Disclaimer: I STILL don't own StarWars or Indiana Jones or any characters therein (Alsuice is still mine...). The endless waltz bit is from the Gundam Wing movie by the same name (owned by Bandi,I do believe). Please don't sue me for using it.

Note to all who read my ramblings: I am sorry thatI haven't updated in ten days. My original muse for this story went AWOL and I had to go kidnap someone else to take her place. So then, because my new muse was, well, new, I had him sit down with my other muses and we all discussed this story and whereI should take it. That discussion ranged from the useful (The clues that you write should be planned out in advance so that there will be a logical flow) to the funny (What are you paying me to do this?) to the utterly ridiculous (Why is there no rum in this story?). If you can figure out who my muses are, you'll get extra e-cookies. Eventually, we figured out what my long range plan is, and believe me, it is a LONG range plan. I have a feeling that when this is over we'll have at least twenty five to thirty chapters, just to make it adequate enough to solve all my plot holes. I now have an idea of where this is going, though it may take some time to craft the story to follow the path. All this is to say, I am terribly sorry for the frightfully long wait, and I intend to stick to this long enough to get to the end, though it may take a while to get there. Thank you for being faithful enough to stay with me.

Notes to reviewers:

Lt. Commander Richie: Usually I don't take orders, but, as I was intending to update anyways, I shall acquiesce to your proposal. Thanks for joining with my reviewers.
Ms. Pippin Baggins: Thank you for reviewing. This does not inanyway follow the masterful, utter insanity in "Idiots", but I do try. As for not using the word "Hell", I completely understand. I shall endevour not to use it. I try my best not to swear, as I believe that swearing every other word denotes a form of cognitive inability and a lack of vocabulary, but sometimes Indy just needs to swear. It's part of his nature and style, and I have no inclination to change what is accepted.
Han-Skywalker : Thank you for reading my ramblings. Indy turn evil? GASP Surely, you jest! As for Luke's plan, well, it's briefly mentioned below, but as we all know: the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry...
Lilliesofthevalley : HI! Love back...
L.E. Croft : Wow, long comment. The idea is not original, there are at least three stories like this that I know of, but they never have endings (a path I intend not to follow). Yes, I also believe that Indy believes, more on that to come. As I have a muse for this once more, I don't intend to leave it hanging, though I may take an ocasional holiday from it... I intend to give some depth to Carron, but not just yet. Also, I have tried to add some jump-markers as you suggested. I completely understand the need for them, I just never thought about putting them in before. Thanks for the suggestions, more will be coming soon, I hope.
LieutenantPage : I agree, and thank you.
Lunatic Pandora1 : True, so I forgive you. Yes, and more on that later.
The Black Inferno Alchemist : Still sorry about that "Chemist" thing. I do hope that you're not sore about that...
Jedi X-man Serena Kenobi : Thank you and do update "Idiots". I need my daily dose of random insanity!
RavenRulzRF : Thank you, but don't diss history teachers. History is important as if we do not know where we come from then we tend to make old mistakes again and again.A good book to read about that is "The Giver" by Lois Lowery. (it's very short, maybe a hundred pages, very well written,I think you would enjoy it.)
Phantom'sJediBandieGirl : Well, Crusade is my favorite of the Jones movies, so I will bring in some elements of that (see if you can pick one out below...). It's quite alright about the Da Vinchi code thing, I understand.

Whew, that was alot...onto the story:

Chapter 14

Flippin'

"Can you remember anything that it said?" The Falcon still sat on the dead moon of Isosis, waiting patiently until her crew could figure out where they were supposed to go. Luke's plan to rescue Indy hinged decidedly on whether or not they could decipher the next clue. Unfortunately, the Elite Troopers had taken the only hard copy that they had and Leia was only able to partially translate what was written on the tablet.

"Not really, Luke. The only things that I can remember is that it referenced a roaming child, a dance, and hungry people walking. I just didn't have time to memorize it. The language was older than the type that I read on Katra's grave." Leia sat, staring at Indy's jacket. He had left it in the living area when the Elites took him. She knew that she had to figure out the meaning of the tablet, but she could not remember the whole thing.

Luke started pacing again; some of Indy's personality had rubbed off on him. The plan seemed to be brilliant when he had first thought of it. Wait on Isosis and figure out where the tablet pointed them, get there and wait for Indy's kidnappers to show up. Lure them all off of their ship, and then grab the archeologist and the stolen tablets and get far away as fast as possible. Simple, except for the fact that they couldn't find out where they were supposed to go without the tablets, which they didn't have. It was a real Catch-22 situation. The solution was the problem all over again. Luke sighed.

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Indy was, at that same moment, also sighing, but for different reasons. He was frustrated beyond belief. The disorientation that he had suffered from last night over what he believed had passed, at least temporarily. He had to adapt, get back in the game, not let what Carron said phase him, if he wanted to get off of this ship and back to the Falcon. He had hoped that he would be able to work alone on this tablet thing, and thus stall for time, but Carron shadowed his every move.

There was something about his "host" that made Indy extremely tense. Carron seemed to be a blend of a Jesuit and a Nazi. He tried to be pleasant, or to be friendly, but his smiles and "nice" personality were like an oily exterior, screaming that a serpent hides within. He would avoid Indy's gaze like he had something to hide. But when he met it, there was a deep-seated aggression that was thinly masked by his dead eyes. Indy didn't like him one iota; he had no intention of trusting Carron, but no desire to see him when he was angry. I only have to stay here for a little while. Gotta find out what makes this guy tick. But Carron stuck to his art collector story, a tale that Indy believed about as much as he believed Hitler's master race bullroar.

The main reason that Indy didn't like him, is the fact that Carron was way too controlling. Carron's presence in the workroom was grating against Indy's nerves. Indy had to put up and keep up a façade of stumped-zeal if he was ever going to buy his friends enough time to get to the next clue. Thus, the sighing. Indy's frustration here was completely forced, but not unnatural. He was frustrated by Carron, but he was a good enough of an actor to make Carron believe that he was frustrated by the translation process.

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"Got anything yet?" Han walked into the living area, took one look at Leia's face, and had his answer. "Guess not." He sat down on the couch next to her. She leaned back against him; Han could almost feel the anxiety in her. "Hey," he looked down at her, "We're gonna find him. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried," she faintly protested, but it was plastered all over her face. "I…I just wish I could remember…" her voice trailed off. She was staring at Indy's jacket again. Han gently planted a kiss on her hair and he too looked down at the jacket.

Luke was slumped against the round wall just outside his quarters. He was berating himself for losing the only chance they had of rescuing Indy. The Elite's ship had left this sector of space hours ago, leaving no trail, no way of following them, no hope. His plan had made so much sense when all of this started. Now…Now I've blown it. Leia is blaming herself. Our hope of finding the Valley is gone. It's all my fault… Luke was snapped out of his thoughts by a terrible crash from the living area. He jumped up from the floor, raced around the corner, only to find…

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Indy had flatly refused to allow any technical device to scan the tablets. His given reason was that an electrical current or transmission frequency could ruin the tablets. His real reasons were that A) the computer would make the job way too easy, and not take enough time and B) Carron could have a copy of the tablets in his computer, Indy didn't want him to have anything by the time he left. He was, therefore, hand translating. He had taken three hours for each of the "map" tablets to see if there was a code that he could break, and then give his professional opinion that he couldn't do anything about it. The main tablet, the one with the writing that Leia had almost translated, was what he was working on now. He had carefully, painstakingly, time-consumingly, copied the first few symbols from the tablet and was searching through Carron's computer's memory banks for anything that fit. Had come across twenty-six different languages that used those symbols, and was now cross-checking for other symbols that would fit. He could have just looked for every reference that the computer had of the old language of the Republic, but, again, that wouldn't take enough time. He knew that he had to produce results soon, or Carron would catch on, but for now, being agonizingly slow was an advantage for Han, Luke, and Leia. He stretched his back and arms and turned back to cross-checking. Come on, guys, you can get this.

DXVJKE

C3PO was having what humans would call a rough couple of days. After leaving Corescant, with all of those horrid pirates, his morning had started routinely enough: having recouped his power supply during the night, he was feeling quite satisfactory. The crew of the Falcon was in high spirits after finding the location of the next clue, and C3PO was, at one point, much the same. The came the shift into hyperspace. He still could not get over the feeling of leaving half of his innards in one portion of space while the other half jumped forward. He had watched Master Luke and Indiana Jones playing holo-chess, but the queasiness of space travel was making him feel far worse than usual, and he had to go find something else to occupy his time.

He had a pleasant conversation with the ship's onboard computer, discussing flight vectors, new legislation being introduced to the Republic, computer upgrades, the inner workings of the pirate culture, the different dialects of the Eccstosian classes, the fastest way to fix a hyperspacial conduit, etc. His stomach then lurched again, signaling the fact that they had left hyperspace. C3PO then went and talked with R2D2 for a while before going to assist Chewbacca repair some minor details of the Falcon. He got a bad electrical scorch mark on his leg, got his hand caught in some wiring while trying to retrieve a fallen tool, fell into one of General Solo's smuggling holds that had been carelessly left open, slipped on a pool of murky liquid that was oozing out of some part of machinery, and then slipped on said pool three times more while trying to get up to tell Chewbacca that something was leaking. Then, while he was trying to clean the murky liquid off of his legs and the back of his torso, he was startled by three Elite Storm Troopers barging in on him, waving their disgusting blasters around, demanding his identification number, and leaving without any form of explanation.

After that indecency, C3PO found out that the Elite Troopers had taken the tablets, which Master Luke had gotten off the moon they were on, along with Dr. Jones. The emotional despondency that drifted down on the crew was beginning to affect him, and he went to find consolation with R2D2. While walking through the hallways fo the Falcon to find the little droid, C3PO found something most unexpected. Lying in the middle of the hallway floor, just outside the cargo bay doors, was Dr. Jones's fedora. He reached down and gently picked the felt hat only to find a blank piece of white parchment and a red stylus shaped instrument underneath it. Puzzled by the presence of these three things, C3PO picked up the objects and hurried to find Master Luke, whom, he was assured, understood this peculiar tendency in humans to carry white parchment and red styluses within hats.

C3PO rushed, with decided dignity, through the halls, looking for his master. When he came into the living area, he was in such a puzzled fluster that he did not notice the brown article of clothing on the floor until it was too late. His right foot caught the edge of the jacket and slid out from under him. C3PO flew briefly up into the air and landed on his back with a very loud crash, the hat, parchment, and stylus flying out of his hands.

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Luke, Leia and Han all simultaneously converged on the fallen droid.

"3PO," Luke said, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he helped lift his friend up. "What happened?" C3PO quickly gained his equilibrium, and stooped to pick up his fallen burden, while answering.

"I fell over this jacket while trying to give these to you, Master Luke." He placed the hat, parchment and stylus in the hands of the Jedi.

"Indy's hat?" Leia asked.

"Looks like it," Han commented. "What are those?" he pointed to the other two objects that C3PO had given Luke.

"I don't know." Luke put the hat on the holo-chess table and proceeded to examine the parchment and the stylus. "Where'd you find these, 3PO?"

"In the hallway, sir, just outside the cargo bay doors. The stylus and the parchment were under the hat."

"Weird," Han said. "Why would Indy carry those in his hat?"

"Another mystery," Leia said. She reached down and picked the jacket up off of the floor. "I guess this should be put somewhere…" her voice trailed off and she started staring at the jacket again.

"What is it?" Luke asked. Leia turned and placed the jacket on the holo-chess table, next to the hat. She gently spread it out and began to run her hands along the leather. Han and Luke exchanged glances and watched her. As her hand touched a portion of the jacket near the upper right chest, they could hear a soft crinkling sound. She opened the jacket and felt along the lining, when she heard the crinkling sound again, it corresponded with a hidden pocket inside the jacket. Leia opened the pocket and removed a three separate folded pieces of parchment exactly like the one that C3PO had found in Indy's hat. She moved the jacket and hat over to the edge of the table and proceeded to unfold the parchments.

The first one, while white on one side, was red on the other. But it was not fully red. Small circles, lines, dashes, and dots stood out in white, sharply edged in red.

"Is that…?" Luke didn't finish his question. Leia fairly ripped open the next sheet. It was the same, red with white circles, lines, dashes and dots, but arranged in a different pattern. The third one, however, was the most interesting, causing Leia to catch her breath when she opened it. There, in red and white, was a copy of the missing tablet. All the letters were as she could remember them, crystal clear, not smudged in the least, practically perfect. She started to grin.

"They're copies," she said laughing. "He copied the tablets and hid them in his jacket. They were right here all along."

"How did he know that we need these?" Luke asked, relief and bewilderment were scrawled on his face.

"Who cares?" Han asked, laughing as well. "The point is we can go on with the plan." He turned to Leia, "How long until you have that translated?"

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"How long until you can have that translated?" Carron's voice had the slightest twinge of petulance; his dead eyes were laced with anger.

"I'm working on the last few symbols now," Indy said, not even trying to disguise his annoyance. He had been able to hold Carron off for nearly twenty hours since beginning work, but that could only last so long. "You have to be patient, Mr. Carron, this stuff doesn't just jump out and tell you what it says. Most archeologists would take years to try and decipher this; it's a very old language." Carron exhaled angrily, giving Indy the impression that he was treading upon very thin ice. Indy gave the appearance of ignoring the gathering storm and continued to translate the last two symbols. Twenty minutes later, he had finished his translation.

"I think I've got it," he said triumphantly. He sat back in one of the chairs that Carron had provided. Picking up his notebook he began to read the translation of the thousand year old stone.

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"Ready to copy, Luke?" Leia sat at the table and glanced over at her brother. Luke had set up the computer to do a voice recording for them to work on later.

"Just a sec," he fiddled with the controls. "Yeah, okay, we're ready. On my mark...Go."

Leia cleared her throat and began to read at a slow, steady, pace.

"Even thou, oh daughter of loess, who art the least of all the realms of earth and light, art not too small to be forgotten within this endless waltz. For from thy harsh and wasted lands comes the one who brings to us a balance. In the hands of thy roaming child I place the key to mastery; and in his footsteps I set the path that the hungry ones must walk."

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"That's it?" Carron asked at the end.

"Yeah, that's about as close to the vernacular as I can get it." Indy looked up from his notes. "Something wrong, Mr. Carron?"

"There are no coordinates? No system names? Nothing else?" Carron's voice denoted his anger and frustration.

"Nope, nothing else." Indy was almost having fun watching the "art-collector" fuss and fume.

"Then how the Sith do we find the next piece?"

"It's a puzzle," Indy explained as patiently as he would to a two-year-old. "The location to the next piece is found within it. Solve the puzzle and you find the next piece."

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"So where does it lead to?" Han had listened to Leia's voice repeat the tablet's translation over and over and over and over and over again until his ears hurt. But still the most obvious question lay unanswered.

"I have no idea," Leia answered. Her head hurt from thinking about it.

"We sure need Indy on this one," Luke said. "I just hope that he's alright."

DXVJKE

Hmmm...What happens next? Any ideas? Oh, and try to figure out where the next clue is hidden. I think it's quite obvious, but, then again, I came up withit... So I shall give you a clue. Think about the second sentance. That's all. Next chapter should come in a few days, if my new muse is up to speed...
DarkX