Jessea returned an hour later, bearing supplies and a plan. The rest of the party were waiting and ready at her arrival.
"Okay people," Jessea said, as she walked through the door, "I have everything set up with the faction. They'll be ready in the morning, before then though, we should see if we can rescue your Captain. We'll have a better chance of getting him out of their alive if we go in by nightfall."
"Well, lets get going!" Harper exclaimed.
****
The group slowly made their way through the dense forest, trying to keep as quite as possible. The twin moons of Orkana Prime gave them some light to work by, but mostly they only created ghostly shadows as they traveled.
Jessea led them through the foliage, explaining that Kael could not directly teleport them there as this would alert some of the guards that were attuned to time/space distortions. As they walked, she explained the state of Orkana Prime and what they were fighting for. Equality, democracy, and freedom were on the top of this list. Of course, Harper wasn't paying attention to her; he had too many other thoughts on his mind.
How do they do that? They can just, wiggle their nose and change matter around them? It just doesn't make any sense. Harper was thinking to himself the entire time. He hadn't had time to talk to Kael when Jessea had left, and now Kael was scouting the area around them to make sure that there would be no surprises. Harper supposed that he could just ask Jessea, yet, for some reason the boy intrigued him. Obviously, Kael was more "attuned" with this power than Jessea, and more than likely he would be able to get a better answer from him.
Harper's train of thought was interrupted however when Kael shot of the brush next to them and began to speak with Jessea. He couldn't make out any of the words they were saying, none of them were of a language that he had even heard before.
Before they could even finish their conversation, however, rustling was heard coming from the direction that they were heading.
Jessea quickly turned on her heel and faced the noise, pulling out her blaster. Everybody followed suit, except for Kael, who only turned.
"Who's there?" Jessea asked sternly. "I have four armed people with me who aren't afraid to kill!"
"I thought you said that we were going away from the Academy?" A hushed familiar voice was heard.
"Dylan, is that you?" Beka called out.
"Beka?" The reply came.
"It's Dylan!" Trance said excitedly. "We're over here!" She said, jumping up and down.
Dylan and Rommie walked towards the group, happy to finally see somebody that they knew, even though they had all disobeyed orders.
"I'm so glad we found you!" Trance said, running up to Dylan, giving him a big hug.
"So am I," Dylan replied, hugging her back.
"I'm glad that everybody cares about me too," Rommie said, watching the reunion.
"Of course we missed you Rom-Doll," Harper said with a smile. "I know I missed you anyway."
"How sweet of you Harper," Rommie said sarcastically. Harper just smirked.
"Are you going to introduce us to your friends now or are they still going to shoot us?" Dylan asked jokingly.
"Sorry Dylan. I forgot all about Commonwealth courtesy with everything that has been going on lately," Beka said mockingly.
"This," Trance said, pointing, "is Jessea. She's a leader of a rebel group against the government. Kael, over there, is also part of it. They helped us when the Academy sent guards after us."
"And Kael has all these weird powers and…" Harper butted in.
"Harper!" Beka said shortly, silencing him.
"I'm very pleased to meet you," Dylan said, extending his hand to Jessea, attempting to ignore Harper's normal antics to get attention. "Thank you for helping my crew."
"You're very welcome," she responded, shaking his hand. "I hope that the Chancellor's actions have not stigmatized Orkana Prime to never being in the new Commonwealth."
"I hope not either," Dylan replied. Then he frowned. "Unfortunately, at this point, my major concern is keeping Rycar's hands off Andromeda."
"Well, maybe we can both help each other…" Jessea's voice trailed off as she pulled Dylan aside.
After a few moments of discussion, Jessea and Dylan turned back to the group.
"Okay, we're going to go find a good place to make camp for the night. We're going to have a long day tomorrow," Dylan said.
"I found a small clearing in this direction," Kael finally spoke, pointing to his right. "It should suffice."
Jessea nodded and once again took the lead, Dylan following closely behind her, the rest of the group trailing behind.