The Jedi Adventure
--sparkvallen
Original characters belong - of course - to Lucasfilm and used for entertainment purposes only. Other characters are based on real folk and are used for entertainment purposes too! )
Chapter Twelve
Sith Prison Vessel
Much like how their Jedi Master had been first trained, Z'Trooper and Sapharin managed to give the basics of Force use in a matter of hours. It wasn't a matter of understanding philosophy first and building upon that to create a peaceful warrior: it was a matter of creating Force-using warriors and hoping that they would be willing to partake in Jedi philosophy later.
"Like this," Sapharin demonstrated, staying calm and using the Force to levitate the ration bar in front of her.
With caution and awe, the female rebels against the Sith cause effectively "played with their food" by drawing on the Force they'd been imprisoned for. Gasps of surprise and delight at their true abilities manifesting could be heard throughout the modified conference room in which they "trained." Sapharin moved among the women as they practiced with the ration bars, helping certain girls tap into the Force more deeply or find better focus. She would never have imagined herself a teacher in Force use once she had been validated, let alone doing so this quickly!
Similarly, Z'Trooper worked with the male captives, teaching them both about the Force and about the technology of these "futuristic" Sith space-faring vessels. He hadn't quite thought that when he tinkered with R2D2 months back on Yavin IV and asked pertinent questions about hyperspace-capable vessels of the Jedi pilots that such curiosity would come to such use. His matter-of-fact view of things was accessible to the men who'd chosen imprisonment over world domination and his recruits were as ready as they were going to be in the short-term to over-take their captors.
/Ready when you are/ Sapharin sent.
/Ready here/ Z'Trooper replied.
And the uprising was born. Empowered by the Force, their desire to survive and their need to save their loved ones planet side, the two massive teams overpowered their guards. Sapharin and Z'Trooper were pleased beyond measure as their presence seemed to rub off on their cohorts; it was more of a peaceful riot than they could have hoped for! Rather than using their newfound Force abilities for destruction and pain, the men and women took a moral stance and disabled but did not kill. They disabled equipment rather than outright ruining it.
Hurrying with the crowds as they worked their ways through both corridors and conduits of the vessel, the Jedi and their colleagues had the main command deck as their destination. Take the ship and another host of opportunities presented themselves! If, that is, they could get there.
"I knew there was a reason I wanted to come up and see the pathetic weaklings!" Raefen actually laughed.
Her laughter was as chilling as her display with the Force, hurling several of the men and women out to oppose her against the sturdy bulkheads. Sapharin and Z'Trooper stared in shock at the sight before them. Not only was this woman clearly a master of the Darkside of the Force, but she was also a complete body double for Sapharin herself! Staring, the brown eyed-Sapharin looked at a woman who was her height and build, with an identical face and hair… all excepting the cold blue eyes that stared back at her.
"Holy moly," Z'Trooper whispered. "We've entered a new dimension… the Twilight Zone perhaps?"
Sapharin didn't reply. She simply gawked at the Sith woman who was her look-a-like.
"What a dreadful fashion sense you have, little Jedi!" Raefen exclaimed, recovering her voice first. Her surprise was just as clear, however.
"Funny. I was going to say the same thing about you!" Sapharin retorted, unable to believe what she was seeing.
"Um."
Sapharin glanced at Z'Trooper out the corner of her eye. Her hand had already drifted to where her lightsaber should have been. They were on their way to recover their confiscated backpacks that contained their lightsabers.
"Um, indeed," she agreed.
Raefen cackled, raising her hands toward the ceiling as Force Lightning burst from her palms. She turned them down and toward the pair of Jedi. They were but a split-second quicker than the Sith though, both diving out of her range as the lightning bolts shot down the corridor.
/Get to the command deck/ Sapharin sent urgently to Z'Trooper. /I'll hold her off./
/With WHAT/ he replied, incredulously.
Sapharin stared across the corridor as seconds ticked by. /GO./
There was something in her tone through the Force that compelled Z'Trooper into action. Biting down on his lower lip, the Jedi Knight sprung backward and to an access panel. Like many of the imprisoned, he was going to innovate a route to their stores and to the command deck as planned.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Raefen taunted as she sauntered up the corridor. "You can't hide forever!"
With Z'Trooper safely tucked into the inner workings of the ship, Sapharin felt more secure that splitting up would actually work. She rose to her feet and took a deep breath, drawing the Force in and her anxiety out. Reciting the Jedi Code and remembering with some fondness the afternoon spent at the river with he fellow trainees, Sapharin accepted her present situation and went out to meet Lady Raefen.
Z'Trooper gnashed his teeth, hating himself for leaving her and hating her for forcing him to go. He was immobilized within the access corridor for the Sith vessel, knowing what he had to do but fearing for Sapharin just the same. There is no emotion, there is peace, he thought and like his partner, thought of the spirited discussion on those very words so long ago.
And he was in motion. Having learned the layout of the vessel as they were brought aboard, Z'Trooper could intuit well enough where the room was that held their lightsabers. He wasn't going to leave Sapharin any more unarmed than he was barging into the command deck without a lightsaber. Hurrying as quickly as possible through the narrow walking space, Z'Trooper smiled darkly as he found the very location he was seeking. Coming in from this angle was not what the officers and guards would expect; he was able to unhinge the access panel and creep into the room undetected. Unbeknownst to him, the guards were already indisposed with a few well-placed and Force-powered kicks by his cohorts.
Z'Trooper was able to find and spirit away both of their lightsabers. He clipped his and Sapharin's to his pants so that it wouldn't be lost, then retraced his steps through the access shaft to reach the Jedi Knight had had left behind.
Below, on their homeworld…
"Can you do this any slower, Falco?" Kyp barked over his shoulder.
As he spoke, the Force guided his hands to deflect a quick burst of blaster-fire that came their way. Beside him, Joni was doing the same with his lightsaber.
"Well, I could… but I'd need the wrong tools, a manual written in Ewokese and you know how hard it is to get that combination!" Falco replied, smiling though his words were clearly sarcastic.
Joni shook his head at the banter, clearing his mind and trusting the Force to guide his hands and lightsaber through a series of complicated blocks. They had taken an awful chance at making a strike at this particular base. It had been easy enough to gain entry with the knowledge of the Sith that Kyp possessed and the technical skill that was natural to Falco. Getting the job done and getting back out was what was proving to be a problem.
"Wait… I've got it!" Falco shouted, triumph clear in his tone.
"Good. Can we go now?" Kyp asked.
"Oh wait. Damn, not good!"
"What?"
Falco didn't answer though as he reached back into the control panel of the droid he hovered over. His face was a mask of concentration as he sought to bring the droid back online with modified programming; it would attack anyone without a lightsaber. Had he not caught the last error, however, it would have been just the opposite and they would have been immediate targets. The trick had worked in other Sith outposts they'd infiltrated in the past several days, creating chaos and havoc where they went. It would have been fine this time if he'd had just a bit more time!
"Okay, we're golden now. Get it?"
Joni's sigh was audible this time, knowing the pun concerned the color of the droid in question. "Just get Goldenrod there online!"
"We are so in business," Falco said with undisguised pleasure in his voice. "Clear the way, gentlemen!"
A hum and a whirr startled them all as the droid rebooted and came to "life." Quickly advancing on its golden claws, it stepped between Kyp and Joni then charged their attackers.
"See, told you I could do it."
"Nice, save the victory speech 'til we actually out of here, hm?" Kyp replied. He kept his lightsaber activated, its yellow blade shimmering under the lights; the Jedi Master nodded toward the corridor they'd been previously trying to traverse and the trio was in motion again, following the trail cleared by Falco's rabid droid.
Elsewhere, Ebony, Talon and Spark were tucked into what somehow remained a coffee bar despite the Sith's occupation. Spark had endless jokes despite the gravity of their work that even a Sith couldn't resist a good cup of coffee! Like their companions, the trio had managed several very successful strikes against the Sith outposts. Chaos reigned among those bases and communication arrays - the ground forces were unable to communicate with each other or with the ships in orbit.
"This is going better than we could have hoped for!" Talon whispered, pleased.
"I wonder how it's going for Sapharin and Z'Trooper though," Ebony replied, her expression pensive.
"Fine. I can feel it."
She and Spark gazed at the much younger Talon who bore wisdom beyond his years; it was clear in his eyes and how he carried himself. They didn't doubt him at all as he spoke so certain of the duo who'd been willingly captured.
With a scrap of paper, he jotted down several other locations they could recon and disable while they took this momentary break to sip strong and sweet coffees. Spark's gaze turned back to the windows where she'd been watching the down-trodden locals as they struggled to accept that their world had been invaded by magic-wielders from outer space.
"Something's wrong," she said suddenly, a quiet overcoming her that had nothing to do with sound.
"I don't feel any--" Ebony started to say as she set down her mug.
Spark held up a hand for silence as she reached into the Force. Without another word, the Jedi Knight stood and made her way for the door, her hand coming to her lightsaber.
"Oh good god!"
Spark bowed her head as she walked out the door, knowing exactly who the speaker had been in the street. "Dee. Please tell me you're joking. Please tell me this is a joke."
She raised her head just as Talon and Ebony rushed outside. Darth Demetra tsk tsk'd them all and looked knowingly at Spark. "Sorry, Sparkler, this is exactly what it looks like."
"You know her?" Talon exclaimed, seeing Demetra for the Sith she'd become.
Spark only nodded. "Why, Dee?"
"Looks like you and your buddies here weren't the only ones to be Force sensitive and get this chance!" she shouted, pain clear in her tone. "I could have gone too! But no! You left me behind. Left me here to rot. Alone!"
"Dee, I--"
"Stuff it, Sparkler! I don't want to hear any pathetic excuses. I've made my choice and instead of playing Jedi with all of you, I'm going to rule this stupid world."
"Not if we have anything to say about that, you won't," Talon said.
Forgetting all about Spark for the moment, Demetra walked right past her and approached Talon. Running a manicured nail down his cheek, his neck and to the center of his chest, the Sith apprentice smiled and looked back to Spark.
"I thought I was the one with a thing for young ones," she purred.
Talon leapt away from her and closer to Ebony as Spark sighed. "Don't even go there," she warned. "Demetra: it doesn't have to be this way. I don't know what your master told you but the Jedi were coming back to find other potential students! Only the Sith got here first!"
"I told you I don't want to hear it. You left me here!" she railed. "You went and left me here!"
Enraged, Darth Demetra shoved Spark hard with the Force. Caught by surprise, the Jedi Knight flew backward and into the storefront across the street.
"Oh, that's it," Ebony snapped, springing to life and igniting her lightsaber as she stormed toward Demetra.
The Sith sent bolts of Force Lightning toward Ebony which she intercepted. Talon's green blade activated to assist in the block. Across the street, Spark was struggling to get to her feet. She touched the back of her head and was relieved that despite how sore she felt, she wasn't bleeding.
"Enough!" she screamed, startling everyone.
Seeing she had their attention, Spark lifted her lightsaber off her belt, then cast it down the street. Her intention to end the fighting was clear with the gesture and her two Jedi friends were certain that she was both crazy and suicidal. Spark held her hands out, showing that they were empty.
"Dee, listen to me. You are my friend. My clone, remember?"
"Spark: don't, I--"
"My clone," she repeated. "No matter what. You have to believe that you weren't left behind. We were the guinea pigs in Skywalker's experiment and we were coming back to find other potential Jedi. We were coming back for you and for many others who are now in a prison ship up in orbit."
Demetra's gaze flickered skyward, knowing that Raefen had gone to the very ship that Spark had mentioned. Forming the odd triangle among them all, Talon and Ebony warily deactivated their blades, but simply clipped the hilts to their belt rather than casting them away as Spark had.
"It's too late," Demetra whispered. "I took the route of power because I knew I could do this. I knew this all could be mine."
Spark shook her head. "It's not too late. Not if you want a second chance."
Demetra looked at Spark, her long-time friend. How sad was it that this was how they'd finally meet face-to-face? Pitted against each other by a battle that had been forced onto them? Her expression warred between uncertainty and the desire to overtake the Jedi as she'd been trained and commanded.
"But this power…"
"Power is. The Force is," Ebony said, looking at Spark and then Demetra. "It's what you do with the power you have that makes the difference."
The trio of Jedi was all silently thinking the same words: What will she do?
Darth Demetra clipped her own lightsaber back onto her belt. "Do you hate me?"
"Never. Dee, never. What are you going to do?"
A confident smile crossed her lips. She winked at Spark. "I'm going to show you a few tricks so we can better rid our world of the Sith."