselves back down. Jim's arm went over her shoulders and she felt protected. Jada felt the searing heat of the laser ball pass them, felt the juttering impact, heard Amelia cry out. There were several more shudders and she felt things bang up against the bottom of the longboat. One last thudding jolt and they flipped over. Jada fell out, the ground was coming at a alarming pace, she had just enough time to wonder if this would be one of those landings where you don't feel the pain till later, and then all was darkness.
A Few Minutes Later...
"Jada? Jada?! Jada, for Pieces' sake, wake up!" A hand was shaking her. She didn't want to wake up. She was so tired. Suddenly, the past half-hour came back to her. Running, shooting, Silver, Jim, laser balls, crashing...She sat bolt upright, knocking her forehead into Jim's. They sat down hard, rubbing their heads.
"Oh, Jim, I'm so sorry!" She made a move to him, but he waved her off.
"I'm okay, I'm okay. Are you?" he asked, concerned. She appriciated that for a minute.
"Yes, I think so. Just a killer of a headache." Her eyes took in dense forest folliage, and the overturned longboat. Capt. Amelia was being helped by the Doctor. After a subdued conversation, she turned to Jim. She seemed to have trouble standing. She squiented, and Jada knew that she wasn't near-sighted.
"Mr. Hawkins…The map…if you please." She was definately having trouble speaking. Jada bit her lip, hoping that it wasn't anything too severe. Jim rustled about in his shirt and pulled it out with a sigh of relief. Jada saw it up close for the first time. It was such a pretty golden color, almost the color of an old, yet not red-giant star. Suddenly, the map began to loose it's sheen and it began to turn pink. It lifted into the air and turned into Morph! Morph began to laugh and Jada was going to cry.
"Morph!" Jim shouted, furious yet trying not to frighten the creature. "Morph, where's the map?"
Morph giggled, took the form of a coiled line, and dropped a piece of himself formed separately into the map within the middle of the rope.
"Are you serious? It's back on the ship?" howled Jim, furious that after all of that trouble, he had grabbed the imatation map.
Morph giggled sheepishly. Jada groaned/sighed, and sank to her knees. Her two sides were still in conflict. Should she be happy, or devastated? Should she laugh, or cry?
"Stifle that blob and get low." Amelia warned, and everyone looked at her. She had taken up postion behind the overturned longboat and pointed to the sky with her laser rifle. Another longboat was streaking above them, and Jada could see the distinctive form of Hands aboard. She quickly followed Amelia behind the longboat.
"We've got company."
Many minutes later, the longboat had disappeared from sight and Jim and Jada had gone off to explore the island, in different directions.
I'm enjoying writing this even though nobody's reviewing. It's fun for me! Just review to let me know what you think.
