Disclaimer: I own Taivas, the crew of the Paler Black, and the thing with Wookie fur. Nothing else. OH! and my lawyer has just informed me that the title to this chapter belongs to the music group Montgomery Gentry. Not mine. Just saying...
Notes to the oh so faithful reviewers:
Fflur Cadwgawn: Thanks for reviewing. And for your expertise on the subject. I am not an archeologist, so I'm not sure exactly what is involved outside the movies. Glad that you're enjoying this.
FebruarySong: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! I'm glad that you think I captured the essence of Indy. And I'm glad that you're enjoying my writing. And I'm glad that you're reviewing more than one chapter. Hope you stick around for the end! (btw, it took me like three weeks to figure out that your nom de cyber is a Josh Groban song…)
Iccle Fairy: Thanks for reviewing! And I'm glad to know that I'm able to hook you. :-D
Ilikedan: Thanks for reviewing. And no, no earth yet. I promise that Indy WILL go home…eventually. But I need to send him to half a dozen different planets still, I have tons of clues for him to solve, people to fight, places to see, etc. etc. Anyway, Indy's a tough guy and he adapts to different situations pretty quickly, so I wouldn't worry about him too much. As for him being away from home, well…I'll say nothing except that Marcus is going to have words with him. Ahem. Ahem. But as for what he and Sallah actually think, you'll have to wait to the end of the story to figure that out. So stick around.
Isis the Sphinx: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! I'm so glad that you like my fic. I know Luke's emo and I'm really, really bad at writing him in the first place. Sorry. And I'm sorry about all the typos. I am a dyslexic math person. The fact that there're no misspellings in this sentence is a miracul…dang. Thanks for reviewing and do stick around!
Jedi X-Man: Thanks for reviewing and do take your time on ANM. I know what it feels like to have writer's block (guilty look).
Obi's Second Cousin: Thanks for reviewing! Yes, my style has changed. I've been working on this fic for nigh on three years, you've gotta give me a little bit of wiggle room. And if you didn't like the last chapter, I don't think you'll like this one either. (see author's note below). But I hope you will stick around, I've got some fun stuff planned for the rest of the story!
Phygmalion: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! Thanks so much for reviewing and I'm glad that you're enjoying my fic. Yes, I came up with most of the riddles myself. Some of them I've heard before and tweaked slightly to make it fit this fic more, but most of them are original. Glad that you like them!
Rain the Revenant: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! I'm so glad that you like my fic and the riddles (they are my little babies). Glad that you think all my characters are…in character…man that sounded lame. Oh well. Stick around and thanks for reviewing!
Saisei no Suzaku: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! Thanks so much for reviewing and the only thing I'll say is that you'll have to wait for the end to find out.
SwordMasterZ: Thanks for reviewing! And I'm glad that you like it. Yes, it is dragging on but I will begin to clip the pace a bit more soon.
Xeno Major: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!! And of course Indy has to find Nazis. It isn't Indy without Nazis. Thanks for reviewing!
AN: Right, so I haven't updated in like FOREVER!! And I apologize. I meant to have this chapter out sometime back in July but I could not write it out. Seriously, I rewrote this chapter about six times before something clicked (and I'm still not happy about it). I know I promised a firefight, but that edition of Ch35 got thrown out almost immediately, so, you'll have to put up with this. Again, sorry for the uberlong delay.
Chapter 35
Gone Like a Freight Train
"Why else would I be here?" she looked around at the four humans and one Wookie who were just standing there. "So…are you going to take the stuff or not?"
"Oh, I intend t'take the stuff, luv." Jack Swallow, surrounded by some thirty pirates, walked into to cave, pushing past the confused looking Macskian. "An' den, I intend t'shoot Dr. Jones there so full o'holes that every last drop o'rum 'e stole just leaks outta'im."
Shocked silence reigned in the room. Indy looked down the barrel of the blaster to Swallow's smirking face. Behind the pirate were nearly fifteen heavily armed pirates whom, though they still looked like something out of Earth's history, the archeologist didn't want to mess with. Silently praying that none of his friends would do something stupid and get them all killed, Indy shifted his gaze back to Swallow and plastered his face with what he hoped was a nonchalant attitude.
"So, what, you're gonna just stand there?" Swallow's black-rimmed eyes narrowed as the smirk melted off his face.
"I'm takin' in the moment," he snapped.
"Well, you're moment's taking too long." Indy squared his shoulders. "Just shoot me already."
"Notchet." Swallow lowered the blaster and smirked again. "First things first. Dibbs!" The Paler Black's first mate stepped forward and cleared his throat.
"Cap'n Swallow, bein' a fair an 'onest man of upstandin' character, 'as decided that ye'll die…after the rematch." Indy's face screwed up in confusion.
"Rematch? What rematch?"
"I've never bin drunk unner the table," Swallow declared, "An' I'll be a scurvy prole t'letche go down t' Davy Jones afore I settl the score. Now, drop yer weapons, all of you, and no sudden moves."
"Why do we have to go?" Leia demanded.
"Because, m'dear," Swallow said, "in the interest of bein' fair, I will have my witnesses t'both the competition an' yer execution." He turned slightly and caught sight of the Macskian trying to blend in with the rock face. "You too, kittycat." Two pirates lurched forward to catch her forearms and push her, protesting, amongst the rest of the group.
"But I don't even know them!" She was slammed full force into Indy, before trying to push back to Swallow. "I mean, I can understand why you want to take all of them, but why me? I have nothing to do to them and—" Taivas stopped abruptly when three blasters were pointed directly in her face.
"Shut up," one of the pirates growled.
DXVJKE
"This sucks," Han declared to the general public, which, at the moment consisted of himself, Luke and Chewie. Leia and Taivas had been shunted into a separate cell of the Paler Black's brig and Indy was off Force-knows-where. "I swear, if those pirates even touched the Falcon, I'm gonna…" he clenched his fists in frustration.
"Do you actually think that they got into the Falcon?" Luke asked.
"If they were regular pirates I would say yes, but with Swallow…I have no idea." Han slumped down on one of the benches. "I don't suppose you have some way to get us out of here?"
Luke shook his head: "They took my lightsaber with my other gear, and I don't want to use the Force except as a last resort."
"Well, if Swallow as serious about killing us all, your last resort is gonna come up fast."
"Do you have any ideas about getting us out of here?"
"Not without a crowbar, some thermal detonators and a pretty krething big distraction. We need gear."
"UUUrrrhnnnnn augg nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. htt UUUUthhkkkkkk nn rrrHHHH."
"We'll get your stuff back, I promise," Han looked over at the Wookie. "And how the hell can you feel naked? You're covered head to foot in fur."
"AAArrraaaRRRaaarrr HHHHHHHHttt nnn kkkKKKKK huuuUUUUnnnnn ettt—"
"Okay, okay stop it. I seriously do not need that mental image, okay? And what are you laughing at, flyboy?"
"Nothing," Luke grinned. "Nothing at all." His smile faded: "I hope that Leia's okay."
"Knowing her, she's fine."
"Yeah, but they said that she's going in with that cat-lady. I'm just worried about her."
"Don't be. Leia's a five-foot, one-inch CR-1 blaster cannon with a hair trigger. She stood up to your dad, for Sith's sake, I think she can handle one measly smuggler."
"Still, I wish I knew what she was doing."
DXVJKE
"What are you doing?"
Leia had been leaning patiently back against the bulkhead after being unceremoniously shoved in the brig cell. She had been a bit peeved about having to share her cell with the smuggler, but at least the cat had been quiet. Until now that is. Now, with an eerily disconcerting chhhhhhhhKKKKK that made Leia sit bolt upright, Taivas severed her leg off from the knee down.
"Attempting to get us out of here," the Macskian muttered, yanking part of her thigh and her left kneecap off.
"How? You going to kick down the door? Because I think that would be more effective if you left your foot on."
"Sarcasm is not helping right now, lady." An orange ear and a left bicep joined the dismembered body parts on the floor.
"Sorry," Leia huffed, leaning back against the wall. Taivas began to assemble the body parts with the familiar ease of someone who's done this a million times before. "Um, how are you going to walk with only one leg?"
Taivas sighed: "I'm going to put my leg back on. I only needed it off to get at the calibraters I hid in there."
"How can—?"
Taivas held up the leg so Leia could see inside it. "It's mostly hollow. The servers and cables are protected inside the shaft itself, which is much safer than the cable bundling that droid manufacturers use. I don't really need the outer plating, but it looks somewhat weird to have one normal looking leg and one that just a silver rod with a foot attached at the bottom. So, I had it plated and use it to store important things."
"Like calibraters?"
"And lock picks. Spare credits. Bits of string. Vitamins. You never know what might come in handy." Leia sat back again and mulled this over; Taivas went back to constructing whatever it was she was constructing out of her body parts. A few minutes passed in silence before Leia spoke again.
"I'm sorry that you got pulled into this."
"Eh, I would have crossed Swallow sooner or later. At least this way I have someone to talk to."
"How long have you been a smuggler?"
"Actually, not that long. I recently decided that it was time for a career change and decided that this would be lucrative enough for me to retire in a few years. And if not, well, smuggling provides job security, which is something I didn't get in my old job."
"What was that?"
Taivas turned just enough to look at Leia out of the corner of her eye: "Professional assassin." Leia's eyebrows shot up. "But, like I said, I'm out of that job. Too much hassle, and the malpractice insurance was abominable."
"Malpractice?"
"Oh yes. I mean, if you didn't kill the target straight up then there's doctor's visits, hospital bills, physical rehabilitation, psychological therapy for near death experiences, and the bloke'll absolutely refuse to pay out of pocket so the insurance companies pass the bill on down to the Assassins' Guild and they make us buy malpractice insurance. It's a bloody rip-off if you ask me, but if we don't pay the insurance premium then the entire Guild comes after you and if there's one thing that you learn about being an assassin is don't tick off the other assassins." Taivas heaved a pretty big sigh of frustration. "But, that's all behind me; now I'm in the smuggling business. And, when we get out of here and I get back to that moon, I'll make enough off that cargo to live quite comfortably for the rest of my life."
"What exactly were you smuggling?"
"Guns, mostly."
"Mostly?"
"Well…no honest smuggler would be caught dead without a crate of guns to run Macsk knows where. It's a matter of public appearances, you know. But gun and drug running is petty change compared to the real stuff."
"And that is?"
"Booze and tech. The stash of stuff that you people caught me with is only about twenty percent guns. Seventy nine percent is Cassandra Choholl, and I mean the good stuff that people'll sell their first-borns for."
"And the other one percent?"
Taivas leaned in conspiratorially: "Cloaking devices."
"So? They've existed for years. Hell, you can buy them cheap off the black market."
"Ahh, but does the black market have a cloak that can work on an X-wing?" Leia's eyes widened.
"That's—that's impossible! That technology doesn't exist anywhere! Not even the Empire could cloak something that small."
"Yeah, well, the Empire isn't the Assassins' Guild."
"You stole it from—"
"I don't consider it stealing," Taivas cut in, "I consider it…getting my insurance premiums back." She slid her lower leg back into place and gingerly stood up, testing the weight to make sure that the connection was sound. "Now, let's blow this joint."
DXVJKE
Indy was pacing. And, had his mind not been fixed on something entirely different, that would have worried him. Pacing, in his opinion, was what happened when you were so obsessed over something that you lost control of what you body was doing. He had always prided himself on being in complete control over what he was doing at any one time. He could leap over spike-filled cliffs, run away from speeding boulders, slide under closing rock doors with just enough room to rescue his hat; survive falling into snake pits, fist-fighting gigantic muscle-bound Nazis, being drug beneath trucks, being squished into submarines and tied to stakes and facing the wrath of God (and that was just in a two week period!), all because his body was firmly under the control of his brain. But now, his feet decided to pace back and forth and back and forth while his brain was off on holiday. This was not a good situation but, as has been stated, he wasn't exactly paying attention.
If one were a fly on the wall of his cell, one could have a very interesting game of guess-what-Indy's-thinking. And, indeed, the small flies that were congregating on the walls were not only having interesting games of guess-what-Indy's-thinking, they were taking bets. As of this moment, "What kind of alcohol am I going to endure?" held the best odds at 2-1 for. Other questions were: "How am I going to get out of here?" (4-1 against), "What are the others up to?" (5-3, against), and "Why does it smell like green cheese in here?" (20-1, against). One small fly had placed his life's savings (three dried up raisins and a piece of green cheese) on "Why the hell are all these flies staring at me?" and was currently facing odds of 1,129,716-1 against. If he won, he would be an incredibly rich fly. If he lost, he would only be poor for about five minutes (flies, after all, have incredibly brief life spans).
Indy, completely oblivious to the betting ring going on outside his consciousness, was fixated on one, and only one thing: his bag.
Rather than let it fall into the hands of whoever they met at the mouth of the cave, in case of overwhelming odds, Indy had carefully slid off his bag and stowed it carefully behind that last bend. The next clue, the last one, his journal, pens, digging supplies, emergency rations, string, pocket knife, Marion's whiskey, and all the other important junk he had collected over the years was now sitting on the surface of a dead moon. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now…
Now he would give anything for the familiar weight of worn, patched, stained, and comforting leather. Indy sighed and stopped pacing. No sense in pining after something he would go get later. He was sure of that. They would get out of here, somehow, and they would get back to the moon, somehow, and he would find his lost bag. Right now, he just had to wait. He was good at waiting.
Indy leaned back on the wall and stared straight in front of him, until something moved and caught his eye.
"Why the hell are all these flies here?" he murmured, unaware that he had just significantly increased the fortunes of one, rather prescient, fly.
DXVJKE
Leia shifted from staring at the orange and olive, box like device, made from cannibalized parts of her cellmate to staring at the Macskian herself. Cyborgs had always made the princess a little bit nervous. The thought of slapping processed metal and circuits on top of organic flesh had always given her the heebie-jeebies. She admitted that having cybernetics replace destroyed tissue was a good thing, in very select cases, like Luke's hand, for instance. But if Taivas's implants were the cause of a massive accident, there wouldn't have been enough flesh left to save. The only reason why she would have that much metal plugged into her was if she had purposefully chosen to become a cyborg, and that was just plain creepy. People should not be able to take themselves apart and make…whatever the hell Taivas had just made.
The Macskian was just standing there, tapping away at the box and mumbling to herself. Leia decided that a five minutes silence between Taivas's declaration of leaving and them actually leaving was long enough.
"Um, Taivas? How exactly is that going to get us out of this cell?"
"It's not," she answered turning. "Getting out of here is a piece of cake, it's navigating around afterwards that get's people caught."
"What do you mean?"
Taivas paused before replying: "Okay look. Any artificial structure in the galaxy requires two things to function: power and air. The power needs to go to practically every habitable room in the structure and the air needs to circulate freely. Circulating air needs large spaces to move in, you can't just try to shoot it through tiny little pipes. And even if you could, someone had to put all those pipes together and I don't see any sentient rats running around the cosmos. So, the easiest way to escape from any prison anywhere is," she pointed up at the ceiling, "Through the air ducts."
"But that duct is covered by a steel reinforced grate; you can't get through it without an acetylene torch."
"You mean people without iron reinforced bone claws coated in laser sharpened, high-density plutonium covered carbon alloys need an acetylene torch." She slowly exposed the tips of her claws and smiled. "Getting out is not the hard part."
Leia eyed the glinting silver: "So what is?"
"Navigating. And that's why this," she held up the box, "Is so important. Now, do you think that you can boost me up to the ceiling?"
DXVJKE
"Okay, so how are we going to get out of here?"
"I told you, Luke, I need a crow bar, thermal detonators, and a big distraction."
"There has to be some way for us to get out of this cellblock. Come on, Han, think!"
"I am thinking. And I'm thinking that if we ever intend to see daylight again, I need more resources than you, me, and Chewie. Can't you just…I don't know, yank the door out with the Force?"
"It doesn't work like that and you know it."
"Well what the hell good is having mystical powers if you can't yank a door out of the wall?"
"Ahnnn, hhhhUUUUUUKKKK nnnt ttttGGGhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh unn eaaaarrrrrrrrg gHHHHunnnnnntt."
"Great idea, fuzz brains. Except we don't have handcuffs, there aren't any Storm Troopers around here, and you're already locked up."
"We could call for help and when they open the door—"
"Luke, pirates don't respond to calls for help. And if they do, they come with snacks and chairs to sit and watch the show."
"We could climb out the air ducts."
"You see that grate up there? Covering the air ducts? It's a steel reinforced grate. Nothing save an acetylene torch can cut through those bars and that is definitely not in our list of assets."
"What if…what if I pretend to be dead?"
"How does that help our situation?"
"Well, they have to dispose of the body somehow, right? So we just wait until they drag me out of the cell—"
"And down to the engine room to be cremated. Yeah, that's a great idea because having you burned alive is the best way to get us out of here."
"I don't see you coming up with any great ideas."
"I did: pull the krething door out of the krething wall."
"I told you the Force doesn't work like that."
"Why?!"
"Because…because the Force is an energy field—"
"Created by all living things, yadda, yadda, yadda. That doesn't answer my question."
"But it does! The Force is…it's life and health, and it should be used to protection, not destruction."
"Yeah, but if we don't get out of here soon, your Force isn't gonna have anything to protect anymore."
"I'm not going to, and that's final."
"Well, FINE!"
"FINE!"
DXVJKE
"So what is that?"
"This," Taivas said, grinning, "Is, essentially, a cartographer. You see, the power conduits, the other thing that every sentiently-created-structure needs, nine times out of ten they're housed in the air ducts. I hook this little baby up to the conduit, it traces the power flow throughout the entire ship, and, boom, instant map."
"So we can navigate the entire ship through the air ducts."
"Bingo."
"Okay," Leia said, moving beneath the grate. "But I'm not sure how long I can hold you up."
"It won't have to be very long." Taivas placed the cartographer on one of the benches and stood behind Leia. "I really just need a boost up long enough to grab hold of the bars. Could you bend over a little?" Leia hunched and placed her hands on her knees for better support. "Ready?" Taivas asked, placing her hands lightly on the princess's shoulders.
"Ready."
Taivas stepped up on Leia's shoulder and pushed upwards. Leia grunted slightly at the pressure but was relieved when it only lasted a second. She stepped back to see Taivas hanging on the bars with one hand and cutting open a hole with the other. Her claws made quick, precise, and deep cuts in the metal sheeting around the bars.
"I thought you were going to cut the actual bars," Leia exclaimed.
"Why? It's much easier to cut out the ceiling around them. No one thinks about reinforcing the ceiling. Now, stand back." The Macskian had made cuts around three of the four sides of the grate and the fourth, weakened side, slowly bent down under her weight, until it looked more like an opened soup can than an air duct grate. Taivas changed her handholds, dug her foot-paws into the grate and pushed up until she was inside the air duct. She disappeared for a few seconds before her head popped back over the hole.
"Pass me up the cartographer?" Leia picked up the box and lightly tossed it into Taivas's waiting hands. The Macskian disappeared a second time and then stuck her legs through the holes in the grating. Bending over backwards, she offered her arms to Leia. The princess grabbed and pulled herself until she could get a hold on the grating. Taivas helped push her into the air duct and then levered up after her. Panting slightly, Leia grinned at Taivas.
"Now what?"
"Now, we figure out what to do next while the cartographer makes us a map."
DXVJKE
Indy sat bolt upright as the door to his cell slid back into the wall with a soft whooshing sound. Two heavily armed goons tromped in followed by Jack Swallow.
"What do you want?" Indy growled.
"Whot, I'm not allowed t'visit pris'ners in me own ship?" He sauntered in, bottle in hand, and sat on the bench opposite Indy. The archeologist glared at him and crossed his arms. "Look, I just wanna say that, even though I'm gonna kill you, s'no hard feelin's, right?"
"No hard feelings?" Indy bit out, incredulously.
"Good. Glad to hear it," Swallow grinned, stood and swung out towards the door. He paused before leaving: "Contest's in an hour." Indy sat dumbfounded as the pirate captain and his goons left, door sliding back into place behind them.
How the hell does someone like that get to be a ship captain? He thought in the silence. He is seriously a few bananas short of a bunch. He sat in the silence of his own thoughts for a few minutes as the echoes of the clomping pirates faded into the distance. Finally, Indy stood and slowly began to pace again, walking absentmindedly towards the door.
The door slid open.
Indy stepped back in shock. They left it unlocked? Are they out of their blasted minds? Who the hell leaves a cell door unlocked? Not even the freaking Nazis were that stupid.
Cautiously, he inched his head out into the deserted hallway. There was no one there. No guards. No cameras. No devices of any kind, just an empty corridor of silent cell doors. Well…almost silent. Indy slid into the hallway and began walking towards the end of the corridor.
DXVJKE
"We need to get to a communication hub. I can hijack their frequencies and get my ship up here." Taivas laid out her plan of escape while the little box quickly plotted the Black's air duct system. She glanced over at Leia's questioning face and automatically answered. "My ship has a remote navigational computer. If I put a specific signal out, it'll home in on it and come to pick me up, even without anyone to pilot it. Once it gets up here, we get in, and it's smooth sailing."
"It won't get picked up on the pirate's scans?"
"Cloaking device, remember? Besides, something as small as my ship will probably be read as space junk anyways."
"How many people does it seat?"
"Only two. Enough for us."
"No, that won't work. We need room for six."
"Six?"
"I'm not leaving without Han and the others."
"Leia, do you have any idea how hard navigating four humans and a Wookie through the air ducts is going to be? Not to mention that there's no way for us to get off this ship without trying to steal one of the shuttles that they brought us up in and you know that those are going to be guarded. Heavily guarded. It'll be so much easier for just the two of us getting out of here."
"I'm not leaving without them," Leia said, firmly. "If you're so keen on not getting caught, the go ahead and leave."
"And have your death hanging on my conscious?" Taivas sighed: "Come on, let's find your boyfriend."
DXVJKE
"Look, Luke, all I'm saying is that your Force powers are the only asset that we have."
Luke leaned back on the bench and shook his head: "Not unless it's our last resort."
"It is our last resort," Han pressed. "We don't know when Swallow will come barging in here to drag us off to our deaths."
"In about an hour," a voice from the door said. Han and Luke's head jerked over to see Indy leaning in the doorway, grinning.
"Indy?" Luke asked credulously.
"How the Sith did you get out?" Han demanded.
"If you can believe it, Jack Swallow released me. By accident, jeeze don't look at me like that. He left the door unlocked. I heard you two arguing from down the hall and came down to spring you."
"And you didn't stop to think that it could be a trap?" Han was looking worried. "What if he did it on purpose?"
"Why would he do that? We're already trapped here under a death sentence, what more could he do to us?"
"With Jack Swallow, you never know."
"Look, the corridor is completely empty. I say we get out of here while the getting's good."
"I agree," Luke added. Chewie stood and growled his assent. Han looked nervously from Indy to Luke to Chewbacca and back.
"Alright, fine. Let's go."
"Oh yes, do," another voice rang out in the cell. "You'll be fine until you find out that the lift door is electrified." Glances were exchanged and heads turned towards the air vent. Han, who was closest, looked up and into the grinning faces of his girlfriend and a one-eyed cat.
"Leia?"
"Hi, Han. You remember Taivas?"
The cat winked: "Stand back, handsome."
Han studiously ignored her. "Leia, how the hell did you get up there?"
"I'll explain in a second, now, please, stand back." Han took one step away from the grate and practically flinched as a silver knife blade plunged through the ceiling. A high pitched screech echoed through the cell as the knife was drawn across three edges of the grate. It was pushed down by an orange and olive paw and then Leia was gently lowered down to the floor.
Luke stared at his sister before quipping: "Aren't you a little short to be a pirate?"
"What? Oh, right…I'm Leia Organa, I'm here to rescue you," the princess grinned back at her brother. Han and Indy exchanged glances that firmly declared I have no idea what's going on so let's ignore this whole thing. Leia turned to Han: "Taivas has a means to navigate us through the Black using the air ducts. If we can get down to one of the shuttle hangers, we can get back to Isosis and the Falcon. But we have to move now."
"Leia, do you have any idea how hard navigating four humans and a Wookie through the air ducts is going to be?" Han asked. "I don't think that Chewie'll even fit."
"He'll fit," Taivas volunteered from the vent. "And this is the only way out at the moment."
"The lift's really electrified?" Luke asked. Taivas nodded in reply. "Han, I think we should go through the vents."
"But—"
"Five minutes ago you were chomping at the bit to get out of here," Luke cut in. "Now we have a way out, so let's go." Han gritted his teeth and said nothing.
"Look, if you people just want to hang out here all day," Taivas complained from the vent, "That's fine with me. But I'd rather not get shot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, if you're coming, let's get gone."
"Right," Indy moved beneath the vent, "Luke, can you give me a lift?" The Jedi stooped with cupped hands. Indy stepped up, grabbed the lip of the grate and Taivas's hand to wrench himself up into the vent.
"Leia?" Luke offered. The princess got practically thrown up to the vent where Taivas hoisted her up. "Come on, Han." Still scowling, Han entered the quickly crowding vent. "Chewie?" Luke said hesitantly.
"uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhRRRRRRRRRRRnnnnnnn," the Wookie replied plaintively.
"I could try to lift you with the Force."
"Oh yeah sure, NOW you want to use the Force," Han's voice drifted down.
"HHHHRRRRRRuuuuuNNNNN ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhoooooooooouuuuuuu."
"Are you sure?" Chewie nodded in reply and gently nudged Luke. The Jedi crouched and then Force-jumped up to grab Taivas's arm. She hoisted him up and then reached back down for the Wookie.
"Come on, cutie, you're next."
"UUUUrrrrrUUUUnnnnn ttttttt NNNNNNNNHHHHHHHH aaaaaHHHHGGGGgggg."
"Yeah, I don't speak Wookie, so just grab my krethin arm, alright?"
"He said he's too heavy for you to pull him up," Han translated from down the vent somewhere. Taivas looked from his general direction back down to Chewbacca.
"Look, sweetheart, I can bench press a small starfighter, I don't think you're going to be much of a problem." Her voice suddenly hardened: "Now get your sorry threkta up here." Chewie hesitated for just a second, before stepping beneath the grate and reaching upwards. Taivas grabbed his paws in a vice grip and pulled upwards. There was a soft groan from the Wookie, a hissing string of cusswords from the Macskian, and then Chewie's chest was above the lip of the duct. Taivas huffed as the group was finally reunited. "There, you see, not a problem. Leia? Where's Leia…ah, yes, what next?" The princess looked surprised.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Well, you're the one who wanted your group. I assumed that you had some…plan or something."
"Are you telling me that you got us up here without a plan?" Han barked.
"Oh no," Taivas snapped back. "I had a plan. Your girlfriend didn't want to go with it."
"Your plan meant leaving them behind," Leia said.
"Well, your plan now has us stuck in an air duct, congratulations," Taivas huffed.
"Ladies," Indy cut in, "Please, can't we just move on. As far as I can see the plan is pretty simple: get to their hanger, steal a shuttle, and get back to the moon."
"Yes, that's wonderful," Taivas replied, "Except that the hanger is going to be guarded, that means a fight, and we have no weapons. The ship has a shield that needs to be taken down before we can get the shuttle out of the hanger, that means we have to get down to the engine rooms to cut the power, that means a fight, and we have no weapons. And the Black has massively huge and powerful guns that will shoot us out of the sky before you can blink, and, guess what? We have no weapons." A long silence followed as plans were mentally hashed out and then scratched. Taivas had quite accurately described their situation, and it was definitely not a pretty one.
"Out of curiosity, Leia," Indy finally said into the encompassing silence, "What did you mean by navigating us through the air ducts?"
"I have a cartographer," Taivas answered. She reached into the gloom of the vent and pulled out a really strange looking box. "It connects to the power conduits that run through the ventilation system and creates a three dimensional map of the ship."
"How did you sneak that past the guards?" Luke queried.
"I didn't, I built it."
"Out of what?" Han demanded.
"Parts of my leg, an ear, part of my arm, and a few other…um…pieces." Stunned silence followed before Han finally said what everyone was thinking.
"You're a cyborg?!"
"No," Taivas answered sarcastically, "I just like gluing bits of machinery to my fur. What do you think?"
"What's a cyborg?" Indy asked tentatively. Taivas peered around heads to get a good look at the archeologist.
"You've never heard of cyberobotics? What planet are you from?"
"Earth," came the firm reply.
"Never heard of it."
"And that's why he doesn't understand," Han commented.
"Earth has kind of…limited technology," Leia said diplomatically.
Taivas's gaze shifted to the princess: "You mean it's a silent planet?"
"Silent?" Indy snapped out that word a little too quickly.
Leia turned to face him: "Silent as in Earth hasn't established any kind of contact with the rest of the galaxy."
"Oh, yeah, well…that pretty much sums it up, I guess." He paused. "Though there are a bunch of whackos that believe aliens built the pyramids." Voices rang out all at once:
"What's a pyramid?"
"What's a whacko?"
"You have had contact before?"
"HUUUUUUUnnnnnnnnnnnrrrrrrrrr AAAAAuuuuhhhhhhhHHHHHH."
"Uh guys…guys…PEOPLE!" Luke barked to silence the din. "Can we please focus on getting off this ship?" Mental plans were once again dredged up and scratched.
"Most of our problems stem from a lack of weaponry," Leia finally said. "Couldn't we just steal some?"
"This is a pirate ship, Leigh," Han answered. "Pirates don't exactly keep weapon lockers lying around. They either wear them or bolt them to bulkheads."
"All we really need to do is knock out their power systems," Luke said. "That'll cut their shields, weapons, and throw them into such disarray that we can steal a shuttle and get out of here."
"But that means getting down to their engine room and then racing all the way to the hanger before they get their systems on line," Taivas pointed out. "Unless we leave someone behind to do the dirty work…" she trailed off in the face of the obvious. Silence once again reigned.
"I don't suppose you could just blow a fuse," Indy sighed.
"Do what?" Han asked.
"Well, I don't know much about electronic systems, but on Earth, if too much power surges through a line at any given time it'll blow out a fuse, break the electric circuit, and cut all the power flowing into an area. The more power that surges, the more fuses are blown, the more areas are left without power."
"Macsk enthroned," Taivas hissed. "That…might work. I can rewire the cartographer to store and then release a power surge through the conduits. If we time it right and it can get enough systems affected, it may cripple the entire krething ship."
"But we need the cartographer to navigate," Leia insisted.
"Well, I'm not about to burst the bloody thing up now," Taivas replied. "But when we get closer to the hangers, we'll blow them to kingdom come."
DXVJKE
It had taken a few minutes for Taivas to negotiate her way past a Wookie, a Jedi, a Princess, and an archeologist (all while balancing a literally cannibalized cartographer in one hand) to get to the front of the line. The group had decided that, seeming how she was the only person who could read the map, Taivas should lead the way to the hanger. This was fine with her, as at least now she didn't have to stare at anyone's butt. Han wasn't exactly pleased with the arrangements (being stuck behind a seven-and-a-half-foot Wookie doesn't want to make you take a picture), but, because of said arrangements, his quite complaints didn't register with the rest of the group. Luke and Leia were also a bit peeved at the view, but they weren't taken to complaining as much. Chewbacca was still too stunned at being able to fit in the tiny vent to say much of anything.
All in all, Indy was the only person whose mind wasn't consumed with the view. He was still trying to work out just what Taivas was. He had determined that a cyborg, essentially, was a combination of a human…well, humanoid is more accurate, I guess...and a droid. I wonder how the droid parts get attached. It's not like you can sew them on…or could you? Maybe it's like a cast, or a glove you put over the original tissue. But then it would be bigger than normal…I wonder what normal is for her? Or do all her people look like that? And how the hell can someone walk that way? She had somehow bent her leg abnormally to make it easier for her to move through the vent. It looked almost like a house cat when it sits on its haunches. But she was moving. And she hadn't tripped over her own feet, Like I know I would…if my legs bent that way…
They had been crawling through the vent shafts, up inclines, down inclines, around corners, negotiating past fans and over grates for nearly an hour. So far, there was no evidence that the pirates even knew that they had escaped, let alone where they had gotten off to. The boring monotony of crawling through nearly pitch black conditions turned their neat line into a confused pile when Taivas stopped abruptly.
"What's wrong?" Indy, the first to extricate himself from the mash-up, whispered.
"We're just outside the hanger," she hissed back. "Now back off a bit, I need room to recalibrate the cartographer."
"You need any light?"
Her head shot up: "Why, do you have a torch?"
"No, but I have some matches…somewhere." There was a quiet rustling of skin on cloth as Indy searched his person in the darkness.
"What are matches?" Taivas asked in the silence. Indy stopped and looked into the shadows where he thought she was sitting.
"You don't know what a match is?"
"You didn't know what a cyborg was."
"I still don't. A match is a means to make a flame."
"If you have a firestarter, you could have just called it that. And, no, I don't need it. My eyepiece doesn't need light to see."
"Oh." Silence continued again.
"Thanks for the offer though," Taivas spoke again, her voice punctuated by the quiet clicking of circuits.
"You're welcome, I guess."
"Indy?" Han's voice sounded muffled and kind of echo-ey coming so far down the vent.
"Yeah, Han?"
"If you've got a firestarter, I can use it to make a diversion." Even without light, Indy knew that everyone's eyebrows just raised.
"What kind of diversion?" Leia asked.
"A big one that'll give us time to get to the shuttle."
"Right," Indy said, "Luke, can you pass these back?" The Jedi took the small match book and handed it over Leia and across Chewie into Han's hand. There was a pause.
"This isn't a firestarter," Han finally sighed.
"Yes, it is." Indy hissed back.
"No, it isn't. It's a papery, bumpy, stick-y thing. And it smells like rotten eggs."
"That's 'cause it's a book of matches. They're cardboard, potassium chloride, sulfur, and phosphorus. Look, everyone squeeze to the side, I'm coming back." A very uncomfortable, slightly noisy, and a bit painful minute later, Indy was sitting back next to Han and snatching the matchbook out of his hands. "You place the match head against the strip, apply slight pressure and pull quickly." There was a snap, a hissing, and a bright flare of orangey light. Indy held the match gingerly as the fire slowly drifted its way down the cardboard. Indy leaned forward and foofed it out before the flame got to his fingertips. The vent was plunged into a thick darkness and everyone had to blink their eyes a few times to remove the after images.
"Is it possible to light the other matches without having to strike them on the back of the strip?" Han finally asked.
"Yeah, if you hold them against a fire, they'll light right up." There was a long silence.
"Chewie," Han's voice trickled through the darkness. "I think it's time someone gave you a brushing."
DXVJKE
Wookie fur is, under natural circumstances, capable of supporting its own biosphere with all the dirt, bacteria, water, and organic carbon-compounds that the owners pick up in their normal day to day romping through the forests of Kashyyyk. But when the owner lives in space, the organic carbon compounds are usually replaced with traces of refined heavy metals, the bacteria is usually highly toxic if ingested by most sentients, and the dirt is very, very oily. One would think that this unnatural buildup would be harmful to the host, but, in fact, it acts as a very natural defensive shield from all the other stuff floating in the vast reaches of space.
For example, the bacteria that now inhabits Chewbacca's fur is so territorial that any manufactured biological warrior germ wouldn't even have the chance to reproduce, no matter how many of them are launched. The metals built up around each individual hair are so microscopic as to be invisible, but, considering just how much hair he has, they create a kind of chainmail. And the dirt makes a natural barrier to rain, scum, slime, booze, blood, mud, muck, teriyaki sauce (don't ask), and soap.
If ignited, the combination of toxins, oils, heavy metals, and carbon-compounds would produce a smoke so miasmic that burning Wookie fur has been outlawed on eighty-seven different planets (five of which had never even seen a Wookie before) for health code violations. Not even the labor unions, who are more than willing to burn anything from Molotov Cocktails to Ankh-Morporkian water (again, don't ask), won't touch the stuff.
One could, then, quite easily imagine the surprise the pirates in the hanger went through as small brown piles of fur drifted down from the ceiling to release the most dreadful cloud of thick, acrid smoke.
DXVJKE
"Cap'n!" Marianna's voice sang out on the bridge, worry clogging her normally calm voice.
"Whot?" Jack Swallow whirled around, and then wavered a bit as, to his view, the deck kept whirling.
"I've got reports of a fire breakin' out down in the hang'r."
"Well then get the krethin' fire crew out an—"
"CAP'N!" Mr. Candun staggered up on the bridge.
"Whot?!" Swallow whirled again to face him.
"T' Prisn'rs! 'Ay've excaped! Went out trew t'ventilation shafts."
"Then get the bloody vents and get af—"
"Cap'n!" One of the communication screens snapped to life. Mr. Ittegar's thick voice came crackling out of the speaker.
"WHOT?" Swallow whirled a third time and fell thickly against his chair, where he kicked over his emergency bottle of rum which instantly began to stink up the bridge. Not, of course, that the bridge smelled exceptionally fine to begin with.
"Those effen skruj–kkkkkkkksssssssskkkkkkk—tards 'ave attacked down in the 'anger. We can't get the –kkkkkkssssssssskkkkk—in' doors open an' we think they're tryin' to steal one of the –kkkkkkksssssssskkkkkk—in' shuttl's."
"THEN SHOOT THEM DOWN!" Swallow roared. "I want EVERY krethin' gun on this krethin' ship trained on those krethin' skrujj eatin' sons of twenty credit wh—" The entire ship went dark and the thick smell of rum was quickly cut by one of burning circuitry that wafted up from the various boards. "WHOT THE BLOODY HELL?!" Swallow's voice cut across the bridge. Silence had the conn.
DXVJKE
Down in the hanger, the thick black smoke swirled around dazed and confused pirates who were trying to desperately breathe. Emergency fire procedures were soon activated and the thick black smoke was replaced with thick white smoke. A wet, heavy, film coated every available surface, thus extinguishing the flaming balls of Wookie fur; it did not, however, remove any of the smoke. If anything, the fire extinguishers made the air even more difficult to breathe, adding sodden chemicals to the already awful air.
Taivas was the first one down into the hanger. Primarily because she was the one who cut the whole around the air duct grate and jumped down. But it was also because she was the only member of the team who could "see". As the others followed her down, she did her best to keep everyone together in the disorienting haze. They grabbed hands in a chain and, with Taivas leading the way, raced over to the nearest shuttle. The door slid open at her touch and six coughing escaped prisoners burst into the relatively clean air with billows of smoke following them.
Han immediately slide into the cockpit and began slamming controls into life. He paused, cussed under his breath and whipped around to face the rest of the gasping group. "I can't open the bay doors from here."
"What?" Luke asked hoarsely.
"The bay doors can't be accessed remotely. Someone's gotta go back out into that…stuff, find the control terminal and open the bloody doors."
"I guess that someone is me, huh?" Taivas snarled from the ground.
"You are the only one who can see," Han said.
"Please, Taivas," Leia whispered. "You're the only one who can see out there." Taivas cast her good eye around at the others and sighed.
"Alright. But you have to swear by everything you call holy that you won't leave without me."
"You got it," Han nodded. "Now hurry."
A second wave of black smoke entered the shuttle as Taivas left. Agonizing seconds ticked by as each person tried to mentally picture where Taivas was and how long it would take her to get back. Cyborg or no, she wouldn't be able to breathe long in that stuff. Han jerked up at the console as the computer beeped at him.
"She's got the doors open." His hands flew across buttons and switches as the shuttle began to roar to life. The others sat, waiting, hoping that she would get back soon. No one knew just how long the power surge would keep the Black offline, and no one wanted to be caught on the wrong side of those guns.
"Come on, Taivas," Leia muttered. "Let's get gone."
DXVJKE
Right, so…cliffies. Everyone likes cliffies, right? …RIGHT?! Um…..right. so, moving on. I really, REALLY didn't like the ending of this chapter. So if you hate it too, you're not alone. I'm sorry, but I really wanted to get this out and move on with the plot, so you're stuck with a stupid letdown of a chapter ending. I'm sorry. Really sorry. Please feel free to rant about this chapter in a review. I love reviews. I don't think that I can stress enough that I LOVE reviews.
Anywho, summer's over, and with it went the New Indy movie (which rated slightly above Temple of Doom and lightyears below Raiders…but I didn't have all that high expectations anyways), the amazing series Avatar: the Last Airbender (if you haven't seen it yet, go out and rent the DVD's, you will thank yourself in three days when you've finished the series), and season 4 of Doctor Who (my best friend and her family got me hooked on that TV show and I hunted down and watched four seasons, nearly 60 hours of campy british scifi in the course of a month. SO MUCH FUN!!). I'm not sure what I'll do for entertainment now, but, hey! School's started back up and I am in for a death of a semester. Hopefully when I can't conjugate another single bloody verb, don't want to think about the eighty thousand projects I should be doing, can't stand another piece of homework, and absolutely refuse to go to the library for another study session, I'll still be able to write Indy.
Hope your semester goes better than mine will,
Later dudes,
DarkX