Disclaimer: I don't own the base material. Most of it either belongs to Dan Schneider and Nickelodeon, or Disney. Not gonna mess with kids television, cause those guys are remorseless.
:}
Jade's scream shook the cockpit, and drew the others to her in a blind run.
"Jade, you okay?" Gary asked, panting from his short run.
Malcolm used that moment to scan the skies, looking for any hint that they'd been found, or some sort of threat had slipped past their scanners and was about to blast them out of space. "I don't find any signs of enemy ships."
"I..." Jade stammered.
"What?" Gary asked. "What is it, Jade. Did you see something? Maybe you remembered something that might help?"
"Calm yourself." Malcolm said, focusing on his daughter. "Let me in, Jade. Let me know what threat..."
"Well? What do you see?" Gary asked nervously.
"I have..." Jade managed to get out.
"Oh, that." Mister West said dismissively. "That's just something I honestly thought wouldn't manifest. But apparently, it has, and you, my child, will need to find a way to have that feeling without letting the fear or hurt that comes with it drag you down into the dark. Jade, the best thing you can do now is learn to have that feeling, embrace it, but don't let it choose your course of action."
"I have..." Jade said again, sounding like she was finding her way out, maybe getting closer to saying.
"Interesting, I didn't expect to feel so much fear around this." Malcolm, in his aspect as Grey, muttered. "You're more scared of having these feelings then losing her." He gave an ominous chuckle, showing both a darkness his daughter had only glimpsed, as well as a humor she'd never really knew existed. "Soon, that will change. Trust me, Jade, this is good. We just have to have our most uncomfortable talk every."
"Okay, someone, please fill me in, cause I'm kinda lost." Gary said. He felt lost, confused, and with all the things he'd had to go through in the last few days, including one doozy of a case of future shock, he wanted to know things would work out. Jade was a strong fighter, having her reduced like this scared him. Knowing what was going on offered him both the chance to help out, and a feeling of normalcy that was drastically missing.
"I have feelings for her." Jade said, almost casually, like she was just telling a friend. But the feeling behind those words, the trembling lips, the uncertain eyes, screamed that she barely had control over herself.
"Tori." Malcolm filled in. "Just so you know. I've felt it in her for years now, always in denial, always just a fantasy. Now, however, she has to be true to herself, about her emotions if nothing else, and I have to deal with her realizing she wants Holly's youngest for her own. This is an uncomfortable subject for me to cover."
"Than let me." Gary offered.
"This is far more complicated then just a girl with a crush." Grey warned.
"You think, for one moment, that the police never deal with issues like this?" Gary asked. "We have moments, things that come up, where sometimes an officer has a loved one in the middle of some situation or another, and they have to decide how to move forward. Maybe the force complicates things, but I can help. That, and I suspect I have a world more experience dealing with love, and being in love, then you do."
"Very well, I'll let you take the lead on this." The Gray Knight said, sitting back and watching.
"Jade, lets get a few things straight, okay?" Gary opened.
"I love Tori..." Jade said, even as she metaphorically pulled herself back to the cockpit.
"You loved Beck, right?" The police officer asked. His words were gentile, focused.
"Yea, I loved Beck." Jade said. "And I knew he'd leave me. I always knew someone better would come along, and I'd just be a memory."
"Why?" Gary was learning a bit about this dangerous young woman now, and it frightened him to learn she'd lived with being so sure Beck would just find another lover. "Why are you so sure he'd just leave you one day?"
"I was never good enough for my dad." Jade was almost in tears now. "I was never good enough for anyone. I knew, I just knew, cause people told me, that I wasn't good enough, not strong enough, hot enough, special. I had to use my rage, and their fear, as weapons, just to make them stay. I had to make them stay, hold on, or I'd lose it all, and never be happy again."
"Okay, I can see how the dark side, or someone trained in the dark side, might give you that impression." Gary said. "But what they missed is risk. You have pain, and guess what, you'll have more. But life isn't about avoiding living just to avoid the pain. Jade, love is a wonderful thing. Having someone love you, sharing a love, that's one of the best feelings there ever was.
Well worth the risk, the pain, and the uncertainty. Big problem is, finding love is a risk, and you never know how the other person feels until your in deep. That's where we risk getting hurt. But Jade, it's worth it, in the end, to be with someone. So, why are you so terrified about being in love with Tori. If she's not interested, she'll let you down gently, free you to move on."
"How do you know?" Jade asked. "If you don't control things, how do you know how they'll work out?"
"Among the Sith, having children, a family, was considered a risk, because that entity that you might care about would one day be used against you." Malcolm said. "Then, you have the Jedi, who also frowned on having a family, because if you lost that child, that wife, you could turn to the dark side. It was on earth, dealing with mystics and priests, that I learned what the Grey had been trying to teach me. I learned how to balance the two, accept the risk, and be capable of holding on to my faith when things went bad. Of course, I was raising weapons first, before Carl could come into the picture. But I love him, and wish I could protect him from all the bad in the world. I have to have faith that my other children will be strong enough to do that for me."
"Now let me tell you why being able to think, to let go, can help you save the ones you love." Gary continued. "You'll never be able to protect them from everything, but you certainly can try. However, life demands you let go, let them have their lives. And so you need to be able to let go of the emotions, still feeling them, but let go, so you can think clearly, cause otherwise you'll be irrational, making a lot of mistakes, and that puts everyone in greater risk. So, do the meditations your father has taught you, and put the question of how Tori will react to the back of your mind. Worrying about that will get you, and possible the rest of us, including Tori, killed."
Jade nodded, understanding. Gary then continued. "The worst thing she can do is say no, and we both know Tori, if she says no, it won't be nasty. I mean, she's not you. She'll find a way to say it that won't hurt. Accept that, and you can move on. But you have to find her, safe and alive, first."
"Sounds good." Jade said, still feeling mentally staggered by the revelation.
"Now, work with me, your dad, whomever, and well get you though this." The police detective said. "I need you alert, thinking. Each move has to be planned out, so we can get in, get your friends, and get the hell out of here. So, take a break, we'll keep watch out here."
Jade stood up and walked out of the cockpit, not sure she wanted to be there any more. A different part of her knew, if she failed to save Tori, and Trina, and Cat, and Andre, and while she was at it, Beck, and Robbie just for good measures, she'd never be able to forgive herself. 'Rex, however, can die out here in space.'
Malcolm watched her walk out, smirking as she left. "Did I ever tell you we'd had a contingency plan?"
"No, what is it?" The police officer asked.
"We, the force spirit and myself, had hoped that Jade would fall for one of the princesses." The Gray Knight said. "It, as much as if not more so then her guarding them, was the reason I finally agreed to have her go to that school." The disdain in his voice at referencing Hollywood Arts left no doubt in the other mans mind how little Malcolm thought of that place. "And she went and fell for Becket instead. Still an acceptable choice, but hardly a backup plan."
"So you're not worried that she's set up to be crushed?" Gary wondered aloud.
"I'd have been happier if it had been Trina, but all things considered, this s working out just fine." Malcolm said. Then the part of him that was lord Grey added "But I suppose it's better for her to have fallen for the one who has feelings for her."
Gary smiled, enjoying the irony. "Um, why is it Jade isn't aware of how Tori feels?"
"Beyond her only awakening to her powers, after being bound for so long, Jade, like most people, myself included, have psychological blocks that makes it hard to see whats obvious to so many others. She can and has misread clues, easily missing their connection. Honestly, I'm more surprised Beck never figured that out, that the two girls he was caught in the middle of were more interested in each other then him." The Gray Knight said.
"Like you said, people have blind spots." The police officer agreed. "Speaking of, I realized a way for us to get the prisoners out, and get away clean. You've come up with a way to get us to the ship. I just thought, since we're hiding on the sensor dish, why not have that droid of yours plant some kind of device to disrupt their sensors when we ask for it, then we take one of their shuttles, fly away, even as the Beetle takes off and fly's away to our agreed upon meeting place."
"A lot of holes in that plan." Malcolm noted. "But it's workable. If we get the code to launch one of their shuttles, those have hyper drives. Some have really good ones. We'll be able to just leave, and meet up at a safe place. I'll contact Ashma, find a safe house we could use."
It took only a short time to get the communication to Ashma, set up what they could. Preparations were being made, even thought everyone agreed it was a partial plan at best.
"We have force users." Grey said to the others after, during a planning briefing. "That alone requires a lot of improvising along the way. We'll be heavily outnumbers, making stealth and surprise our best tools. But I saw your abilities with illusion, Jade, I suspect that will help us get out of this alive. And remember, this isn't an assault, it's a rescue. We achieve our goal and get the chiz out. Everyone clear?" He watched them nod. "Good, cause we're out of time."
Jade watched as the huge warship fell out of hyper, it's sharp lines distinctive of the ancient Star Destroyer line. She knew it was loaded with weapons, both anti-ship, and point defense weapons used against all kinds of threats. 'Threats like missiles, fighters, and anyone crazy enough to attack one of those massive warships with a freighter.'
Her biggest problem was making them believe she was any kind of threat. 'I'm powering up my weapons, but if they don't notice, then I'll have to risk damaging the ship to get them to believe I'm a threat. Then, we have the explosives we've packed into the escape capsule's now empty space, using the launcher to get it away from us but still close enough for them to to believe we blowed up. With luck, they won't realize we attached to them, and we can enter the ship unnoticed. Then, while we're busy escaping, stealing the shuttle, maybe number Three can fly away unnoticed in the confusion. Jump to hyper as soon as it's feasible, the meet up with us later. Best plan we have at the moment, and it depends on me. Okay, Jade, no pressure...'
She glided the ship into what she felt was the best place to start the attack run. Knowing they'd already spotted her, she worked on the assumption that the Beetle wasn't that common a ship design, and maybe they'd already figured out who she was. However, she needed to make the attack run before they scrambled fighters, or there was a real chance one of the fighter pilots would see her ship clamped to the sensor dish. So, with a silent prayer to the force, or whatever else might hear her call, Jade started her attack run.
The star destroyer was manned by highly trained personnel, a crew who knew the difference between a ship flying by and an attack run. It didn't take long for them to realize what Jade seemed to be doing. At the same time, Jade projected an image to their sensors, making the ship think her dodging and weaving was a little to the side of her actual position, always just far enough, so when the point deference weapons sprang to life seconds later, she was just out of their line of fire. Still, bolts of plasma energy sizzled by, scorching the dust of space as it flew past. Jade continued her attack run, headless of the danger, knowing they'd only get one chance at saving Tori and the others.
'Thing about a big ship like that, it has it's own gravity, above and beyond what their generators create.' Jade thought. 'I just use that to help me maneuver, pulling into it so that my escape is hampered by that gravity. Then, I use the force, plus the explosion I'm planning on having in front of me, to help the grapple stop us without pulling anything loose from their ship. If all goes perfectly, and I suspect it has to for this to work, we should be attached, riiiightt…NOW!'
Jade launched the escape capsule, now turned into a short range explosive device, detonating it just out of reach of their position, while simultaneously slamming the retro's. She also used the force, pulling with all her might. The grapple, somehow attached, and Jade would later realize she'd been too preoccupied to launch it. One of the droids had done her that service. So instead, she was able to focus on her use of the force, and to a lesser extent, her piloting, to maneuver into position just on the other side of the sensor disk.
"Jade, we're disabling the rear safety sensor on the dish." Grey said, as Three wheeled itself out to the point where it could fiddle with the electronics. Grey used his own mastery of the force to keep them out of sight long enough for the droid to disable the emergency proximity sensor and allow them to safely attach.
Grey then reached out and pulled the astromech droid in through the airlock they were waiting near, giving it time to cycle. "Okay, I have my weapon, and the armor you guys gave me. What do I do now?" Gary asked.
"We enter and stay together." Grey said. "Jade, for this part of the mission, I need you do grab a blaster. We're taking our lightsabers, but not gonna use them until we have too. The longer they don't know who's doing what, the better. Gary, I'm gonna have to rely upon your accuracy with that thing, cause me and blasters, not the best shot here."
"Jade, can you shoot?" Gary asked.
"Kinda." Jade said. "Just enough to play a cop, should I get a roll."
"Speaking of, lets hope we can find some way to have you appear to be the senior ranking officer, cause that acting training, maybe our best shot at bluffing out way out of this." Gary said.
"Three, while you work your way in, find us a map, and the quickest rout to a uniform. We'll also need access. Whatever you can give us. If we have to fight, then our chances of success go way down. In that case, we break into three groups, with me and Jade causing a distraction, while Gary get the hostages to the shuttle. Jade, once they're near, you break off, use that illusion power of yours to fake your death, then head over to pilot the shuttle. I'll try to meet you there."
"Got it." Jade said. 'He can fly, but he wants me to take that job, should we come to it. I can't imagine why, given that he's far more valuable… Maybe he feels he has a much better chance of getting away?'
They only had a short time to get ready before gaining access to the jefferies tube. The three of them started heading out, ready for whatever trouble they might find. Dressed in what was a light spacesuit, despite only giving maybe ten minutes survival in a vacuum, the three were still able to safely navigate to a store room, and form there, find some spare uniforms. It took them time, almost an hour, but they worked their way through the tubes, and managed to avoid both the many sensors, the droid sweeps, and even the random technician working in one of the access tubes.
"These things resize?" Jade asked, when she realized that all the uniforms were the same, rather small, size.
"Kind of a good thing, when you give up on one size fits all." Malcolm said. "As in, all the storm troopers would be one size. Cloning is wonderful for standardization of troops."
"Okay, Jade, your a young officer." Grey said. "I figured I'd be the one they'd have the most chance of recognizing, but there's no storm trooper armor here, just spare laundry chiz, including uniforms. Three was able to fabricate appropriate insignia, so we'll count on them not realizing you're not from here. A young officer is less likely to be known about by the general crew, and with your acting ability, you have the best shot at bluffing our way past whatever guards we may run across. Gary and I will be guards."
"Let me alter that." Gary said. "Grey, Malcolm, you've already said you're no good with a gun. So instead, given our ages, I was thinking we take on rolls that are believable. I'll be an older officer, not command level, and probably not carrying that much rank, who's helping train Jade in command. Meanwhile, you could be a technician. I'll be guiding her, helping finish her training, while she watches over you. At the same time, you pretend to be with us to fix a problem. I'm just hoping that they have a mentoring program of some sort to make this work. You see, I don't know about the Dark Order, but in may military's, a young officer on her first assignment might well be asked to oversee something as trivial as a repair person fixing something in the detention block. No respect for a first time officer."
"I'll take your word for it." The old knight said. "Jade, we'll be relying on your acting skills to get us by. I never gave much value to improve, but once on board, it's probably best to minimize our use of the force. At least not until we find out who's here."
"Got it, dad." Jade said., smirking as he stiffened. "Sorry, technician."
"Can't he be both?" Gary asked, smiling a broad smile.
"Older officers escorting a troublesome young charge don't smile like that." Grey warned.
The three of them plotted their way down the halls, towards the lifts. "This ship is so big, they have a turbo lift system to get all over the place. Kinda needed when the ships almost three kilometers long." Grey explained.
"I did kinda feel like it took us a while to get to this dressing room." Jade quipped.
"So well need to make our way from here to the lifts, and from there to the detention block. I'll remind you, they have a full legion of storm troopers on board, all dedicated to the dark order." The father continued, ignoring his child's outburst.
"Okay, I'm ready, I think." Jade said, looking at her self in a small mirror. 'Maybe just reflective surface?' She wondered. 'This room really isn't set up for choosing fashion. Bright side, while not sexy in the least, it does cover a lot of me. "Um, dad, quick question… These uniforms, are the emergency space suits too?"
"Yes." Her father said. "Lightly armored, capable of surviving in space up until the air runs out. Just pull the hood out and over your head before you die from exposure. You have maybe twenty minutes of air."
"Glad they take care of their people." Gary said.
"Cannon fodder dies when you tell it to, not before hand." Grey reminded his friend. "So, lets go, and hope that Jade can buy us access to the detention block."
:}
So, they're in. Thoughts? What do you think they'll find? And why one size fits all?
Almost didn't post this, but only cause I had a busy day. Things should calm down now.