PREDESTINATION
"So, home away from home." A large door opened, and they drove into a large storage area that had several vehicles. I was sure they had been used for different game themes as there were some odd color patterns. They got out and I joined them to walk through several doors that I test with the Force, and I would have no trouble popping the locks or forcing them open with a Force Push. The last surprised me to be a large door similar to many blast shields.
"Impressive door."
"Ya the guy who built the place had stored his valuable stuff inside. With the collapse of the docks his company moved back to Boston, and he just emptied the place. Didn't even bother to turn the power off." Mike stated.
"Ya good for us and this is a bunker too. Guy left all that alone, so we have food for months all nice and vacuum sealed and inside a nitrogen vault." Jeff added just before Mike could continue.
"Place can survive an Endbringer so long as it does not go over the top. It is self-contained and has equipment to monitor air quality and carbon dioxide levels."
"Very impressive and something you did not have to build yourself." Skye looked around and saw several things that she could really admire. It had a feeling to it that was not much different than a Jedi Temple. Expanding her presence, she felt it before moving to a blank wall.
"What is behind here?"
"Nothing really dead space or a water tank not sure. Tenis court is above that area. Why?"
"There is one thing that a Jedi can be tracked by if another Force user knows what to look for."
"That is?" Jeff asked.
"Their lightsaber." Mike giggled and then rushed around the corner. Skye followed right behind Jeff.
"I always thought this was a door, but I can't see or detect any controls." Skye moved to touch the door and sure enough she felt what needed to be down.
"Does this place have a way to move a lot of air quickly?"
"Vault door is open we could hit the smoke fans. Cools the place really quick this time of year or in the summer warms it up." Mike offered without pause.
"Good turn it on." He went out of the hall and air started to move slowly at first and then it got louder. Skye pulled the air around her as she applied the Force to the round keystone, she moved it and the door started to roll out of the way, but the very air started to rush inside with a screaming whistle and then a loud roar. The room on the other side was made in such a way that a vacuum could be made. Perfect for storing something for a ridiculously long time. Five minutes went by before the large stone wheel was out of the way and the air returned to normal pressure. Even then Jeff who had stay too close had passed out.
"Wow."
"Whoa." Skye ignited her lightsaber. Even with it being under vacuum there could be defenses set up. What she saw was very encouraging but telling. She could see nearly everything you would need to put together a scout transport, but one that belonged to Jedi Scout Ress Shrialla. She searched with the Force and came to the center of the chamber. There embedded in a solid black cube of granite was his lightsaber. The holo recorder was more important. With a light touch she activated the player.
"Greeting Master Fuan'daemo and Knight Riflus I am sorry that I will not be meeting you in person. It seems that the Force is telling me I will not be around to see that day." His image shifted as he appeared to be pacing.
"I have an odd allergy that is something my limited ability to heal with the Force is only holding it off. Nothing to concern yourselves with as it is very rare, but even with their medical level and my knowledge is just not enough. Add on the fact of the Golden Man a few years back and the first parahuman hero and villains and that is that."
He did a few out of view as Jeff and Mike were mesmerized. It was not that the Force wanted her to work with these two villains, but to find Ress. Still, she could not figure out how he had gotten here so far in the past?
"Think too much you do Knight Riflus, but the Force told me plenty before the entities started blocking the Force or that my allergy was affecting my ability to use it. No matter. So once this chamber is sealed my family will be fully moved out to Madison Wisconsin. Not going to live downtown, as I know what will happen there, but close enough to help out after whatever happens."
"Madison Wisconsin?" Mike mumbled getting silenced by Jeff.
"You'll need my ship and my lightsaber. Not sure why but better it be with you then me. I was never really fast enough to fight anyone better than the average soldier. However, I know you will crash, and your fighter does not have the parts you will need either, but I am sure you can find the remains of your ship on a military base in Maine."
"Maine or..."
"Shh." Skye giggled as she could see that Jeff was very interested in the holo recorder and not what Ress was saying.
"I left a bunch of other messages and a few things Knight Riflus can use. A bank account in the Central Bank of Brockton Bay with enough funds to do whatever you like. Plus, legal paperwork birth certificate, school records, and other things. All legal and copied from my daughter. A joy to have but also a pain. She has my allergy as well and she will not make it after the event in Madison. I am sorry that her life other than to give me such joy was cut short because of me, but the Force found a way that you can benefit. Sara Sherwood."
Skye stopped the holo as tears could not be held back. The recorder could not record emotions, but the Force more than echoed the memory of the original recording. Dozens of echoes in the Force hit her only to increase her loss. Jeff rubbed her back as Mike retreated from the room. She was not that close to him, but it was just like the Force to cut a life short or possibly even make such a life come about in the first place. Many scholars argue the point that this was not the case, but the few that have experienced the sometimes, cold calculation of the Force would say otherwise, and Skye had never even dreamed of how she would react, but sorrow was one.
However, she knew that the Force had a purpose and perhaps it just used the circumstances mortal beings found themselves in. It did not make her feel any better or cry any less, but the Code helped center her mind and then accept her emotions. Though it was some time before she gave it to the Force. Giving your emotions to the Force without first understanding them was dangerous. Plans formed as she regained control and she barked several commands and H5S7 unfolded from one of the corners. Jeff backed up as the droid was a full combat model. One that was armed and armored to go against Sith. He also had extensive programming to be perfect for protecting a Scout in the field on an uncharted planet.
"Reedy to serve. Greetings, Sara Sherwood, you are my master now. Shall I walk you through everything Russel Sherwood wanted you to know. It will only take thirty-seven hours."
"Perhaps later tonight."
"That thing looks deadlier than a terminator."
"I am deadlier than a fictitious murder droid, and I can cook four hundred and thirty different dishes that will make your mouth water."
"Hast, do a survey of the building and report any discrepancies to my comlink and do not clean anything at the moment. Many years have passed."
"Understood." The droid clattered and his armor shifted to not show all his weapons. He still looked deadly, but he would not tear up the walls if he cut a corner too close. It did however give her many newer ideas of how to deal with ABB and even E88 or possibly Coil. He was not a known entity as of yet.
The rest of the day Leet was going from part to part of the former scout ship as we Skye or now Sara, but it really was not her name but one that she needed and checking her bank account made her think of all the good she could do with those funds. She converted them into credits, and it was easily more than even her master had handled in the past on various missions for what it could purchase. Thinking over everything that Ress talked about and the journal she had gone over briefly he was very insistent on his so-called allergy.
"This is not right." She said to herself and that lead to searching out the family name she was given. The Sherwood's ran an import export company and even owned one of the docks to this day, but one that had not been maintained from a few pictures that showed up. She would check it out in the morning on her run.
Her warehouse had also been in the Sherwood name had been another coincidence that was not outside of the Force's purview. She studied the ground of the place that had encased the vault and with a bit of work it could be restored in short order. Jeff and Mike had done some of it themselves but maintained the outer abandoned look to conceal their base. She picked one of the rooms and the Aurebesh plaque telling her this was her room and where to find the storage closet. With some digging the boys helped her and Hast to pull and assemble the furniture that would make up the room.
It had a very temple like set up but geared as much to an Earth girl standard. Not that she had been in any girl's rooms, but it matched such advertising. Once the room was settled, she would bring the fighter over to the tennis court to land. It appeared to be concealing enough and there was netting that could be stretched over the court and a reason to prevent tennis balls from leaving the court. Another preparation that was too convenient. The spare clothing that Ress favored was just as well preserved and gave Jeff and Mike the same body gloves that she wore with her armor. It also got her looking at his armor.
"Mike, I think this will fit you and this other one you Jeff."
"Really?" Jeff wondered as she waved them over.
"Yes, this the armor that he must have worn when he was younger and is standard Jedi armor. This set here is what he was wearing the last time I saw him. He had filled out between his days as a padawan and him deciding to be a scout was his calling."
"Okay, but why should we where it?" Jeff asked.
"We are going after the ABB tonight as Jedi."
"But we do the gamer thing." Mike protested.
"Ya it would not be a thing Uber or Leet did."
"Then you will do it as if you were Jedi and no one will know. Leet could be Rapier and Uber could be Cutlass. I will be Saber. For we shall all carry lightsabers." They looked at each other as their smiles grew.
"Be warned to only use them for show against another cape as your power setting will be low. Enough to numb and stun a regular human. The swords can cut your arms off I let you use them without restriction. You will also have a blaster set to stun as well."
"This is going to be so cool. Can we film it all with our cameras?" Jeff asked.
"I do not see why and your holo will be seen by your viewers?"
"Yes." Skye thought about that, and she moved the inner vault and brought out a case with nine softball sized drones. They both got excited as she hooked her arm comlink to the first one.
"Ayfour I need you to program this drone with the current software for this world." Several beeps and whistles came as a reply. Skye read his agreement. Each in turn were programmed and activated. They then went back to the warehouse to do a few more things and to test out the drones. Each showed video link to the HUD display as she taught them both about the armor its capabilities to protect them and some very basic use of the two lightsabers set on practice mode.
She had them drive to a location where they could park and move into the area of her first raid. With the two she would be able to hold them there instead of them running. Uber and Leet brought plenty of zip ties and the small drug house was over run their money mostly taken and the drugs saved from being flushed.
They talked over how it worked until the BBPD arrived and they moved on to the next place. It was after two in the morning before they got back to the van they used. Skye was pleased that they had raided four location of the ABB and over twenty of their members were arrested. However, well the raids went she discovered a horrible fact. That she had to remove eight tiny bomb capsules.
"What a psycho. I can't believe Bakuda would put bombs in people's head, man."
"Not cool at all, but I think I can make something to pull those things out. Tonight, brought up so many ideas."
"I will be doing the removals. The Force guides me, and you saw that each once removed detonated."
"Good thing you tossed them way up in the air like that." Uber stated.
"And to think I wanted to trade tech with her. You know she wanted to hire us for some type of revenge." Leet said as he fiddled with his helm's display.
"She wanted to hire you?" This perked up Skye as a possible way to entrap the tinker.
"Ya, she wanted us to attack the Undersiders. We were even making Bomberman costumes for the game theme." Uber added.
"Then that is what we will plan for. Hast and Ayfour will help on this as well. Do you have a location to meet her at?"
"Ya, but we already went."
"We didn't accept, but we left it open."
"I see then come up with several location we can set a trap in. I want to take out Bakuda as she is like a normal human. Oni Lee disturbs me how some think he dies each time he teleported." Skye gets up and heads to the door.
"Going to get my fighter."
"Oh, can I learn to fly it?"
"You both can. I think we could even build a simulator from the scout ship parts. Oh, and anything you build Mike has to be able to be taken apart by myself." He tried to say something then frowned.
"I have enough restrictions."
"I know, but if I can take it apart it means you did not use your power. You need to stop relying on your power to make something. I will help once I see you work."
"I made that part in front of you."
"And it failed when you turned it on."
"Ya, but it was to show you how I have to make sure it is an original."
"Exactly the point. I want to see you make something that functions. I believe the Force could have shown me what is happening."
"Oh." She went through the door leaving Leet hopeful that his next invention won't blow up in his face.
Once the fighter was sitting on the Tennis court she meditated to see if she changes anything. With so much that had changed it was the upmost importance to do this as the Force willed. It was very easy to overextend herself and get surprised by one of the capes.
She had had several visions that went fairly well against several groups. But also, some of those visions not going well that affected where she walked or ran through or even how several visions dealt with the warehouse being attacked. The Force was hinting at a hidden danger, but it had yet to reveal where the danger lied.
Skye stopped at the most northeastern part of the docks. A large pier in fairly good condition held several lone fishermen as she had run out to the end. It was a bit high to fish from, but that did not stop these men and one lone woman from trying.
At the end she got a very good look on how the boat graveyard was formed. Chaos that formed into a pattern that hindered the bay as the economy crashed after the dock riots. She reached out with the Force picking one of the smaller ships that still moved with the tide. Stretching out her hand she willed the ship to move. The ship groaned as it twisted around its resting place. The Force was stronger on this world, but even then, she could have done the same on any other system world.
Several other ships she switched her focus on and she could with effort move them. Had she been with her master and Ress she was sure they could move the largest ship out of the way. However, just moving that ship was not enough as each ship needed to be moved. She let go of it and it sank nearly out of sight. That was interesting. Maybe she should get the drones to map under water as well. The nine drones had turned out to be eighteen at one point. Two had failed to initialize and would have to be rebuilt.
Leet could help in that, but he would have to avoid applying his power. She was sure the repair work would stimulate his ideas. When she got back, she saw Uber was working out and even had Leet working on a routine as well. Skye joined them for some weight training making sure she gave them energy pickups every thirty minutes. They then ate and took a nap. I went and checked on the lunch bank and the ladies tried to tease her, but she played ignorant it what they were trying to do as any other comments that would have embarrassed her were given to the Force.
She left them with three bagged lunches for the two to find Uber loved to cook and he had found it a middle ground to getting along with Hast. Leet was in his lab which he just completely ignored me as I set the paper lunch down. He was so entrenched in his work that Skye was sure that he had not even noticed what he was eating. This gave her time to really look at his inventions. He had a shelf labeled works every time to most of the time on one wall and the other was a mass of parts from nearly whole units to skeletons of former projects.
This was one of the things he explained to her about his power. If he could use a premade part, then he would. The more non parahuman made parts the more success he had for it to work. It was why his third wall had a mess of writing that somehow linked into what he could make and what were the chances it would fail. Mixed in with names of the stuff he had made before. This was so bad that it included every part that was his tinkertech. That was why his snitch worked all the time as it was a first under that line of his tech tree. She looked at the misshaped tree and root system. Some branches or roots were quite small. Ayfour was by her side and gave a sad moaning sound.
"You understand this Ayfour." He whistled he did. Then he moved to the center and display a 3D holo of the same tree with many different colors used on the lines instead of percentages. There were hundreds of gray lines showing near complete failure if he built anything on those lines. She walked around it and through it getting ideas for things that he could make that he had never made before. There was also a hint that some of the things he made had failed because his second personality wanted him to.
Strange that part of him was sabotaging his own work. That would make it even harder for him to make anything that did work. It was also sadly the reason she had blacklisted several of his devices as being too ineffective to use. There was also a need to try and recover some of the things he had made that the Protectorate HQ must still have. Though they could have recycled it instead of storing it.
Then she got them in their armor and had them train. She used Uber to show Leet how to do things after she showed Uber since it only took one demonstration. This went on for several hours and they went out. Skye was frustrated in that every place she had targeted to raid was dark. Thought it was strange as she sensed a person here or there that had a bomb in their head. So, for four hours they ran around just removing bombs from peoples' heads. Productive but not what had been planned for the night. However, if the gang decided to pull back then that was just as fine for her so long as the Force didn't warn her of something else.