As my newly named friend and I passed through the doors a small whoosh sound lets us know it has closed behind us. When the door closed so did all of my worries about Pi, her mind was well protected from the common psychic but nothing is safe from me. The same impression of good will is the only thing I can pick up on quickly. I wonder why she had all those mental barriers put up in the first place, people only usually do that kind of thing if they had bad childhoods or are emotionally unstable. Neither of these outcomes are good, however her issues are her own and if I dig deeper into her mind it will hurt her so I'll leave it at that.
"Why are we following Pinky?" Mars glares at me as Pinky runs ahead of us.
"Is that her real name? I mean what kind of name is that?" Pi walks slightly behind us as we try to catch up with a certain crazy pink armor clad girl.
"Like you're one to talk." Pi gives a small smirk at my comment.
Pinky stops in front of a random door, knocks six times, and it opens. She stands at the door waiting for us. As we get closer to the door she loses her patience and walks in, by the time we get there the door whooshes and slams together in front of our face. I really hate these high tech doors, all they ever do is close on people. Frankly, they remind me of a smaller version of the stuff they have at grocery stores.
"Dangit. Let us in!" Mars yelled as she banged on the door. I walked in front of her and gave six knocks in quick succession, the door reopened. I shrugged at the stares that Pi and Mars gave me, am I only the one who counts things?
I see Pinky's friend Bill and the man from earlier, Captain Charles Wayne, just inside the room. The room is small and has a few small tables and chairs, in the corner sits a refrigerator with a microwave on top. A quick scan of the Captains mind lets me know that this is a break room, not that I couldn't have figured that out myself. I also pick up on a sense of accomplishment, an odd thing to feel considering we are supposed to be under warning.
"Hello there Gray, Mars, I see you have made a new friend." Charles looked at Pi with a look of disgust. She looked at him with a smug grin, apparently the triple blaster wielding Pi isn't the angel we all thought she was.
"Charles" I say it in way of greeting, but I can see the disappointment stretch across his face. Captain may have been his title during the clone wars but now it's only on honorary one, he knows it and so do I. Mind reading is great, you always know exactly how to annoy people.
"We need to bunker down and hide, if we wait it out everything will be fine." Pinky's buddy Bill addresses everyone in the room.
"I agree, the only way to keep you all safe is to stay in the bunker and"- I interrupted Charles
"No, we are leaving now." Everyone turned to look at me, but I don't mind the surprise on their faces. There is something about Charles and Bill's frame of mind that I don't trust, and there is no way I'm letting them keep us here.
"Why are you in such a rush?" Mars looks at me curiously. It's true that we aren't really in a hurry, but something just feels off about this.
The force suddenly blares in my head, a cacophony of sounds are now ringing inside my skull. Something is definitely wrong. The calming buzz of the force is gone and all I can hear is this annoyingly loud white noise. I can feel the sound as it takes over all my other senses, my eyes blur the room into blackness, the faint sterile smell of the compound disappears, the traces of beans for breakfast dissolve from my tongue, and the last thing I feel is my knees hitting the floor. I'm really glad I have that knee armor. I sense Bill's thoughts and listen in, all I hear from him is regret and worry, and it's obvious he has nothing to do with any of this. Charles, however, is a completely different story.
I drift past his active mind, weave my way through his subconscious, and listen to his memories. I watch as a republic trooper is about to be crushed by a walker, at the last second the flash of a blue light saber appears. Charles owes his life to a young Jedi in training by the name of Donavan and vows to repay him. The image shifts to a hologram message, an older version of the Jedi appears but he is carrying a red light saber. In the message he asks Charles to keep an eye out for Jedi and to send any forcelings his way. It all comes together, the youngling who saved Charles all those years ago went darkside. This Donavan guy became a Sith lord and what could make a Sith happier than a ship load of forcelings? It makes me sick to even think that this man who so recently offered us food and transport was going to put us in the hands of the empire to pay a debt.
The sound of the force quieted and nearly stilled, it never quite stops. One horrible line kept pounding through my head, the last thing I remember hearing before I left Charles mind. "Why do you think the armor fit?" I imagined him leading us to the armory to get new clothes and then every item of clothing fitting perfectly, the thought of that man setting up all those things in our sizes made me want to gag. The feelings of sickness didn't stop there though, I felt weak after spending time in Charles brain. I saw a flash of the world around me and before I crumpled to the floor I did two things. I looked at the two men and with a force fueled voice said "Stay," then over the Gradio I cried "Leave." I hope that will be enough to get my friends out of there because that was all I could do before I blacked out.
I woke up staring at the bed above me, apparently I was on the bottom of a bunk bed. I looked around and saw metal paneling, hanging wires, and Pinky sharpening her ax.
"Ow." I sat up slowly and carefully but still managed to bonk my head on the bunk above me.
"Hey Gray." She says it casually. Have I been knocked out so many times that this has become normal? Do I just black out and everyone goes, meh, no big deal?
"Where are"- I say it over the Gradio and she freaks out.
"The Gradio is working!" Pinky yelps excitedly.
"Oh good, we can talk to each other again!" Mars voice says coming from nowhere.
"Priorities, guys." Apparently my use as a radio is more important than my life.
"Oh, you're up? Cool. Hey, wait a second, does this mean you have to be awake for the Gradio to work?" Mars asks.
"I… I guess?" I never thought about that, but it makes sense.
"Haha, that means we won't be using it very often." Pinky comments.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask.
"Well, you get knocked out a lot." I looked at her as she beamed at me from the bunk across the room. I hate her sometimes.
"You suck, Pinky." She just laughed at me.
"How come Pi isn't on the Gradio?" Mars inquired.
She has a good point, I grabbed my braid and looked for Pi. I found her and could sense her, but when I opened the channel to accept her she didn't enter it like the others had. I could hear her thoughts and I could force her to do things, but for some reason she wasn't be able to listen and respond.
"That's weird, I can't get her to hear us at all. Maybe she's just not strong enough with the force to sense it." I explained.
"So only other Jedi can hear it? That means we won't be able to stay in touch with Pi over the Gradio." Mars reasoned.
"This could make things complicated." I thought about all the situations we have already got in and tried to imagine going through it all without the Gradio.
For some reason me and Pinky started making faces at each other across the room. While I was doing this I looked at the armor I had on, I knew deep down that there was nothing wrong with it, but I couldn't help but feel disturbed. Knowing that Charles had intentionally set up clothes in our sizes freaked me out, how did he know? How could anyone possibly know what colors we liked and what sizes we wore? I can't help but wonder if it all orchestrated by this Donavan guy. Pinky's latest face almost makes me fall off the bed laughing.
"Mars, can you at least tell me where we are? Pinky's not helping." I glare at Pinky as I say it. She sticks her tongue out at me than begins to sharpen her ax again.
"Oh this is Pi's ship, she calls it the Zodiac. I'm sure she would love to tell you all about it, come up to the cabin and she'll explain." I'm curious, so I get up and start to explore.
I thought I was going to get lost or something, but the ship isn't actually large enough to get lost on. It was spacious, but not exceedingly so. It had the room I was just in with four sets of bunk beds, a large cargo bay, a small dining or rec room, and a ladder to the bridge. When I got up the ladder I was surprised to see seats around a central console filled with buttons and levers. A viewing monitor seemed to spin all the way around the strange hexagonal navigation system. Sitting in a raised office spinny chair was Pi, she was clicking buttons and checking the monitor. The walls and ceiling were all made of glass, if you looked carefully you could even see some writing in dry erase marker on the walls. This is not at all what I had imagined when she said she was a pilot, I was thinking more along the line of steering wheels and small windows to space, not large central consoles surrounded by stars.
"So what do you think?" Mars came from behind the console.
"This amazing, I feel like I'm in the celestial spirit world." I was impressed, I had never looked at the universe from an angle quite like this.
"Welcome to the Zodiac." Pi turned around in her chair dramatically than walked over to me.
"This"-she continued-"is an E-9 explorer. It's a scout vessel made by the Loronar Corporation, made for a crew of four and four passengers. Fully equipped with a navigation system, shielding, two laser canons, and two escape pods." She looked around proudly.
"It's beautiful." I had no other words to express how amazing the bridge looked. Also I know next to nothing about ships, so it's not like I could judge it based on anything.
"So Pi, where are we going?" I'm passively curious, but she gives me a sinister smile in response.
"Oh, don't you remember? You guys get to help me out on a job." An impish grin plays across her face.
"What kind of job?" I don't know how powerful the four of us could be, but I'm guessing that between Pinky's brawn, Mars's strategy, Pi's random skill set, and my mind control there isn't too much that we can't handle.
"Saving a damsel in distress." I look at her to see if she's joking, but her expression is deadly serious.
"What's that supposed to mean?" I'm starting to wonder if it's some kind of code phrase.
"It means that some rich people can't find their daughter and are offering a generous reward for her safe return. After you guys help out with that I'll take you wherever you want." I watch as Pi leans over her monitor again and types some stuff in to the console.
I leave and head back down the ladder to Pinky, it won't be until tomorrow that we get there. It's funny to think but, today turned out to be a much better day than the last. Yesterday I met Pinky at the market, got attacked by droidekas with her and Mars, attacked by Mars, and slept in a stranger's house. Today I wandered around a rebel base, got new armor, betrayed by a man I had almost trusted with our lives, and met a crazy Pilot. The rest of the day I spent messing around in the rec room with Pinky. I have never had such easy access to information, using the ships holograms I could do practically anything. Pinky and I were so entranced by the technology that neither of us decided to ask about how Pi had gotten the ship. Since I wasn't in the mood to find out how many people she killed for this ship, I decided to just go along with it.