I wish you happy New Year!
***
Buffy was slowly regaining consciousness.
Keeping her eyes closed she extended her senses. At least seven other living people were around her. Cracking her eye open, she discreetly scanned her surroundings.
Yep, she thought. there are at least seven other…err... three human girls, including me of course and…let me see… four different colored beings with two tails on their heads. And one of the human girls is Sache, which is not so surprising since I was with her.
Popping her eyes wide open and resisting the urge to smack herself, she sat up only to find that her hands, like those of the other female occupants in the room, were chained.
Way to go Buffy, she mentally berated herself. How many times did you have to drink some alcohol or what ever that was, black out and either go Captain cave Buffy or end up chained to learn that alcohol is bad, bad bad Buffy. All I need is some lizard thingy to pop out and I'm as bad as Xander and I just jinxed my self...
The remainder of her mental rant was cut off when the door swished open revealing a tall, blonde-haired human woman accompanied by a tall reptilian-like humanoid.
Jinxed.
Scowling, Buffy turned to Sache. "Who is the lizard guy?"
"He is not a lizard. He is a Falleen, and isn't he handsome?"
Buffy wanted to reply that creepy green reptilian guys were not her type, when she noticed that all the girls were looking at the lizard boy with dazed dreamy eyes.
What the hell is going on? A minute ago every one was frightened and angry and now they are making puppy eyes at the lizard boy? Oh craps …please don't tell me that he has some sort Dracula like power that makes girls go all swoony. Cuz if he does he is going to get an additional whacking when I get out of these chains.
"Sache." Buffy hissed. "You do remember that we went to some club together- a party and then passed out?"
"Mhmm…" came the absent-minded reply from Sache.
Rolling her eyes, Buffy reached out and turned Sache's head to meet her eyes.
"Who is Tam?"
"Tam is …oh stars the pheromones"
"The what now?"
"Falleens have pheromones that make them irresistible to opposite sex."
"That would explain a lot. And ewww. So any ideas?"
Sache shook her head.
"I'm not from an influential family and Vader is not a very popular guy with Prince Xizor."
Connecting the dots Buffy groaned.
"Please don't tell me that the lizard boy is Prince Xerox."
"Xizor and yes."
"Peachy. So we are getting out of here the old fashioned way."
"Wha…"
Before Sache could finish Buffy pulled on her chains, broke them and was already kicking the woman and Prince Xizor into separate walls. But while the Fallen was rendered unconscious, the woman wasn't even dazed and was already on her feet charging for Buffy.
Buffy could barley toss a small blaster to Sache before she had to duck. The woman hit the wall with a force uncommon for a normal human.
Figuring that it would be good idea to move this fight somewhere else, Buffy whirled around and dashed through the door, yelling.
"Sache, get everybody out!"
***
Vader was pacing.
Buffy had left a couple hours ago with Sache to, as she said, have some girl time before she'd be stuck with only guys and an eight year old Mara Jade on the ship. Vader heard the door open as he saw a trooper come in.
"Yes!" He barked.
"We have located the droid; we are bringing him here."
"Very well," Vader replied. "Get Bellaris in here immediately," he said as an after thought.
"Yes my Lord," said the trooper as he walked out.
***
Buffy ran along the narrow corridor. The woman was close on her heels as she reached the place where the corridor turned into a huge storage room full of pipes and other objects.
The woman caught up with her and, when she moved in to deliver a punch, Buffy somersaulted over her head and landed behind her, giving her a full strength back kick. This sent the woman flying. The woman pulled herself back to her feet and picked up two short pipes from the floor.
Buffy regarded her for a moment and then, without taking her eyes from her, kicked a long pipe from the floor up to her hand, caught it and gave it an experimental twirl.
The women give a curt nod.
"You are not of the human race. Are you a replica?" she stated.
Buffy smirked.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I am a human. But I do have some extra talents."
Buffy slipped into her seemingly relaxed 'fools a lot of stupid vamps' fighting stance and gave the woman challenging look.
"Wanna see?"
"I accept your challenge," the woman nodded seriously to which Buffy just rolled her eyes.
"So can we start on the fighting? Cuz I have places to be."
The woman positioned one pipe behind her and charged. Buffy's reaction to the charge was purely instinct.
Blocking the swing of one pipe she quickly gave a shove and then twisted her pipe-staff to block the swing of another.
****
TC was standing before Vader who was questioning the droid about Buffy's whereabouts when Tam Bellaris entered. Vader nodded towards a seat where Tam quickly sat down, puzzled at Vader's behavior.
"Answer the question TC."
The droid tilted his head then aswered the question:
"I accompanied Ladies Buffy and Sache to the party held by some of the acquaintance of Lady Sache and later I saw them unconscious. And then some one powered me down, My Lord. I also believe that there was attempt of a memory wipe, but it was unsuccessful."
***
Buffy was ducking, blocking, giving and receiving blows from the woman for a couple of minutes until one side kick sent the woman flying into an assortment of metal boxes.
"So…" Buffy said conversationally, "What kind being are you? Cuz let me tell you I may be human, but you are definitely not."
"Indeed I am not," the woman said calmly.
"No kidding."
"I am a human replica droid."
"You are a human what?"
"Human replica droid."
"Oh really? Mind if I get a name? Rank? Serial number?" Buffy asked.
"Guri."
"Buffy."
"Are you sure that you are a human and not a human replica?" asked Guri.
Buffy nodded.
"Uh huh. Totally human here. Though there is a robot of me back home. But we are not gonna talk about skirt girl. So if we are finished with the small talk?"
Guri held her two pipes at the ready.
"OK then."
Buffy leapt at Guri, throwing punches and kicks at the woman's midsection so that Guri lost one of her pipes. Recovering quickly, Guri swung a pipe at Buffy's head. But Buffy barely registered this as she ducked down and swept the replicas legs from under her, sending her crashing to the ground.
When Guri stood up Buffy thrust her own pipe forward and pierced Guri's chest, pinning her down. Steeping back and looking to see if she would have any more problems from the bot, she absent-mindedly wiped a tickle of blood from her lower lip and surveyed the damage Guri had received.
Guri went still after some struggle and looked up at her. Buffy was surprised to see an approving smile on the replica's face.
"I yield. Kill me."
Buffy frowned, when he noticed Sache waving excitedly from the far end of the seemingly endless hall.
"I don't need to kill you. I just want a picket fence and maybe a dog," Buffy answered and then dashed to Sache.
"What's the what?" she asked upon reaching her friend.
"All are free and we found a quick way we can get out of here"
"Then let's skedaddle."
***
Vader, Bellaris, and a couple of troopers were going through information on the descriptions of the kidnapers, when a trooper came in closely followed by Sache and Buffy.
"Sache!" exclaimed Tam and rushed to his girlfriend, pulling her into warm hug. Then quickly he led her away, assuring himself that she was all right.
Buffy watched the couple with small, sad smile. Then she turned to the armored figure at the window.
"So how was your day?" she asked cheerfully.
Vader was speechless; he was already planning what he'd do when he will found the kidnapers- after he got Buffy out of harms way of course. And here she was bruised and cheerfully asking him how was his day. He had to ruthlessly resist the urge to hug her and then yell at her for getting hurt. Not that he was not going to do that.
"Nothing much had an interesting meeting with a pink haired Moff Tarkin, but besides that not eventful. How was your day?" he asked with forced calm.
"Went to the party. Got kidnapped by lizard boy name Xerox and his robot girl assistant who can back a punch. Kicked the lizard boy into the wall. And made bot kebobs. How was Muffis reaction to his new hair do?"
"Xizor is responsible for this," Vader hissed.
Buffy rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "Men!" she thought crossly.
"Sorry to ruin you're whatever but he didn't know that I know you or anything. The creepy lizard only has a hobby of kidnapping. Which I seriously hope he'll get over. Prince or not, if I hear a word about any more kidnappings, you wont be his biggest problem."
Calming down, she gave him a look.
"What?" he grumbled.
"What what?" she returned.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Oh," she smiled. "Nothing really. I just heard the all out search that you were preparing to launch and I was wondering. Did you miss me?"
"Like a bad energy binder," he answered.
"So where is my hug?"
Vader stalked out of the room as quickly as he possibly could without appearing to run. Because if he stayed, he just might give in and hug her. And that would only lead to complications.
TBC….