Chapter 18: The heart desires that which is beyond.

Jedi had been out for almost an hour and a half now. Areana was getting worried that he might not be doing what he wanted. There might have been complications or something. No, that wouldn't happen. In a half hour she would shock him back if necessary.

She had been looking at the lead vessel that she had snuck up on during the last hour. It had been slow work, but it had been done. It was about the size of one the USSF's carrier ships, well when there was a USSF presence in space anyway. Scans of the ship showed that it was only lightly shielded, which was odd compared to the other Dortde ships, and that it had a huge shuttlebay, that would be a good spot for Jedi to make his presence known.

There was more though. The radio interference had grown worse since Jedi had come aboard. It was hard to get a message to the silos on the moon, she would probably have to switch to the lascom when the time came to launch. The missiles, as fast as they were, would take about 3 minutes to get to their targets. Meaning that unless Jedi really got their attention, they would be able to take most of the hits with little damage to them.

The Phoenix was refitted into a light attack craft. While there were weapons on board, they were of a minor nature, and weren't intended to be depended on. There was a main laser bank on the sides of the vessel, and the former pneumatic thrusters had been made into mini missile tubes, capable of firing fusion missiles.

"Ugh, I feel like the gum on someone's shoe." Jedi leaned up and looked around. "Wouldn't happen to have any Aspirin, now would you? Wait, never mind, it's taken care of."

"Jedi, hate to tell you this, but you need to get your butt in gear and get going. The enemy has nearly arranged themselves into position. As if that wasn't enough, I am having trouble keeping in contact with base. Ever since you came on board, the interference has jumped threefold."

"Ah, I can explain that. See, I am carrying nearly a pound and a half of antimatter. The containment field is probably what is giving you so much trouble."

"A pound and a half!!!! Are you nuts? That much could blow up the moon if let out all at once. You couldn't have produced it all, and the facilities on Earth just aren't capable of giving you the stuff freely. So where did you get it?"

"Let's just say that an old friend of mine was giving it all away." Jedi produced a grin. "But that is besides the point, when I leave, you will be able to finish your preps for the launch. So, how are our friends out there?"

"Like I said a couple of seconds ago. They are nearly ready to do whatever it is that they are going to do. I hate to kick you out, but I think that you need to get going."

"So do I then? Not even going to let me say something that I think you would want to hear? Fine, let me just pick up a few things that I took the liberty of storing on board." Jedi got up and climbed the ladder at the back of the cockpit and went into the airlock for the main cargo bay. "Just let me get in there, and then you can open the doors and I will be off." Areana heard over the radio. She reached forward and activated the airlock decompression routine, and then opened the main cargo doors enough to allow him out, but not enough so that the doors would extend outside the shield radius. She started thinking about Jedi, what had he meant? Did he have feelings for her? She blushed. He was a nice person, but if only they had met under different circumstances....


"Are the test subjects ready?"

"Yes, sir"

"Begin the improvements."

"Aye. aye, sir."


Herald of light: I'm working as fast as I can. I have pretty much the rest of the story planned out, but I just need to sit down and write it! Hi299O, to answer your review/question, my chapter titles in the beginning were going to be made into a poem of sorts, but I began to feel that the story was too long for that, so I began making the chapter titles sound like what was going on in the chapters, or something like that. Anyway, thanks for reading, and if things go as I want them to, I should have the rest of the story pretty much up before Labor Day. But until the next set is ready, you are kinda left dangling, sorry!