First of all, I don't own Pain (Slayers mix) Four Star Mary do, I also don't own the Chicken Dance the Conga the Macarena or Saturday Night. I don't know who does own them, but I can assure you it aint me.
Okay, dedications?
Annoying Brat: I thought I said. Anyhoo, ready for it? You remind me of,…ME! Kinda. *smirk* Holograms eh? So simple and so full of promise. ^_^ Er yep, they ransacked Aislings uncles place and the stuff was put on the Avenger and brought to Imperial City before being shipped to Carida on the very same freighter that held Beth!! What a coinkidink! *grin* *Solemn voice*I thank you for your awe and your review. : )
Neko Megami: Okay, here it is!
Dragonlet: That too, but Jay-Cee always manages to turn everything that was her fault into something that happened three yonks ago and was my fault, so Beth does the same. And since when does a catfight mean anything but two+ females beating the living shit outta each other? Its better? Woo-hoo!
Jay-Cee: Yeah, I know. And no it wasn't, sorry! Havent seen it. Yeah well, I like the film its to hilarious for words, and I couldn't think of another one so she taped it! P.S. Only if I'm already pissed out of my brain and it's five against one. *slow grin* You really want to chance your luck? And your life?
Lady Umbra: Yeah, sorry about that. Thanks.
Andy: Thank you. I've never actually had my mouth washed out, I was always too quick. *grin*
Neila Nuruodo the Chiss: Thank you. I'd hope that I'd act as civilised as Aisling if anyone taped over mine. *smirk*
Yoda the Tenth: Thank you, I'm glad you understand that genius, like eye-pencil, mascara, and a good cup of tea, cannot be rushed. *grin*
DramaPrincess_87: *ginormous grin* thank you!! I may have done, college is somewhat cracked! Thanks to ideas from Jay-cee, the next one should be even better (don't even try to hold me to that!) so enjoy this on in the meantime. Thanks again!
YODA THE TENTH: um, no. Cos how am I gonna have Beth and Aisling visit Dagobah without Vader twigging. Although the idea is intriguing…Hmm, Beth in a swamp surrounded by lizards snakes and swamp things… I'll get back to you on that one!
Ready to go? And they're off!
This is where you stop reading the intro and get to the story.
Get to the story damn you!
'PAAAAAIN I CANT SLEEP! PAAAAAAAIN I CANT SLEEP.'
Captain Roberts, his hands clamped over his ears, shouted through the door. 'TURN THAT RACKET OFF!!'
Inside, Aisling reached over and cranked up the volume.
Commander Daniels who had been doing the same to the door on the other side got the same response. The two men gave up and staggered back towards the bridge before their eardrums burst. Aisling and Beth had been detained in rooms whose doors were directly opposite each other. Both girls had unearthed what they termed 'stereos' and 'CDs.' The result was causing deafness throughout the entire ship. Especially since both girls had some of the same music and insisted on playing them at the exact same time at the highest volume possible.
'Don't stop don't talk, do not, with me.' Dear Force it could be heard even up here. Roberts kicked a sound sponge across to the door and the noise disappeared.
'Thank you sir,' Daniels sighed, rubbing at his temples.
'ETA to Imperial City,' Roberts asked.
'Twenty-four hours,' he was told. *Twenty-four hours more?!* A tic started jumping under his left eye, which he unsuccessfully tried to stop.
'I don't suppose there's any way we could drug their food?' Daniels asked him quietly. Roberts looked at him in astonishment. Why didn't he think of that?
'Yes,' he murmured. 'A sedative that would wear off by,' he caught himself and said, 'the time we arrive,' instead of 'by the time Vader arrives.' 'Have the medical droid sort it out.'
'Yessir,' Daniels and ripped off a smart salute and marched quickly down to the med centre.
The droid was only too happy to oblige.
*~*
Beth looked up the food slot in the wall beside the door beeped and a tray of
food was pushed through. *Woo-hoo! Food*
She wolfed down the selection and sat back with a cup of tea, she had a Harry Potter book to finish!
*~*
Aisling heard the food slot go off and took out the tray of food. After eating it, she picked up her pen and took up where she left off, sipping occasionally at the cup of tea at her elbow.
It was but a short time until both started feeling strange.
*~*
Commander Daniels smirked with satisfaction as he watched the two eat their drugged dinners on the monitor screen. The medical droid had given him two powders to give them, and it looked like the first one was working.
'Well?' Captain Roberts asked, coming up behind him.
'Mission accomplished sir,' Daniels grinned. 'The droid gave me two powders to mix into their drinks,' he continued at Roberts raised eyebrow. 'A blue sleeping powder and a green stimulating powder. I have mixed the sleeping powder into their tea and,' he motioned to the screens where both girls had dropped their cups and were rubbing their eyes. 'As you can see, they are having the expected results.'
'Well done commander,' Roberts said and with a nod, turned and left. Daniels cast one last satisfied look at the screens and did the same.
A pity then that neither saw what happened next.
*~*
Aisling took her fists away from her eyes and giggled. Her skin tingled and her heart was racing and she just couldn't sit still. So she didn't. She jumped up from the chair and raced around the room, over and back, up and down. She ran backwards, forwards, upside-down, on her hands. She jumped up and down to see if she could reach the ceiling and giggled insanely when she did. She went to the door and stood on one leg in front of it, trying to remember how to get out. Humming a tune she opened the access panel and rerouted wires, shrugging off a mild electrical shock. She hopped up and down and clapped her hands when it worked and the door opened.
'FREEEEDOOOOOOOM' she yelled, just for the hell of it. Then she exaggerated sneaking across the hall to the door that was shaking from blows on the other side. She watched with her head on one side for a moment, then reached out and opened the door, snatching her hand back and looking around innocently when she did.
Beth barrelled out of the room with a shriek and skidded to a halt just in front of the door to Aislings room, then fell against it anyway. Aisling waved madly at her with both hands, grinning like a loony and hopping up and down on the balls of her feet. Beth grinned and waved back.
'Shall we go have fun?' Aisling giggled, her hands clasped in front of her mouth, the corners of her grin visible on either side.
'Lets go have fun,' Beth whispered loudly, looking around guiltily when Aisling shushed her. 'Race ya!'
Laughing and giggling, the two currently off their heads best friends ran, jumped and skipped through the corridors.
*~*
The sergeant heaved a silent sigh of relief when he spotted the mess. He was now off-duty and couldn't be more relieved. He had heard that the two prize fools were being held in captivity, but he didn't put it past them to get free somehow. But he'd be safe in the mess, wouldn't he? It was an unwritten and unbroken rule that nobody started anything in a troopers' mess, there always too many people to finish it. Even that Aisling knew and respected that.
With a smile, the sergeant went in the door and let it close behind him, all ready for a serious bout of drinking.
*~*
Aisling and Beth came up the corridors having a competition about who could hop the farthest on one leg. Aisling fell over in front of a door, laughing herself stupid. Beth sagged against the wall.
'I won!' she gasped, between gusts of laughter. 'I won! I beat you! I beat you!' she sang.
'Hey what's in here?' Aisling asked, looking at the door. She jumped to her feet and banged the door open on her way, Beth followed on her heels. There was the sound of one hundred people drawing a breath of horror.
'TROOPERS!!'
*~*
Roberts looked with satisfaction at his bridge. Everything was orderly, neat and efficient. There were no Aisling- or Beth-induced mishaps. No critical accidents that could be traced back to Aisling or Beth holding a piece of machinery and whistling nonchalantly. There was no Beth or Aisling period.
Ah, blessed peace.
He exchanged pleased nods with Commander Daniels who regretfully checked his chronometer to see how long it would be until he gave them the green powder.
The blue powder?
Roberts frowned at the small bag of powder sticking up out of Daniels breast pocket.
'Commander,' he said quietly. 'What colour was the sleeping powder?'
'Blue sir,' Daniels replied.
'Sure?'
'Yes sir. Certain sir. The stim powder is green.'
'Then why,' Roberts asked slowly, dread rising in his mind. 'Is the powder you have in your pocket blue?'
The commander took it out, stared at it, then looked up at Roberts, a horrified look on his face.
'I, I, I might have heard the droid wrong,' he stammered desperately. 'You know, the stim is blue and the sleep is green?'
A trooper ran into the bridge, his armour hanging in pieces and his helmet cracked, closely followed by Aisling who was whooping and yelling, 'TROO-PER! TROO-PER! TROO-PER!' She skidded to a halt and stared around, her jaw dropping, while the trooper ran and ran until he reached the bulkhead then cowered behind a terminal, sucking on his thumb.
'Look at all the pretty buttons,' Aisling whispered, apparently awestruck. Then Beth ran in, a trooper's helmet on her head and giggling. She crashed into Aisling and knocked the two of them flying.
'How can they see anything?' she said crossly, pulling it off. 'Much better!' Then she gasped. 'Bu-ttons!'
'Pre-tty bu-ttons!' Aisling agreed. They looked at each other, then whooped in delight and ran for the nearest wall.
Crew dived out of their way as they attacked the buttons and switches. The lights went on and off on and off on and off as Beth found a set she particularly liked. Aisling played eeny-meeny-miny-mo with a section then laughed and hit them all anyway. The heating plunged, then boiled. Fuses blew all over the ship. The guns fired at everything as the two squabbled over the firing controls. Crew ran from the bridge as their monitors started blowing up, intercoms blared Imperial propaganda in Ithorian, food units went hay-wire, MSE droids joined up and attacked troopers for not cleaning up after themselves, then as Beth jumped up slapped one red button in a field of black, artificial gravity went off-line.
They only figured this out when Aisling looked for a new wall and found that her feet were above her head. She laughed and did a somersault. Beth looked up to see her friend tap-dance on the ceiling.
'Deadly!' she cried and swam through the air. The two were soon diving and somersaulting and zipping all over the place. Aisling went to the door and opened it, then joined her friend on the ceiling.
'Ready?' she giggled.
'Lets go for it.' At the same instant, the two girls pushed off from the ceiling to swoop through the door…and fall flat on their faces just outside it.
'Hey,' Aisling whined, shaking her head. 'What happened?'
'Where did the flying-ness go?' Beth wailed. They sat there, despondent for a moment, and then Aisling turned to Beth.
'Race ya.'
Roberts after watching them go heaved a sigh of relief. On feeling the effects of weightlessness, he had grabbed hold of the rail of the bridge and was currently hanging upside down. Daniels on the other hand, had neither the rail to hang onto nor the girls' skill at zero-g movement and was flailing around and getting nowhere. Roberts hissed a curse, then climbed hand over hand to where he could just, about, reach, the button, that controlled, the bridges, gravity status. He managed to hit it with his boot then jerk himself upright again before the gravity kicked in.
He watched as Daniels hung in the air for a moment longer, then fell shrieking into the pit with a crash. He shrugged and lowered his feet to the ground, straightened up and stepped away from the rail with a smirk, smoothing his already immaculate tunic.
Just in time for a cup of formerly hovering coffee to fall on his head and drench the aforesaid tunic.
*~*
Vader out his fists on his hips.
'What part of "Don't let them free until I arrive" was unclear?' he growled.
'They, um, let themselves out my lord,' Roberts told him. Someone giggled in the background and he jumped a mile, craning his head around to look back over his shoulder. There was a mix-up with the administering of medication.'
'What?' Eventually, with much pauses and interruptions, the captain told Vader the whole sorry tale. How after the gravity incident on the bridge, they had raided the supply rooms, pranced around in trooper uniforms and drained nearly every power pack on the ship whilst "target-practising." They went back to the cargo hold and watched all their videos in fast-forward, claiming that normal speed was too slow, hooked their "stereos" up to the ships intercom and blared their music at top volume constantly, what made it even worse was their fights in choosing it. They also cornered lone troopers and made them do a thing called the "Chicken Dance," causing terror humiliation and requests of escorts all through the ship.
The real fun had started when Aisling remembered that, thanks to Lord Vader, she had just as much command over the ship crew and troopers as Roberts did, civilian or no.
There was moments silence from the black-clad armoured Sith Lord.
'What are they doing now?' Vader asked after a moment. Roberts had clearly expected this, for he made a gesture and a monitor screen was pushed into the projectors field of view. It showed a shuttle bay with a shuttle resting on the repulsor field.
'What is,' Vader began then paused as something thin small and white wound down from the top left corner of the screen. The camera magnified and the white thing was shown to be made up of a single line of troopers, each holding onto the shoulders of the one in front of him. Aisling was in the front of the line and she seemed to be still feeling the effects of the stim powder and enjoying every bit of it. She was saying something that sounding like "dada-dada-da-da' and on "da" one of her feet kicked up. The troopers behind her were making a game attempt at keeping up, though most were so off the beat it wasn't funny. About half-way back the line, Beth could be seen up to the same thing as Aisling. Eventually, the line snaked its uncertain way down to the bottom of the monitor and even more slowly, the last trooper disappeared.
'What was that?' he asked, in the silence.
'We are uncertain my lord,' Roberts answered. 'But Ms Walsh suddenly shouted "Everybody conga!" and then they began.'
'And what had they been doing before that?' Roberts hesitated, and then nodded to someone unseen by Vader and the monitors view changed.
'This one,' Roberts was saying. 'Has been identified as "The Macarena" and the incident occurred approximately one hour thirty minutes ago.' Vader watched, horrifyingly fascinated by a group of ten troopers in two lines throwing their arms about and shaking their backsides for all they were worth. Then he noticed that Aisling and Beth were standing to one side and half joining in, half pissing themselves with laughter.
'This one,' Roberts said, as the view changed again. 'Is still unnamed though the singing of what seems to be a chorus by Miss Walsh and Miss O' Connell that features the words "Saturday Night" frequently may have a clue.' The same ten troopers in the same two lines with a different dance. *Well* Vader thought absently. *It's gonna have to be referred to as dancing until someone can come up with a better word* After a few moments, Aisling stepped forward, shaking her head, the Sith guessed that she felt the need to correct them. He could understand why.
'Look,' Aislings said, her voice tinny over the speaker. 'This is how you do it. Saturday night,' she sang at a slow tempo, her and Beth acting out the dance. 'And I like the way you move, pretty baby.' Vader motioned at Roberts to get on with it as he saw the troopers try to pick up on their movements. He was a Sith, but not even he's that cruel.
'That was forty-five minutes ago,' Roberts said, as he switched off the monitor. 'Since then, they danced the "Ketchup Song" made troopers do something called karaoke and was chased by angry mechanics and crewmen. Then they ran off and came back after giving them the slip, which is when Miss Walsh shouted "Everybody Congo!" which is what you have seen.'
'And what is the condition of the Iron Fist' Vader asked. Roberts flinched, he'd obviously hoped that that question would not be asked.
'The Iron Fist has sustained damages due to a, mishap in engineering.'
'Mishap,' Vader repeated. 'Would this mishap be Aisling or Beth related?'
'Yes my lord, they were discovered near to the site of the mishap and Beth had a ream of wire that belonged to the piece of machinery that was affected.'
'And what piece of was affected?' Vader asked quietly, already able to palce a reasonable guess from the look on the other mans face. 'Captain?' Roberts flinched again and swallowed hard.
'The hyperdrive, my lord,' he said at last, not quite able to meet the Sith's mask.
'Is it fixable?' Vader growled.
'The engineers have done their best, but they say that the only thing they can do is upgrade the sub-light engines so that we are travelling the maximum we can.'
'So hyperspace travel is out for the Iron Fist,' Vader said in a strange monotone.
'Yes my lord,' Roberts managed, clearly expecting to feel ghostly fingers close around his throat. There was a moment of silence as Vader thought, during which Roberts wordlessly muttered prayers.
'The star-ship Morningstar is close to your location,' Vader rumbled at last. 'They will contacted and told of your whereabouts. You are to transfer Beth and Aisling to the Morningstar then make your way to the nearest Imperial base for repairs. Is that understood?'
'Yes my lord!' Roberts relief was almost palpable as he snapped a sharp salute.
'Do not fail me again Captain,' Vader told him in a low voice. 'You have reached the end of my patience with this.' With that ominous warning, he cut the transmission and the signal died.
Roberts stared at the opposite wall fir a moment or two, then carefully got off the holotransmitter and sat in a chair, shaking.
The door opened and Roberts rose to his feet, wiping the expression from his face with practised ease.
'Well sir' Daniels asked. 'What does Lord Vader command?'
'We are to meet with the Morningstar and hand those two over to them,' Roberts told him shortly.
'You mean they're leaving sir?' Daniels said in disbelief. 'They're finally leaving?' Roberts nodded, the fact only now sinking in.
Daniels grinned, madly. 'May I have a moment,' he asked Roberts.
'Carry on.'
'WOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!' Daniels whooped and punched the air. 'They're leaving!! WOO-HOOO!!' Then he put his fists down, smoothed his tunic and saluted to Roberts. 'Thank you sir.'
'get in contact with the Morningstar and inform me the moment you do,' the captain told him, leaving the room.
'Yes sir.' Daniels hurried in a dignified fashion to the bridge. Soon, Roberts knew, the ships grapevine will have delivered the unexpected and wonderful news to every man on board ship and little acts of celebration would occur all over the place. He also knew that he had to look like it had no effect on him whatsoever. But first.
Roberts entered his quarters, locked the door and placed a sound sponge behind it, then for good measure he turned on his sound system and cranked up the volume. The he went spare, jumping, hollering, whooping and laughing insanely.
Three minutes later, when Daniels called his comlink to tell him that the Morningstar had been reached, it was like the fit of joy had never happened.
If it wasn't for Aisling and Beth hiding behind one of the chairs where they had dived when they heard him enter.
'So I guess we're going somewhere then,' Beth murmured when Roberts left again.
'I guess so.'
'Where to?'
'Imperial City I guess.' Beth grinned.
'Oh the fun!'
*angelic grin* Oh I wonder what could happen there? Come back and find out, wont you?